3.5 stars ( )

This was a perfectly entertaining book about the female star of a 60s BBC sitcom. It wasn't the best book I've read (Not even the best Nick Hornby book I've read) but it was fine.

There's nothing here to urge me to recommend this book to others but nothing to say "steer clear" either.

I suggest borrow instead of buy. Probably a great book for the beach or summer vacation.

( )

It's witty but I was ready for it to end well before it was over. ( )

Has anyone here seen Nick Hornby? For me, this book was a disappointment - this, to me, was not the author of High Fidelity, among other works ( )

I picked this up thinking "oh, I haven't read a Nick Hornby book in like ten years, I'm gonna see if I love him as much as I did when I was fifteen", but then I looked him up and it turns out I HAVE read all his novels (I just completely forgot about Juliet, naked). So I guess he's actually one of my fave writers, I just forget about him a lot (he also wrote Wild??? I really liked that movie).

And yes, I loved this book. I don't know why, because if you asked me to describe the plot I couldn't get it to sound exciting, but I really really enjoyed reading it, it was never boring and it was full of characters that I liked. They weren't always likeable, but I still liked them, if you see what I'm saying.

I think the fact that I instantly liked Sophie/Barbara was the key. Normally, reading about a girl who is so set on going to the big city and making it big and then immediately realizing that dream would bug me, but not this time. From like page one I was on her side and rooting for her, so if she got extremely lucky, I was just happy for her. And I kept being happy for her.

I just really loved it, and I didn't expect to, so that was awesome. ( )