Quick Review: A Long Way Down.

I was going to lump this review with the movie reviews that are coming (as always, days off -> lots of movies :)), but felt this one might go on for a while.

I loved Nick Hornby's Long Way Down; so much I couldn't wait till finishing it (or knowing how it ends) before writing about it. I'm about 4/5ths of the way through. Hornby's experiment with Points-of-View really worked for me. The story is told linearly, but switches between the four protagonists all speaking in first person, and telling the story looking back.

The tone is not dissimilar to the last Hornby book (As Good As It Gets) and explores my favorite topic: the pain of everyday living and the point of it all, in my favorite style (with wry, observational, point-of-view humor.) Cheerful, aren't I?:)
But I think this may his best book yet (and that's saying something ! This is the author of Fever Pitch. And yes, the book is much better than the movie, both of em.) There's just so many times while reading this book that you think "I know that feeling" or "that's so true", and there's just as many times you can't help smiling and being tempted to giggle.

Hornby's genius here is in making the character's come to life and making their pain, their biases, their idiosyncracies and struggles so real, yet humorous at the same time. I can't wait to finish this book, but am immediately going to be annoyed that it ended...