Monday, March 16, 2015

Juliet, Naked

I spent a bit of time at the hospital earlier this year due to my stomach problems. I had to go there twice in two days, first so that I could get a medical prescription and undergo lab tests and and second so that my doctor could review the lab results. I knew from previous experience that the waiting time would be tremendously long. Normally, I would just go there with my ipod and listen to music while I waited. This time, however, I decided to read a book instead. As I went through my admittedly limited book collection at home, I realized that I had a book that my friend Michele and her husband Ferg gave me a while back that I hadn't read yet - Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. Seeing this book in my shelf was kinda like finding buried treasure because I completely forgot that I had it. Excited, I took it with me to the hospital and read it while waiting. It actually made the waiting time pass by quickly because it's the kind of novel that holds your interest and makes you want to keep reading. I'm a pretty slow reader though so it took me a while to finish reading (I read a couple of hours a day for about 4-5 days spread over a few weeks).

Juliet, Naked is a really good book and it reminded me why Nick Hornby is one of my favorite authors. It's a light read, making it quite easy for me to pick up from where I left off even after a few days of not reading. I definitely related to its themes of music and fanaticism and it was also interesting to find out what the meaning of the title is (I won't spoil it for you). It is open-ended as I was left wondering what happened to the key characters once I had finished reading but the story does revolve around the intricacies of complicated relationship so having a neat and clean resolution wouldn't have been right. This was the first book I read after Selected stories of O Henry (not counting travel books) and it actually makes me want to read more

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