Thursday, January 4, 2007

Long Way Down by Nick Hornby


Four strangers meet on the roof of Toppers House with the intention of jumping to their deaths. None of the four stopped to think that they might not be alone at London's most popular suicide spot on one of the world's most popular suicide nights, New Year's Eve. The four decide not to jump and instead form a strange sort of support group.

Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block? Of course I can explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block. I'm not a bloody idiot.
- Martin

+ Easy to Read It was entertaining enough and simple enough to be called a "beach read" and yet you don't have to suffer through a story about some high-powered New York businesswoman with a pretentiously yuppie name whose magical high heels saved her dating life.

+ Excellent Voices The narration jumped among first-person points of view of the four main characters. Hornby did an excellent job with his character development. Each character has a unique voice and personality which really shines through. The chapters voiced by Jess truly sound like the words of a troubled (possibly psycho) teenager and the chapters voiced by Maureen truly sound like a conservative older British woman. Also, it was very amusing to see what Hornby thought of as the stereotypical American voice when he wrote chapters from JJ's point of view.

+ The LOL Factor I actually laughed out loud at some parts, which was surprising considering the morbid topic. Maybe I'm lame; maybe Hornby is good.

- Anti-Climactic I thought that the end was slightly disappointing. It seems like nothing big really happened. Maybe Hornby's idea fell a little short at the end. Maybe I was too annoyed with the copious amounts of family time over the holidays that I couldn't really enjoy it by the time I got there.

Overall B-