Rating: 
Summary: Still With His Finger On the Pulse
Review: In this follow-up to his smash hit HIGH FIDELITY Nick Hornby gives us another hip Londoner in his mid-thirties to sink our contemporary teeth into. Will Freeman's name alone should indicate sufficiently where his character is coming from--he's jazzy, he's today, he's independently wealthy--heck, he's almost archetypal "men's-magazine cool." Sub-zero Will may be, but ah, that's about as far as his life's ambition impels, so don't ask him to be godfather to your child. That independent wealth thing, as many of us could stand to risk finding out, cuts both ways. Will's not rich, mind you, it's just that his breezy middle class lifestyle simply doesn't require that he work--he lives off the royalties of a Christmas song his late father wrote. It stands to reason that he cringes at hearing "Santa's Super Sleigh" and would just as soon give the holidays a miss.But Will is not the "boy" of the title--not really, anyway. The boy is Marcus--twelve-year-old son of an overly sincere, political-vegetarian, Joni Mitchell fan of a depressed single mom that won't let him be a kid. The book is the story of Marcus and Will's friendship and the two are actually dual protagonists--Hornby does a fine job balancing their perspectives with a third person narrator limited in omniscience to the two of them. Marcus is a strange kid who is done no favors by his strange mother. He is also a lonely and tormented pre-teen, but still has the wherewithal to blackmail Will into a friendship. This after he finds out that Will pretended to have a child just to meet single moms. As you can see, theses two don't have your typical Big Brother program relationship. Hornby masterfully--and without seeming to exert himself--conveys the world that both Marcus and Will have to grow up in. His secondary characters aren't as fleshed out as some might desire, but nor are they the stereotypes you might find strolling the sidewalks in any given city. ABOUT A BOY is a sharply written, fun-to-read tale about the inevitability of engaging with life. It doesn't surpass HIGH FIDELITY, but this book sure does live up to it admirably. Give us more, Mr Hornby!
Rating: 
Summary: Hornby's a bit less compelling in this one...
Review: Having read "High Fidelity" in about 3-4 days (a record for me), I found this book enjoyable in the end, but with nowhere near the pageturning excitement of Hornby's earlier work. I really had to force myself to get to page 100. Overall, if you're already a Hornby fan, I would recommend the book, just so that you could get a sense of his real versatility as a writer.
Rating:
Summary: A bit confusing maybe
Review: A simply astonishing book, how Nick Hornby managed to write the two main characters together is proof of a great writing-talent and an excellent imagination. The way he showed us Marcus and Will's everyday life and how they managed to develop themselves trough each other is simply breath-taking. I also caught up with an inch of moral sense in this story, and I think it was a bit too soft for my liking. No sharp turns or surprising revelations before the end, and that, I think, is a bit too late. There are so many changes made in the last couple of pages, but it gives the book the edge I was talking about earlier, though you might find it hard to cope with it. Humour is a big part of this book, Nick Hornby's humour is what I would call; typically English, and it appears to me that "About a boy" could very well be a manuscript for an English sit-com (situation comedy). His humour doesn't appeal to me, though I found the book a bit amusing, but I wouldn't say I laughed my head off. Maybe if you have reached that special age, when you start looking back on your life, this book would appeal more to you and you might recognize yourself in some of the many embarrassing situations, delievered to us in an excellent package including suicidal parents, divorces and an outcut of many poor boys' everyday life in the English school system. Brilliant Nick! We want more of this.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVE THE CHARACTERS
Review: This book makes you cry one minute and laugh the next. The character development is amazing. I fell in love with Marcus and Will so much that I want to be friends with them. Nick Hornby writes beautifully and is able to put into words feelings that I never knew I had.
Rating:
Summary: A fun interesting read!
Review: I read this book after reading High Fidelity and now I'm completely hooked on this author, can't wait to see what unusual beginning he'll come up with for his next book. The main character is someone that is so easy to dislike, yet there's something about him that makes you incredibly interested in what he has to say. I found the boy, Malcolm, to be hilarious and everyone in the story reminded me of people I know. Unusual, interesting and hilarious - overall a great read.
Rating:
Summary: foreigners
Review: boy, this is a good book. sad and sweet and pretty funny. but its that british humor. alot of people like that british humor though. it's rather droll i guess. i hope you all understand this book was written by a foreigner. that's right, a british man wrote this book. british people write great books though. some of the best writers are british.. like that shakespeare dude.. i think he's from england or somthing. shakespeare's not as funny as nick hornby though. and this book has nirvana references galore.. i bet you shakespeare never even listened to nirvana.
Rating: 
Summary: Review of Nick Hornby`s "About a Boy".
Review: The novel "About a boy", written by Nick Hornby, is a funny and entertaining book but it also focuses on some serious problems. It is about the 12-year-old boy Marcus, the 36-year-old Will and the problems they are facing in their lives, which are not developing exactly as expected. When I started to read the book I was a little sceptical. I do not really like reading books, especially not books that are forced on me at school. But this book was both funny and interesting. I really had a hard time putting it down. It describes the lives of a 12-year-old and a 36-year-old, who is not exactly behaving the way people their age would . Marcus is an over-mature, left out loser, and Will is a childish man with no interest in starting a family or in any way get grown up. Nick Hornby`s way of writing can sometimes get a little difficult to read. He writes his sentences in such a way that they become very long, and sometimes difficult to understand. He puts so much information into some sentences that you has to read them both two and three times before you get the meaning. This made me a little confused, but it is also the only fault I found with the novel. Besides being a humorous book, with ducks which is dying in strange ways and lots of weird people, this is also in one way a serious book. It shows us how complicated and confusing life can be for a 12-year-old, who has no friends, do not behave like everyone else and who do not have any parents who are capable of helping him. This book surprised me in a very positive way. And I would definitely not think twice about recommending it to all kinds of people, young and old. I think "About a Boy" is a very good novel!
Rating:
Summary: "About a Boy"
Review: An extremely interesting book, not because of the content itself, but because of the way it is told. Nick Hornby, in his descriptions, uses a great and unusual sense of humour, with a kind of sarcasm that makes the ordinary facts hold the reader's attention during the whole novel's development. The story is about two main characters, Marcus and Will, two different people who get acquainted coincidentally and at the end realise that they have done nothing but helped each other with their major problems. Marcus is a twelve-year-old boy, who lives with his depressed hippie mother in London. They moved from Cambridge, where they lived before, and it terrified him because he would have to go to school and try to deal with his classmates. For any other kid at his age, it would be normal, but Marcus was widely anti-social. Will is thirty-six, but acts like he was twenty-five, he lives alone and doesn't work, gets money from a song that his father has written. His life is simple: shopping, clubbing, women and cars. It doesn't matter if his friends have started a family and he is still single, he likes that kind of life, it's easy and pleasant. His futility makes him act very strangely sometimes, like pretending to have a little son just to take part in a single-parents group, and meet single-mothers. It was at one of the SPAT (Single Parents All Together) meetings that Will met Marcus, and afterwards Marcus started to go round to Will's flat after school, which didn't make him very happy. What would he want with a twelve-year-old weird boy, who didn't even know who Kurt Cobain was? After a while, Will realised that Marcus needed someone to introduce him to the real world, where he would be able to discuss with the boys at school what was going on in the music world and what was the score of the football match the night before. It probably made him feel useful, which was right. After some time Marcus would hate Joni Mitchell and get dressed as a normal 90's kid. There is a lot more in "About a Boy". Besides these two characters, there are their families, friends and relationships, each one with their particular point, not less interesting, but less important, concerning the novel itself. It's an extraordinary book, weird at the beginning, but after we get used to Nick Hornby's style, it will be almost impossible to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Review: Nick Hornbys "About a Boy" was actually quite good. It made reading fun. Nick Hornby has written a funny yet endearing novel, that kept me reading from the moment i began reading the novel. The book it about an immature 36-year-old, named Will, and a muture 12-year-old,Marcus. Marcus is Will`s "pretend son", and he lives with his suicidal mother. Marcus doesn`t care much about anything, not shcool,home or friends. Will is a person who likes to be alone. He doesn`t want people to get close to him. Will and Marcus did everything together. I really loved the relationship between Will and Marcus. It made me think that these two actually exist in real life. Nick Hornby writes in such a way that the book has a soul and comes to life. It`s very much like real life. There is an absurd plot made absolutley beliveable through clear and funny writing. "About a Boy" is smart and witty. It`s exellent reading on many levels. What more can you ask from a writer? Iloved it to the very end. Suicide was mentioned several times, i think this is and friendship are the main themes in Nick Hornbys novel. This made funny reading, serious. Many laughs came out when reading about duck-killing, smashing windows becouse of Kurt Cobain and so on. Ithink this book suits all age groups. Through 280 pages we get o look into two peoples lives, while the friendship between them growes. And after a while you really feel as if you get to know them. Read it, you`ll love it!
Rating:
Summary: About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Review: "About a Boy" by Nick Hornby was an allright boook by my opinion, but it could be boring sometimes. I like it when there are not so many persons to look after all the time. The book was easy to ead most of the time, but when the author changed between Marcus in one chapter and Will in the other, because then there was a kind of connection between them. Then it was easier to understand... I think Marcus was the most interesting in the book, both mentally and phsically. He changed the way he dressed (the Kurt Cobain - T-shirt and Adidas basketball boots) and the way he thought of other people (Ellie). I also think he maybe was the wisest one in the book.He always had a reason for everything. Will is the one I dislike most in the book. He is always after women and he lies a lot. How can you lie about having a kid? Just to get the hang of a woman? I did not think that was possible. But Will has his moments too. I think the things he did for Marcus was nice; he took care of him when Marcus's mother was ill. But in a way Marcus took care of Will, too. Will needed care sometimes and that was what Marcus gave him. I think the book was almost boring, but at the end it got more interesting. But then... it was over. I want to know more about what happens with Marcus and Will and how they turn up to be. But I guess I will have to leave that to my imagination.
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