Juliet, Naked

Juliet, Naked: A Novel by Nick Hornby

My rating: 4 of 5 stars I liked this book a lot. It was a fun, fast read and I would definitely recommend it. It's an intercontinental story about music, relationships, and reassessing your life as you suddenly realize that you're getting older and you just never stopped living like you did in your twenties.  

I think it's been a few weeks so let's see what I can remember. It was great that the main character was a woman. She had this great dry sense of humor and a tough exterior but underneath she was realizing that her life had passed by her since she'd spent the last fifteen years with someone whom she wasn't in love with and who wasn't in love with her. They were more like best friends who just stayed together but she wanted to get married and have a baby and she was already around forty-years-old. Duncan, her boyfriend, was more obsessed with a rock star who'd disappeared years earlier than he was interested in Annie. Through this obsession, the reader gets to learn about all that's lacking in their relationship and also about the old rock star. The rock star, Tucker, has his own chapters so you also get to see the difference in his legend and his actual life, which is pretty sad. Duncan also realizes that his life has passed him by but it feels like a failure for him because he's living in the past and hasn't done anything of significance to justify it. For Annie, whose life has also passed her by, it seems like a blessing because she's not living in the past and there's nothing there for her to hold onto. She can do whatever she wants in the future.  

The pros were that Annie was a great lead character who wants to stop wasting her life. Her sessions wth her hilariously uptight therapist were great. During their talks, he tried to talk some sense into her since even though she was taking more control over her life, she wasn't very sensible and I agree with him that what she tried to do in the end could have been very bad for her and brought her to a new, uncontrollable situation in which she would have been stuck. The character of Annie's boss who seemed to be an aging character from Quadrophenia was very funny and helped to express the fact that things change and it's hard for people to give up on their heyday and the excitement of their youth. I also really liked Tucker and the relationship he had with his six-year-old son Jackson. It helped to describe how Tucker had finally grown up in his late fifties and how all of the mistakes he'd made and people he'd hurt didn't matter so much because they were in the past. He was incapable of making up for failed fatherhood with his other kids because he wasn't a part of their lives. All he could do was take care of Jackson and secure his future. And being of that age, it's all he really had the time to do if he was going to do it right. Everyone wanted something from him, including Annie, but all he cared about was Jackson and he always put him first.  

The cons were that I felt that the thoughts and dialogue of the Americans didn't seem authentically American. Also, the female POV wasn't always totally believable. Also, the sex scene seemed very strange and unrealistic. I also didn't like the fact that Annie thought that she always needed a man to define her life. If she wasn't going to waste her time with Duncan anymore, then maybe Tucker could bring her a better life. I would've been happier if she had been a stronger person who defined herself by her job and her hobbies, rather than being willing to move to another country and just live whatever life a man whom she barely knows is living. View all my reviews >>