Just Like You

Just Like You

Hardcover - UK - 1st edition.

Author Nick Hornby Published 2020-09-17 Type Fiction Genre Drama, Romance Themes Divorce, Drama, Friendship, Parenting, Romance Age Group Adult

Just Like You is a novel by Nick Hornby released on 2020-09-17.

In the book, Lucy, a 41-year-old divorcee, starts dating Joseph, the 22-year-old black babysitter of her two sons. Complications ensue.

Personal

Own?	Hardcover, USA, 1st edition.
Read?	Hardcover, USA, 1st edition.
Finished	2024-11-15.

I've read most of Hornby's novels, so, when I saw this one, I bought it immediately. However, I ended up not liking it much. I did find there was a dark coincidence that the book takes place in 2016 during the monumental failures of Brexit and Trump and I was reading it in 2024 as the USA elected the fascist a second time.

Review

Overall:

Good

• I like the various observations Joseph makes, particularly about the differences between sexes and races.
• It's nice to the see the "older divorced father dates the babysitter" trope flipped around.

Bad

• The book doesn't have much in the way of conflict. There are a few moments which are awkward, but that's about it. It was decent enough to keep me turning the pages, but I didn't really feel as though anything significant ever happened.
• It seemed like I was reading a draft rather than an refined manuscript. There were several unusual aspects of it:
  • The flow is difficult to follow at times. There are often section breaks for no apparent reason. On several occasions there wasn't a shift in perspective, a large time gap, or anything else, they just take place right in the middle of a scene.
  • I frequently had a hard time following dialogue because it wasn't always clear who was speaking. There are several instances where, even though there is a line there is a new line, but the same speaker is talking, and there isn't and identifier that it's the same person. This creates confusion as you backtrack to try and see who said what. There were a couple times where, even after re-reading it, I still couldn't be sure who was speaking.
  • In the US hardcover edition, every section begins with several words in bold for no apparent reason. The number varies from around three to seven, but there doesn't appear to be any pattern.
• In particular, I didn't care for how Lucy takes Joseph back after he cheats on her.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Covers

• 

  Hardcover - UK - 1st edition.

• 

  Hardcover - USA - 1st edition.

• 

  Paperback - UK.

Representation

Strong female character?	Pass	Lucy is a strong character.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are several women who talk to each other, but it's almost always about a man.
Strong person of color character?	Pass	Joseph is a strong black man.
Queer character?	Pass	Becca and Suzie, though very minor characters, are lesbians.

Quotes

— This section contains spoilers! —

• Lucy's single status provided a screen on which Emma could project endless fantasies.
• His community. He still wanted his community to be the place where he lived, a community that contained old white women, young Muslim men, Lithuanian kids, mixed-race girls, Asian parents, Jewish taxi drivers. But it never was.
• And then suddenly she sent it, and she wanted to run to wherever he was and snatch the phone out of his hand.
• The first time, he'd gone on about his rights, like kids do, and it turned out he didn't have any.
• Nobody had said the words "I love you," Lucy noticed, and yet each had found a way of telling the other they were loved. That seemed like a good place to end.
• Anyway, now he was worried that he'd only ever be attracted to women who were being, or had already been, educated out of his league.

Links

 

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hornby - Author's Wikipedia page.