Review: About a Boy by Nick Hornby

Book: About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Genre: Fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ 
For: Book Club
From: the library

What a fun, easy, enjoyable book! I loved the movie way back when and wondered if the book would be similar, and yep, it was. Very very similar, so of course I pictured Hugh Grant in my head the whole time, which was very nice indeed!

This book is.. about a boy... actually.. .about two boys. One big, one little. The big one, Will,  has been gliding through life, not really making any connections, not really doing anything with himself at all, not really engaging in anything at all. And he likes it this way. He wants things to be easy, he's good with it and has no plans to change.

Then there's the little boy, Marcus, who has things like a depressed mum to deal with. And moving to a new city and school, and a dad who lives in a different city with a different family to occupy his time. Oh, and the fact that he, himself, is just plain weird and gets picked on by everyone at school.

When these two meet, they both have things to learn from each other. Marcus learns from Will how to be more "normal" and Will learns from Marcus that life can have meaning, and that it's not that painful after all.

I love the lessons learned from this book. It's really quite lighthearted, even with the serious subject matter, all wrapped up with the sweet and powerful message. Do be warned that there is quite a bit of language if that bothers you.

Bottom line: I really really liked it! And now I'm anxious to re-watch the movie! Maybe even today.

Other Reviews:

Alternate Readality
Things Mean A Lot
Sue's Book Reviews