Monday, October 3, 2011

How To Be Good - Nick Hornby

After sleeping with an acquaintance, Katie begins to question her goodness. She's a doctor who doesn't really like her patients, a mother who doesn't really like her children and a wife who hates her husband, and aspiring novelist who writes a weekly Angry Man column in the local paper.  She wants to think of herself as a good person, but when her husband finds a faith healer who encourages him to take in homeless, she begins to doubt.

The first part of this novel is some of the best stuff Hornby has written, but it loses steam about halfway through. As with his other characters, it's hard to really like Katie - she's too flawed, too human to either dislike  or embrace completely. It this ambivalence that is a weakness in the book, leading to an unsatisfactory ending.

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