Book Summary and Reviews of Just Like You by Nick Hornby

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Cloggie Downunder

entertaining and thought-provoking.
Just Like You is the eighth novel by award-winning British author, Nick Hornby. When Lucy Fairfax and Joseph Campbell embark on their relationship, neither is looking too closely at the reasons, or the likely outcome: they are acting on mutual attraction, and find that they enjoy each other’s company.

Lucy, a separated mother of two, is Head of the English Department at the local high school, forty-two years old and white. Joseph does various part-time jobs including, football coaching, baby-sitting and working in the local butcher’s, is twenty-two years old, and black. When they are together, they are happy. Despite their quite disparate backgrounds, they are interested in each other’s lives, enjoy their conversations (the coming Brexit vote is on everyone’s lips), and have great sex.

Lucy’s young sons love spending time with Joseph, although there’s less of that now that he comes to spend time with Lucy instead of baby-sitting them. Because this is a covert relationship: they don’t go out. It is when the result of the Brexit vote is announced that they realize just how closeted their lives have become, and how different they really are. The relationship ebbs fairly swiftly if amicably. Joseph still babysits. They both date others. But is it really over?

The insecurities that need to be soothed with reassurances in any relationship are a little different here, taking in race, age gap and level of education: “He was just a kid. He could see that now. It was because everything was new that he was embarrassed and raw. He wasn’t established in any field, really. He’d be bringing her stuff, like a puppy, for a long time to come, and she could only rub his belly and call him a good boy until he was an old dog with no new tricks.”

The Brexit referendum backdrop allows Hornby to explore the effect of such an issue on everyday life: “Lucy understood it now. The referendum was giving groups of people who didn’t like each other, or at least failed to comprehend each other, an opportunity to fight. The government might just as well be asking a yes/no question about public nudity, or vegetarianism, or religion, or modern art, some other question that divided people into two groups, each suspicious of the other. There had to be something riding on it, otherwise people wouldn’t get so upset.”

There are plenty of (sometimes darkly) funny moments in this tale, including kids who are much more aware than their mother thinks, a mother who twigs to her son’s activities via Find My Phone, and a confession by text. As well as heading in an unpredictable direction, Hornby’s latest is entertaining and thought-provoking.

Cathryn Conroy

I Was Enchanted! This Is a Delightful Love Story with an Imaginative Plot and Snappy Dialogue
What a fun love story! The plot is imaginative, the dialogue snappy, and the characters feel like real people. It isn't profound. It isn't great literature. But it is a delight to read.

Written by Nick Hornby and taking place in London in 2016, this is the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back love story—with a twist. The boy, Joseph, really is a boy at age 22. He's immature, floundering in his multiple part-time jobs, and still living at home with his mom. The girl, Lucy, is a 42-year-old woman and the head of the English department at an inner-city school. She is the mother of two boys and is in the process of getting a divorce from an alcoholic, drug-addicted husband. Lucy hires Joseph to babysit her boys for occasional evenings out, and the sparks fly. But they both realize the futility of a relationship with such a huge age gap--not to mention that Lucy is highly educated and an avid reader, while Joseph finished secondary school and hasn't read a book since. He's black. She's white. (You know, just to add to the complications!) So, what could possibly go wrong—even with those sparks?

It's not a perfect book. Some of the conversations between Lucy and Joseph are tiresome, longwinded, and circuitous. Better editing would have helped. But this is a relatively minor complaint.

Intriguingly, the 2016 Brexit vote, which is constant background noise in the storyline, is a bold (and impossible to miss) metaphor for Lucy and Joseph's relationship. It's an interesting literary ploy.

This is a really sweet and entertaining love story replete with wisdom, humor, and all the awkwardness and excitement most of us feel in a new relationship. I was enchanted!

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