Hello,
A couple of weeks ago, I read Nick Hornby‘s latest novel Funny Girl. I was excited because I really liked High Fidelity when I was a teenager and hadn’t read any of his other novels since then. So I’d like to thank Penguin Random House UK for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.
In the 1960s, Barbara, a young woman from a seaside town in Northern England decides to move to London to become an actress. Unlike many other women, she’s lucky and is cast for a sitcom that will change her life.
Our main character Barbara, or Sophie as she calls herself later on, doesn’t have more personality than any of the other characters. Her storyline isn’t nearly as engaging as Tony’s, who is one of the scriptwriters struggling to find his true self. But whenever Tony’s plot line becomes interesting it is dropped just like it happens with other plot lines that might become too engaging.
Funny Girl has no climax to speak of, the plot is just slowly flowing along. It seems like Hornby hoped for the story to develop through the process of writing, but, unfortunately, that didn’t work out. All through the book I was waiting for something to happen and it didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, Funny Girl does address topics like homosexuality and self-discovery and it gives a good overall impression of the British society and television in the 1960s, yet somehow this novel and I aren’t made for each other. So I’d recommend it to die-hard Nick Hornby fans or British-sitcom aficionados, but if you are none of those, I think you’d better pick up High Fidelity.
(2.5 magic beans)
All That Magic 