Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby

Juliet, Naked Nick Hornby's latest work of fiction tells a brilliant tale of a couple Annie and Duncan who share a love for the musical artist Tucker Crowe, who fell off the face of the earth twenty some years back. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker's music and the moments he had in those years. When they return from a trip to the US to follow Tucker, from the place of birth, the break up with Juliet to the Toilet that is said to be the place that he last was before never being heard from again, a package awaits Duncan. Now Duncan is gone and ignored his mail, so Annie opens the letter to find a copy of Juliet, Naked a demo of the original Juliet songs as well as a couple unreleased. She contemplated waiting for Duncan to listen or does she listen before.

Duncan arrive home to Annie listening and comes to realize that this is a new almost never heard CD of Tucker's music and Annie has violated it by listening to it first. So from there the story takes it's way into what becomes a pretty interesting book in a typical Nick Hornby style.

If you read the cover or the description on the web, you know there's a break and through posts of Annie's Tucker reads them and corresponds and they both learn from this experience.

Overall I really enjoyed the concept of where Nick was going with the book, but for some reason I still feel a little at a loss at the end. I feel that even though he did add closure to the characters, that I really wanted more.

Still it was a fun and relatively easy read. I couldn't put the book down as I wanted to see what was going to happen next and he jumps from the different family situations and the bringing them together. I have a tendency to be a little like Duncan having the blinders on with certain artists and when other criticize, I wonder what the hell are they thinking. Still overall in the end you start to realize the same flaws or thoughts.

As enjoyable as it was to read, I just kept wanting more details, more development of the characters and all that surrounded them. I think I just was wanting a 500 page novel that went on and on and after two nights of reading this 249 page book it was over. Getting to the end of a book can sometimes be an amazing thing and others making you want to scream for more. This one I wanted more and that's because Nick did such a good job bringing the characters together I was waiting for something big to happen and in the end what I wanted wasn't there. Still I loved it and loved how he showed the obsession of one person and the coming together of an unlikely pair. It was certainly in lines with his other works and I would recommend picking it up and having a read.

It will be out in the US September 29th and has already been released in the UK. Here's where to get the UK version: Amazon.co.uk and the US version at: Amazon.com.

Click here to view Nick's website and also find out when he will be out on his book tour. I really would love to see him stop in Kansas City, but I did have the pleasure of meeting him at Book Soup in Los Angeles a few years back on one of his previous reading and signings.