•
Rating: What weight does pop culture have in a young adult's stubbornness to avoid growing up? And how can one grow up without betraying oneself and one's pop culture?
Rob is 35 years old. The woman who just left him, with whom he had been living for two years, realized she wanted a more mature life and embarked on new experiences, incomprehensible to him. It is at this point that Rob begins the journey that will take him from the stagnation of an immature phase, where the dreamy expectations suggested by pop keep all paths open without choosing one, to a new phase of greater decisiveness, with awareness of his own reality.
At the narrative level, I found it wonderful how the characters progressively become clear in their complexity during the recounting of the novel's events, which consistently maintain high levels of entertainment. This is achieved thanks to an injection of irony and sarcasm that suddenly cuts into introspection situations that are unfolding in lightness, confusion, and seeming superficiality.
It is a coming-of-age novel that is rhythmic, colorful, and entertaining, with musical environment suggestions that explain the characters without demanding the audience know that music. Certainly, one must have observed if not lived something of the pop culture of the generations, in the broad sense not strictly musical, to appreciate the philosophical and psychological exploration that this novel enacts and ignites in the reader. In my opinion, a very refined and tasteful search, with the merit of unfurling on a plane of joy and rhythm.
I read it years after seeing the film of the same name, which I remembered almost only for the characters' obsession with making lists about everything. These lists are also in the book, but in a marginal position, characterizing an encyclopedic and "non-thinking" mindset that the book expresses with true richness. It's a theme found in other works by Hornby as well.
In conclusion, I really liked this book and, without hesitation, I recommend it to the Debaser crowd.
Loading comments slowly
