A Long Read.
A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
I got excited when I first got my hands on A Long Way Down from the author of About a Boy, I was intrigued by the unusual storyline.
4 Complete strangers all wanting to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve, venturing up to ‘Toppers house’ and end up sharing their stories?
Hornby covers all the characters you would expect in the cliché suicide stories, the tv presenter who messed up his life yet is still an arsehole. Check. The teenager who things her life is over when her relationship is, and coincidently has an opinion on ever matter. Check. The failed musician who has recently lost his band and his girl? Oh and he’s American. Check. Finally to complete the group the woman with the disabled son who really hasn’t experienced enough in life? Check.
The story starts off, personally okay, enjoyable at least as you start to learn the backgrounds and the personalities of the group. With the views being split and told by each person you get different perspectives and Hornby cleverly changes their style they write in and also breaks the 4th wall between the reader and character as we are often directed at in the text.
The comedy value in this book is what kept me reading, as I constantly felt like it was a pain to finish A Long Way Down. Which is why it took me almost two months to finish this simple read as nothing gripped be to the story enough to never want to put it down. The storyline was simple, there were no plot twists, turns, dramatic events, just a standard journey.
At one point there is a hint that there was a character game plan all along, which I was exceptionally excited for and came up with theory’s in my head, but for some reason this was never explained of even mentioned again throughout the book.
I got excited when I first got my hands on A Long Way Down from the author of About a Boy, I was intrigued by the unusual storyline.
4 Complete strangers all wanting to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve, venturing up to ‘Toppers house’ and end up sharing their stories?
Hornby covers all the characters you would expect in the cliché suicide stories, the tv presenter who messed up his life yet is still an arsehole. Check. The teenager who things her life is over when her relationship is, and coincidently has an opinion on ever matter. Check. The failed musician who has recently lost his band and his girl? Oh and he’s American. Check. Finally to complete the group the woman with the disabled son who really hasn’t experienced enough in life? Check.
The story starts off, personally okay, enjoyable at least as you start to learn the backgrounds and the personalities of the group. With the views being split and told by each person you get different perspectives and Hornby cleverly changes their style they write in and also breaks the 4th wall between the reader and character as we are often directed at in the text.
The comedy value in this book is what kept me reading, as I constantly felt like it was a pain to finish A Long Way Down. Which is why it took me almost two months to finish this simple read as nothing gripped be to the story enough to never want to put it down. The storyline was simple, there were no plot twists, turns, dramatic events, just a standard journey.
At one point there is a hint that there was a character game plan all along, which I was exceptionally excited for and came up with theory’s in my head, but for some reason this was never explained of even mentioned again throughout the book.
I find it difficult to hate books, and I wouldn’t say I hated
A Long Way Down, but I know I won’t be reading it again. Which saddens me as I had
such high hopes for another beautiful read. Instead I got a standard dull
storyline, with a pretty disappointing ending, and okay characters.
0 comments