A novel about finding love where and when you least expect it, and exploring the likelihood of that love lasting. Does it even matter if there is no future in a love affair - should it just be enjoyed for what it can teach us? A very easy to read novel from Nick Hornby and enjoyably plotted. Perhaps some of the themes in here were rather superficially handled, but certainly a book worth reading.

This book touches on some important and current themes including: Brexit, the Black Lives Matter movement, alcohol abuse, snobbery and age gap relationships. All of these are seen through the backdrop of a relationship between a young black man, Joseph, and Lucy, who is a white divorced teacher in her forties who is dissatisfied with her life and the people she finds herself surrounded by. It details the self doubt that they have in their developing relationship and uses the reactions of others around them to throw a light on political issues and differences in class and experiences.
All of this should make for a fantastic novel but it almost tries to touch on too many themes and so doesn't really explore any of them with any depth. Joseph often feels more fully rounded then Lucy and more sure of who he is. Whilst I was rooting for them as a couple, I didn't feel any chemistry between the characters that would lift them off the page and make me care about them and it is this that meant that, whilst I liked the book, I didn't love it. I felt I wanted it to be more character driven in order for me to take them into my heart as I like to do.

Just Like You, Nick Hornby

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Romance, General fiction|R

OK, confession time. I've never read Nick Hornby, and as I don't have a TV I've never seen any film adaptations of his books. Yet his name is everywhere and when I saw this I thought maybe it was time....

So, what did I think? Well, sadly I guess Nick is one of those authors who many folk love but who's work isn't for me. I found this book really hard going, tedious, if it wasn't a review I would have stopped at 30% when I was still struggling to get interested in the story. Sadly that first third I struggled with was the best part of the book too.

I liked Joseph, but he was a very typical 22 year old, not ready to settle with one person and apart form being attracted to Lucy I didn't see why they were together. Likewise Lucy was a lady I felt for, failed marriage, elderly parents, mum of two young boys.
I loved her boys, at times they were the most honest out of all the folk in the novel.
There were times where Nick brought both Joseph and Lucy with others of their own age just to show they tried – that's how it felt to me, but the people they were with just weren't right for either regardless of the age issue.
Friends of both were predictable, Joseph's friends denigrating him being with Lucy because she was white and older, likewise Lucy's friends trying to be very middle-class polite about the fact Joseph was younger and black.

The book describes Lucy and Joseph's other relationships as the perfect match, but we didn't actually see any of that, they were just same age group, same colour, and had one shared interest. You could pull hundreds of perfect matches off a dating site if that's the only criteria.

I hate that Joseph is portrayed as – well – not too bright. The Brexit issue, where he wavers, feeling he “ought” to vote one way or the other and then....his determination to make it as a DJ, but in fact though music and one song plays a big part I didn't feel he was that invested in it. He didn't know what were some common genres of music, when if he was serious he's have been doing it not just talking about it. He wants to be a DJ but isn't out there learning, helping another, finding out whats hot right now. The theatre where he doesn't really know the story etc...it just felt he was a stereotypical black male, when the opportunity could have been to make him so much more.
He was a pleasant kid, and that was it really. He hadn't grown much from teens, wasn't ambitious, didn't know what he wanted from life on a personal or professional level, he was just a typical new adult drifter, waiting to see which direction life takes him. Regardless of race that's how things are for many early twenties kids.
Lucy, in contrast, was portrayed as very middle class, degree educated, English teacher, mum of kids, and a very “Boden family” type person, from her friends, her interests, her voting habits, everything apart from the divorce and her ex. She's interminably living in her head, mulling over problems, worrying what her friends a family will think. She had friends she didn't even like but was too polite to keep away from them. Her friends are very much the same mould – the start to that dinner party, “ oh, obviously you're not Joseph!” The type who love to see themselves as open minded, liberalists and yet they're inwardly horrified at Lucy being with a black younger man. Sadly had it been the other way round, older white guy with black younger lady they wouldn't bat an eyelid. Sexism is still alive and thriving in some areas.

I suppose at the heart this novel didn't ever give me the feeling there was anything more between Joseph and Lucy but hot sex. The interactions they had were mostly fraught with problems, prickly tensions over age and race. Lucy seems to endlessly mull on the age issue and Joseph having kids, thinking she'll be gone by then, and Joseph thinks about the future in terms of someone, sometime, but who isn't Lucy. I just can't wee two people supposedly in love who would think that way without the demons of jealousy gripping them. The holiday – I found that really odd, there's no way I could have done that. Invited, or gone, and it just reinforces to me that there was no grand passion, no real love between them.
The ending – well, I felt it was rushed and unsatisfactory. All the issues that plagued them through the book were still there, none were resolved, no action ever taken to deal with them, and yet somehow the last few pages magically make everything OK.

Stars: Two, I guess Nick is an author who's writing others love but I don't. I found the story had no real point, drifted along and relied on stereotypes that irritated me. It could have been so much more for me, but as ever its perfect for others.

Arc via netgalley and publishers

There are several Nick Hornby books I love so I was excited to read this one. It has all the warmth and humour, as well as accurate human observation I've come to expect from him. I really loved the first half of the book, but felt that the second half did not live up to the rest. I would have loved if Lucy's relationship with her ex was explored more.

Many thanks to the author, publishers and Netgalley for a free ARC of this ebook.
I didnt enjoy this book at all. Although it's well written, with some great humour, I felt that the characters were just too shallow to be believable. None of it sat well with me. There was too much irritation and not enough warmth. I can see a film being made of this book and I hope its better than the book.

A lovely read which is perfect to take to the beach (if you get to one this year!)
I really enjoyed this novel, the characters are likeable and I was really rooting for them to come together despite their appeared differences.
Touches on a lot of topical subjects, such as brexit, race, class but in an accessible way.

I have read several Nick Hornby books and expected to enjoy this one. However, I found it disappointing. Initially, I enjoyed how he introduced the two main characters, their relationships and profiles. As the relationship between them developed it was difficult to see where it could go with the inter racial aspect and the huge difference in age, set against the backdrop of the Brexit referendum. He was empathetic to the older woman, but I'm not so sure about the coloured man. After the first few chapters I found the story slow and no longer of interest although I did read to the end. I don't really feel I can recommend this book.

As someone who has read and enjoyed multiple Nick Hornby books before, I had high hopes for his new novel, 'Just Like You', and whilst it isn't my favourite of his, I wasn't disappointed.

The book explores the highs, lows and challenges presented in an interracial relationship with a twenty year age gap, with the inclusion of Brexit, drug-addiction and single parenthood thrown into the mix.

I really enjoyed the exploration of this unexpected relationship between two people at very different stages of their lives, and the notion that whilst society says it really shouldn't work on paper, it somehow does. However, I found that once the climax of the get together had been reached, sadly, there was little else to the plot of the novel. Similarly, whilst I found the themes of Brexit and racism very relevant to our current global situation, it felt like Hornby explored these as almost a 'side story' to the main plot of the relationship, rather than interlacing them in. None the less, it was an enjoyable story with likeable characters and interesting themes.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the copy to review.

I'm a little on the fence with this one - there's absolutely no doubt that the book is well written and flows really easily. I like the characters. However, the actual subject matter feels too contrived - like your parents trying to be down with the kids. I cringed a lot. Throwing in a few random words and phrases from the urban dictionary is really not the way to go. A bit patronising.

This was such an easy, pleasurable read, and dare I say, typically Nick Hornby. He has relationships down to a tee, seems to understand both the male and the female side. Don't come to this expecting a detailed literary piece of work, it reads much more like a screenplay, very conversation-led, but that's what makes it such a simple easy read. The only thing that slightly annoyed me was the continuing type of humour that all the characters seemed to have, thus the type that Nick must have which he puts onto his characters. He seems to forget that we are all individuals with each a different sense of humour.

Although the setting of the story is a few years ago leading up to the Brexit referendum (so interesting to hear them all discussing it now we are the other side), one of the themes is very topical - black lives matter. We see the world through the eyes of a twenty something black male, dating a white 40 something female having to face comments about age, race and Brexit opinions. And none of it is flippant, it is dealt with sensitively and with heart.

A recommended read.

Nick Hornby is just one of those authors you have to pick up. I've read all his books to date. I must admit, I'm a bit down the middle with him. Some of his works (About A Boy, A Long A Way Down for example) are some of my favourite ever books. Others, I really didn't like. Just Like You is another one of those gooduns. Full of heart, laughter and emotion. Thanks for the chance to read.

Very good. I think Nick Hornby is an excellent writer, particularly when it comes to relationships, and this novel dug deep into the two main characters and how they came to be together, also what happened next, despite some barriers. It was believable and funny. Recommended.

I really enjoyed this book. It's about a couple who, on paper, shouldn't be together due to differences in age, education and social status. But they seem to work. The book starts just before the Brexit referendum and finishes at the start of 2019. It explores the many and varied views of both the Leave and Remain camps during and after the vote and there are some good discussions about the merits of both between some of the characters. The book also highlights the racism and ignorance experienced by black people, especially young black men.

The book is very well written, as you would expect from Nick Hornby. I'd recommend this book and can't wait for it to be published so others can enjoy it.

Set in the months leading up to the Brexit referendum in 2016, Lucy, a white 42 year old single mother of two, unexpectedly finds love with Joseph, a black 22 year old man of multiple part-time jobs. Just Like You follows the ups and downs of what an interracial relationship with a large age gap is like in a country getting more divided by the week.

I loved Nick Hornby’s early novels - High Fidelity, About a Boy and How to Be Good - but I lost interest starting with A Long Way Down (unfinished) and everything else that followed (Slam, Juliet, Naked) didn’t entice me back. It didn’t help that the screenplays he was writing were for some of the worst movies I’ve ever seen - An Education was an education in patience because it was torture to sit through!

But I decided to revisit Hornby to see if the old magic was still there and initially I was delighted to see that it was. Just Like You is a charming romance novel with an unusual setup and it was sweet to see Lucy and Joseph falling for each other. Some light conflict kept things interesting - Lucy’s drug addict/alcoholic ex showing up to cause trouble, Joseph being hassled by police for the “crime” of being black and in an affluent neighbourhood at night - until around the halfway point when things took a nosedive and never recovered.

The biggest problem is that Hornby doesn’t really have a story. Once Lucy and Joseph get together nothing much really happens. The ex disappears forever, and all that’s left are people’s reactions to the two appearing as a couple which gets repetitive and tiresome after a while. Joseph half-heartedly sees a couple girls and sorta tries making it as a DJ but neither go anywhere or mean anything. Lucy keeps saying things like “When you’re 50 I’ll be 70”. It’s so boring!

And then there’s the Brexit and racial stuff that clogs up most of the second half. I am so done with Brexit - I honestly never want to hear about it ever again, let alone read a novel featuring it prominently, and so having to read page after page of the same tedious arguments for leave/remain was so annoying. The racial angle is part of the reason why Hornby chose to write this book but a lot of the conversations Lucy and Joseph have about race are so contrived - Lucy says something, Joseph misconstrues it in this cliched “what do you mean ‘you people’?” way, and they make up, agreeing once again that Lucy isn’t really racist. No - obviously she’s not, so why does this sort of conversation have to keep happening?? Coupled with the Brexit shite and any enjoyment there was to be had was completely nixed.

Sure, race relations is a relevant topic, particularly in 2020, but Hornby doesn’t have to say about racism beyond it exists and it’s bad. Duh. It got so angsty in the second half of the book that I began to wonder why Lucy and Joseph were even a couple. Joseph gets on well with her kids and there’s obviously a physical attraction between him and Lucy, but the way Joseph kept bringing everything down to race/class made me think they shouldn’t have been a couple in the first place! It also made them less likeable as characters and they weren’t that amazing to start with.

I feel like Hornby really wanted to write a Brexit novel but was also aware that most people are fed up with hearing about Brexit so he got around it by conceiving Just Like You as a parable-esque novel about Brexit with Lucy representing Remain and Joseph representing Exit and taking the form of an appealing contemporary romance novel. Except Brexit and the near-constant banging on about class and race turns a fine romance story into dreary muck. It’s like he aimed for both and fell short twice so he fails at a romance story and he fails at a Brexit novel (even though the latter I’m pretty sure shouldn’t exist).

I’d have liked to have said that Nick Hornby was back to writing great novels like he did when he started out but, like other popular writers hellbent on being taken seriously and “literary”, Hornby sabotages what could have been a decent story firstly by dragging it out for too long without adding anything to justify the length, and then ignoring it altogether and choosing to focus on overbearing politics and ham-fisted social commentary instead.

By the time I got to the uninspired and flat ending, I was just relieved it was over and vowed never to bother with Hornby’s fiction again (his nonfiction Stuff I’ve Been Reading columns, collected in several books, remain the best things he’s written in recent years - if he restarted those, I’d read them, but only them). Just Like You is unfortunately just like poo.

Not having read Nick Hornby's books before I wasnt sure what to expect.
It's basically the story of an older woman and a much younger man. She gets rid of her drug using husband, sees joseph , who is her burcher, and has a bit of a fling with him via baby sitting et al. Once they had got together nothing much seemed to develop.
It's not a book for me, but than you to Net Galley for a review copy.

Nick Hornby at his very best - written with such empathy and style. This is your must read book of 2020.

As someone who has read 'Funny Girl' more times than they can count and adored 'Juliet, Naked', I was really excited to receive the eArc for Nick Hornby's upcoming novel.

The novel starts off strong, giving the reader a clear idea of the two main characters and helping the reader grow fond of them. On the one hand, we have Lucy, a 42 white middle class woman who's head of the English department at a secondary school; she's also a single mom but that has recently come out of an abusive relationship and is keen to start dating again and find a new partner. On the other hand, we have Joseph, a young black 20-something man who lives in Tottenham with his mother and has a 'portfolio lifestyle' to make ends meet while working on his yet-to-develop DJ career.

Considering that Hornby is a white man, I don’t feel that he’s necessarily well suited to write from the perspective of two characters with which he cannot identify, even if starting off with good intentions. The proof is in the pudding as beyond the first quarter of the book, the two key characters remain static: their internal worlds remain simplistic and unexamined, whereas I often got the feeling that the writer relies heavily on existing images and stereotypes from other (if not similar) works of literature, TV or cinema to help the reader picture the characters in action or their interactions with other people. Dialogue sometimes gets stiff and convoluted; in some occasions where it's not clearly stated who's talking, it's tricky to tell if it's Lucy's or Joseph's turn to say something.

Also, no clear answer is given to how this unorthodox but well intentioned relationship works after everything they’ve been through. This is not to suggest that I consider it unlikely, but I was expecting that since the writer chooses to put it in the centre of the narrative, to at least shed some more light into the relationship's inner workings - something more than 'we're taking day by day' for the reader to hold on to.

The question of interracial relationships might seem aligned with the ongoing conversation about Black Lives Matter and structural racism, but with social media and traditional press shedding light to a plethora of fictional reads by black writers who are more likely to give a realistic and accurate accounts of their experience, it’s hard to estimate how well-received Hornby’s story could be.

Some of the other reviewers here suggested that the focus on Brexit is a dated topic, especially considering the BLM movement and COVID-19. As the public conversation will have to come back to it eventually, I disagree but Hornby could have delved a bit deeper and get more specific. Both Lucy and Joseph seem open to hear both sides which is great (and rare!) but the processing of this input feels hastily written.

Usually I am a big fan of a Nick Hornby book but this one fell flat.
Nothing happens that hooks you in. The book kind of bobs along - younger man meets older woman and covers Brexit and Trump’s election.

Thank you to the Author, Publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book really didn't do it for me I'm afraid.
It was boring, I wasn't keen on the writing style and it was just far too political for what I thought was going to be a romantic comedy.
I suppose a clearer description of the book would make sure it went to the correct target audience, which I am obviously not.
It really did seem that the author just wanted to see how "woke" he could actually come across in one book!

Hmmm... I was excited to read a new book by Nick Hornby but sorry, this wasn't my kind of thing really.

I felt that I did engage with the characters but kept waiting for something to happen. It didn't!

Basically this is the story of boy-meets-woman (younger chap, older lady) and just drifts along and then... Well, the book ends. The only reason I kept reading was to discover if anything happened.

The story spans the time period of the Brexit vote and election of Trump, so not many laughs to be had.