Ok, so Hornby's a Gooner and his taste in music is not exactly mine, but he sure can write. Why do we read? To prove we are not alone? A never-ending attempt to understand the human condition? A quest for like minds? Search me. All of these and a lot more besides I would say. As with a lot of the novels I read, my wife saw this in a charity shop on a weekend away and bought it for 20p on a Saturday morning. By Sunday lunchtime I'd read it and told her she should read it too and then pass it on to our daughter, who lives on the Archway Road. My Islingtonian mate Butch would love this too, so he's also in the queue. Yes, it's a North London novel, like most of Hornby's early work, so I do feel that he's writing about my world, but it's also clever, insightful, damn funny and a very original premise for a writer. It's also very brave for a man to write as a woman in the first tense and Hornby brings it off superbly.

So why do we do what we do? Do we ever lead a truly 'good' life? How important is it to try? Who gives a toss anyway? And how do we continue to cope as we get older? This witty tome probably raises more questions than it answers, but I liked Katie Carr and sympathised with her as her self-obsessed husband sets off on his voyage of discovery and her children inevitably take sides in the mayhem that ensues. 'DJ GoodNews' is a clever device, as the character who introduces the dilemma of living the good life and the fine lines it inevitably presents between naivety, practicality and living any kind of life at all. Hornby is a wise, witty and insightful man; a wonderful writer and someone who can make you laugh and make you think, even if he is a Gooner. Not bad for 20p.

I don't think it's a great sign when you put down a book after you've finished it and feel completely and utterly relieved that it's finally over. Forget about that final line and that fact that I didn't care enough (or am obviously not clever enough) to deduce any meaning from the sudden, jarring throat punch of a ending sentance.

Nick Hornby in undeniably a brilliant writer and I have enjoyed many of his books. In this he shows many of those positive qualities in his wit, his intelligence, his deft observations, his wonderfully barmy (and aptly named in this case, Brian) cameo characters and his willingness to make his characters, especially his antagonists, wholly unlikable.

Yes, he shows off all these aspects, but it doesn't change that as a whole I just didn't really like this book. In fact, in this particular instance, I'm hard pressed to find any of the parts I did enjoy.

A shame, but doesn't change the fact the Hornby has written many books I have enjoyed, and I will continue to read more. I just hope this is anomaly!

Hmmm... Ok... I did like this book.
It is sort of a strange book. It is sort of a book about the realities of life, but with an unrealistic 'faith healer' character in it, if that makes any sense?
It had some hugely funny moments, and some beautifully written parts.
And I found it to be very relatable, even tho it had an odd 'faith healer' as a main character! The description of a married doctor/wife and her writer/husband with two children, and their day in and day out lives, in London, seemed depressing, and... Pretty much correct.

Life is not easy. Even a 'good life' is not easy. 'Being Good' is even harder!

It might make you never want to have kids, so be aware of that. (Me? Well, I don't have any, and never wanted any, so, all good!)

The end was sad, but honest. I liked that everything was different, but not 'BETTER' or 'cured' in the end.

I hate a Hollywood Ending, and thankfully this book did NOT go there.

One thing I would like to add: I suggest you wait until you are over 35 to read this book, because if I had read it when I was younger, I would not have had the same view of it. I was more idealistic, and I would have hated it.

Picked up as a bit of an antithesis to the slightly heavy non-fiction I'd been struggling through, this was a short but thought-provoking (and sometimes very amusing) light read - following a family going through marriage difficulties, focussing on morals and meaning in life to make some interesting points. In truth it was a bit heavy-handed overall, and I didn't find the characters utterly convincing or very likeable, but the book did strike a chord at several points. Not Nick Hornby's best, and I think I may have read it before a decade or so ago, but I did enjoy it quite a lot (and perhaps this is because I am now older and have more in common with the characters experiencing some existential doubts).

Che dire? Allora, dico subito che il libro non mi ha entusiasmato. Purtroppo non mi ha coinvolto, l'ho letto tutto ma è rimasto per così dire in superficie. Le prime pagine le ho trovate lente e banali. Invece poi il libro cambia e si nota l'acuta intelligenza viva dell'autore incarnata in un animo femminile, e il libro fino a prima della fine regge le mie aspettative.. poi finisce,banalmente e in modo poco significativo. I valori della famiglia ci sono ancora? Una donna da sola fino a che punto può difendere quella che crede sia la sua famiglia?

The first half of this book was quite amusing, and there are some interesting conversations to be had about it. Too bad that the second half was really random and that the story and ideas deteriorated...

This felt a bit dated, reading it in 2020, but there's still a lot of relevance here. I'm always impressed by how well Hornby can write female characters in the first person. It really is a rare skill.

This is a novel for people who like novels, a novel for people who are or want to read about middle age.

Katie Carr is a doctor married to the angriest man in Holloway. Even though she's having an affair and doesn't always care as much about her patients as she thinks she ought to, she's secure in the knowledge that she is a good person. Of course she's a good person. She's a doctor.

But when her husband David meets a spiritual healer who takes all his anger away, and David turns into the neighborhood do-gooder, Katie suddenly feels a crisis of self. Does she have to love her neighbor that much in order to be a good person? How far does one draw the line?

This is a novel about what it means to be in the middle of a marriage, when the romance is gone but you have many years ahead of you. This is also a novel about what it means to be middle class, when you're not the richest person in the world, but there are a lot of people worse off. It's about what happens when people have a crisis of faith when they're the sort of people who don't know what church they go to.

I liked that this novel was about people finding their way and trying to figure out how to be good people, yet it touched on these subjects without getting preachy or religious. I also liked that David and GoodNews were weird enough to be funny, without becoming completely absurd. Well, maybe other people will find them unbelieveable and absurd, but I've met a lot of people like that (without the supernatural powers, that is.)

The characters are solidly built. Katie is believably flawed, and even her children are real people, rather than robotic mannikins. The homeless kids that David and GoodNews try to help aren't just Dickensian paragons of pathos, but are as varied as the other characters.

Hornby can be darkly funny at moments. More than once, I laughed out loud at his sense of humor. (Like when the daughter asks her parents if they're going to get divorced, and her mom says "not if you're good.")I also liked that it was so very British. Some books set in England could be set anywhere, but for this one, I felt like I wanted to keep a running glossary of new terms (Barmy? What does that mean?).

It's an amusing novel, with a decent pace, and good characters. Except for an ending that seemed a little off (one of those deeply symbolic things that I'm sure a college literature class would love, but I didn't get it.), it's a solidly built novel.

I think the only reason why I didn't love it more is that it's kind of a novel in the middle, as well as being about the middle. I kind of prefer novels that touch a little more on highsh and lows: torrid romance rather than a begrudging desire to maybe try to make a marriage work, passionate arguments rather than weak puns, death and tragedy rather than pathetic men who don't know how to cook.

Still, it's solidly written, fairly charming, and funny. I recommend it for people who like novels about adult subjects, about people who like novels set in England, and for people who want liberal intellectuals mocked in a gentle way.

Very interesting beginning. Once you’re in peace with the healing powers of DJ Goodnews and David’s sudden character swing, the book flows pretty good. I found the last chapters quite boring and I was left with no conclusion other than a shaman being a good substitute for a sports car in middle-aged crisis. Easy read, though, keeps you hooked.

4.5 stars

“The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.”

This book is drastically different from Hornby’s other works. There is still dark humor, but family dilemma and midlife crisis hold the center of the plot. Honestly, this could be even my favorite book by Hornby because of the issues that it deals with. The author wants to tell us nothing is black and white and to be careful what we wish for, because its fulfillment won’t necessarily make us happy.

The protagonist is Katie, a 40ish medical practitioner, living with her constantly angry husband David and two kids in a London suburb. She’s unhappy with her marriage, and as a consequence is having an affair. The book starts off with her calling David to tell him she wants a divorce. He refuses to accept that, but Katie is just as confused about her own decision. The main plot deals with the question what to do when your spouse, suddenly goes from spouting poison everywhere to someone who wants to do nothing but good deeds – and irritates you even more than before because of that change. Our narrator remains on the sidelines with a lot of sarcastic comments and tries to undermine all of his good intentions.

The main characters are your normal everyday family. The book is clever and points out to all those little problems that liberals have to face. Of course, I felt provoked at times, since I am a set-in-stone liberal, but in a good way. The author asks the hard questions - what happens when you try to solve the problems in the way utopian societies do or what if you try to solve all the big problems but in a small way. Hornby, as always, has a great sense of humor and his writing seems effortless. This is perhaps he’s most realistic novel till date. While it starts out as a story about failing marriage, it becomes much deeper and personal with presenting some serious issues of family and relationships. It speaks a lot about love and how it develops (or gets smothered) by marriage and commitment. In a very humorous way, this book brings up the issue of charity and how doing good for other people can go wrong and cause tension, This is Hornby in a nutshell - he gets inside his characters’ heads, then creates a believable absurdity, and gets under your skin while doing it. I didn't like the ending though.

Katie realizes that she needs to be more careful about what she wishes for. Her lack of security with herself and confidence is the main source of her unhappiness. Throughout the book, she carries a lot of guilt and she doesn’t really look like someone who really wants to find a light at the end of the tunnel.

“I don't believe in Heaven or anything. But I want to be the kind of person that qualifies for entry anyway.”

She always wants a better future, but she’s never brave enough to make crucial steps.

“It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn't stale, that hasn't been breathed by my family a thousand times already.”

She feels trapped, not only inside her family, but also inside her own skin and has no idea how to solve her problems. While having no moral support, she has no one to turned to to talk about it and lonelines is pushing her even more into a shell. She has a lot of burden on her shoulders and fights the wish to run away, because she’s petrified of being alone.

“It was as if I were powerless to resist the temptation; my senses were overcome. I could hear the emptiness, and taste the silence, and smell the solitude, and I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything before.”

One moment, she desires the mentioned solitude, but in the next moment, she almost has a panic attack and she’d rather stay in an unhappy marriage with an unhealthy atmosphere than to make a better home for her children and herself. It’s interesting to read about her frustration because the behavior of her children is worsened by the constant conflicts between her and her husband.

Katie and David have a horrible marriage. There is no respect, no affection, communication is getting worse day after day, and they can’t even talk for two minutes without dropping venom on each other. With constant passive aggression, I don’t know how they still manage to sleep in the same bed night after night. Habit is a bitch.

“So now what? What happens when words fail us?”

Even when they try really hard to be honest with each other, it turns into a depressing moment.

“I've developed contours for his elbows and knees and bum, and nobody else quite fits into me in quite the same way.”

Here, Katie describes their sex life. It’s the only thing that genuinely works in their marriage.

To say I didn't get this book would be a profound understatement. Near as I can tell, it's about all the terrible, mundane ways life can grind you down, how hypocracy gets all of us in the end, and the way what was once beloved can turn into what you hate in the ones you used to love.

I found this book tremendously depressing. Also, it made me never want to get married or have kids. Ever.

I was tremendously disappointed in the ending as well, at the same time as I admired Hornby's technical skill. In general, I found the writing style to be too spare for my tastes, though it did add to the sensation of walking through a barren wasteland in search of color and contrast.

The reason I really liked How to Be Good can be summarised with the following sentence: I don't know what people who think they're going to save the world are hoping to accomplish.
So I liked it. Lots of funny sentiments expressed by the main character. [Slight spoilers ahead, though with this book I don't think it matters] Even in the second to last chapter she does things like telling her daughter, when she asks if her parents are getting divorced, "Not if you'll be good". I laughed out loud quite a few times, the wit is really sardonic and sarcastic.
I also liked that there isn't really a clear resolution to the initial dilemma of how the hell can we live with each other. One of the few things I didn't like was the main character's constant flimsiness. In most scenes, she would start out feeling one way, then having been challenged finds some reason for thinking completely the opposite. It became a little too obvious towards the end.
However, altogether How to Be Good was a surprisingly enjoyable read.