A Long Way Down

I really enjoyed Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. I borrowed Betsy's well-worn copy and finished it in about a day, rarely putting it down for more than a few minutes. His writing style is fresh and uplifting, even when the storyline is challenging, and he has a knack for capturing the feelings of a generation (in this case, Generation X, but I think that the characters will age well with time). The movie is excellent, too, but I have yet to see anything with John Cusack that I didn't like, really.

Additionally, two of his novels, About a Boy and Fever Pitch, were adapted into really enjoyable films. Though I've yet to read either of those books, I can't imagine that the heart of the story changed all that much (though I know that some of the circumstances did). So I had slightly elevated hopes for A Long Way Down.

But I really didn't like it.

On New Year's Eve, four strangers accidentally meet atop the roof of a London building, all hoping to jump to their deaths at midnight. Their interactions and decisions that night lead to the formation of a weirdly codependent group friendship in an effort to prolong each other's lives.

Of the four main characters, only one got any sympathy from me. The other three were irritating fuckwits who seemed to have brought their miseries upon themselves. At the same time, people are fallible. We've all made mistakes, so who am I to judge them? (Perhaps that's the message I was supposed to get...)

It's well-written, but I just didn't feel it this time. Heartbreak was there, of course, but not in the same way as High Fidelity. The characters in A Long Way Down cared for each other, in odd ways, but they were all extremely unlikable. I finished the book feeling off... depressed and empty.

Hornby's writing style holds, but it didn't really matter to me in the end. I have read many positive reviews, and so I definitely stopped to wonder why I didn't feel the same. And it was pretty obvious - I've never been on the edge of despair. I've never been so removed from others that I've contemplated ending it all. And I've never stood on a rooftop, calculating how many seconds will pass before I hit the ground.

So it wasn't the book for me, unfortunately. Maybe it'll help you feel better about your problems, though!