About a Boy

by Nick Hornby
Category: "Fiction - General"
Pages:307
Year of Publication:1998
Date Added:05/24/2008
Date Read:01/08/2005
Notes:Will Freeman did absolutely nothing with his life — just lived off the royalties of a lame Christmas song his father wrote — and he was happy with this. He spent much of his time watching TV and pursuing meaningless relationships with women. By accident, he discovered that there was a certain category of woman who would actually welcome his attentions in spite of his shallowness — single moms. To meet some of them, he joined a parents-without-partners group and pretended he had a son. This led him to a relationship with Suzie, which didn’t last long. But on one of his dates with Suzie, he met Marcus, the odd son of Suzie’s friend Fiona.

Marcus and Fiona had just moved to London, and Marcus wasn’t fitting in at school at all. Fiona didn’t notice his problems because she had problems of her own. In fact, on the day Marcus met Will, Fiona tried to commit suicide. This got Marcus to thinking — if his mother died, he would be alone. He decided to have a relationship with Will. He followed Will home and invited himself in to watch TV.

Meanwhile, Marcus met Ellie, a rebellious girl at his school who was three years older and always in trouble. Ellie enjoyed laughing at Marcus’s weirdness, but she also liked him and protected him so he wasn’t picked on any more.

Then Will met Rachel. For the first time, he was truly in love. But she wasn’t impressed by his shallowness. He found out she had a teenage son, Ali, and decided to make himself interesting by pretending Marcus was his son. It didn’t last long, and Rachel didn’t seem to mind much.

To skip over a lot of stuff, by the time the book ends. Marcus and Will have both figured out that friends are what gives life meaning. For the first time, both of them have a lot of people in their lives because Fiona and Marcus and Will and Rachel and Ali and Ellie and Ellie’s mom are all buddies.
My Rating: 6

Reviews for About a Boy

Review - About a Boy

I read the book because I enjoyed the movie. Hugh Grant played Will in the movie, and I now see that he made the role. The book was OK, but not as good as the movie. There were a lot of mildly amusing parts, but ultimately it was depressing because all of the adult characters did drugs and/or drank and/or slept around and that was all OK because they had each other and meant something to each other. And Marcus and Ellie and Ali would all grow up to be the same way and that was OK as long as they had people to care about and to care about them. Sad.

Reviewed by Roger on 2008-08-22 09:36:50

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