Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Tucker Crowe is the ying to my yang, umm, not. Remember when you used say things like “not”? Well, I guess that depends on how old you are. But, I kind of do. Nice tangent, but anyways, my image of Tucker Crowe, who is one of two/three main characters in this story, is probably more like that incredibly obnoxious, ridiculously untalented (although Tucker’s character may have a little) brit, Russell Brand. Hopefully that paints some sort of picture. But I somehow doubt that is how Nick Hornby wants you to see one of his characters
You may choose to never read my blog again after reading this and if that’s the case so be it (I feel like I’ve been saying that too often recently). I have not read any of Hornby’s other books although I think I should have read High Fidelity, Slam and About a Boy before reading this so that I would have a better understanding of Mr. Hornby’s style.
I could be wrong but it certainly seems as though I would classify this book and many of his others as “Lady Books.” Why? Well, it seems as though his books seem to revolve around music, romance and relationships. I may not have read his other books but I have seen some of the movies which validates my thinking. And this book is certainly all about those three things. And any book, in my eyes, that has a heavy dose of romance and relationships gets put in that genre.
Now, this book was entertaining but not knock me off my feet, laugh out loud, page turning entertaining. It was a quick read but I don’t necessarily equate that to a page turner. Basically it’s a story of three characters a former rock star (Tucker Crowe aka Russell Brand), Duncan, one of his obsessive fans and Annie, who is in a relationship with Duncan.
The story takes on the element of a love triangle in that Duncan loves Annie and Tucker (in a musical sense). I won’t give you more on that for fear of spoiling something. The novel goes on to inspect the hardships involving rock stardom including infidelity, illegitimate children, lying and running away (where’s the sympathy?). I mean, the novel was pretty well thought out and humorous at times but honestly I had a really hard time truly enjoying it.
In the end the story was all prepped for a big climax and it pretty much let me down. You know, I’m ok with that though, it kind of went along with how I felt about the rest of the story. Had there been some climax it probably wouldn’t have fit the story in the way it should.
This one won’t keep from reading his other books but it may very well put a spin on them that may not have been there had I read them first.
