After Reading

By: Meradeth Houston on 12:22 AM

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

So one of the fundamental problems I have with multi-POV books is that I always love one or some of the characters more than others. I found this to be true with Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and once again with this book. Don't get me wrong--each of the characters is essential to the story, and their interesting in their own right, but I can't identify with some of them and end up wishing the story were entirely told from the character I like best. It's always struck me as one of those "can't serve two masters" kind of things, but perhaps that's stretching the metaphor :-) Anyhow, this book has four main characters and the story shifts around between them, telling how they basically don't commit suicide and learn to cope with their problems. In the hands of anyone else, this would be a total downer of a book, by Hornby makes it funny and light. Still, it's about four people that have huge problems, so I found myself a little depressed in parts of it. Overall, it was a good read, but probably not something I'll pick up again. I will have to check out some other Hornby books though!