A review by mbellsamantha
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.

This insufferable music snob doesn't understand why women keep leaving him despite the fact that he is The Worst. I just read the plot summary on wikipedia and I'm glad I didn't continue because looks like Rob does indeed get an incredibly undeserved happy ending. 

The only hilarious thing about this book is Pete taking an entire line of it verbatim for a Fall Out Boy song. Whether Pete read the book or watched the movie, does he realize his band is the exact kind of music the characters would despise? Is this intentional irony? I like to think yes, but (my love for Pete Wentz wholehearted and forever) I'm betting no lmao.

For posterity, this passage was the final straw for me:

I tell Liz about Ian phoning me up, and she says it's outrageous, and that Laura will be appalled, which cheers me up no end. And I tell her about Alison and Penny and Sarah and Jackie, and about the stupid little flashlight-pen thing, and about Charlie and how she'd just come back from the States on business, and Liz says that she's just about to go to the States on business, and I'm amusingly satirical at her expense, but she doesn't laugh.

“How come you hate women who have better jobs than you, Rob?"

She's like this sometimes, Liz. She's OK, but, you know, she's one of those paranoid feminists who see evil in everything you say.

"What are you on about now?"

"You hate this woman who took a little flashlight-pen into the cinema, which seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you want to write in the dark. And you hate the fact that… Charlie?… Charlie went to the States — I mean, maybe she didn't want to go to the States. I know I don't. And you didn't like Laura wearing clothes that she had no choice about wearing when she changed jobs, and now I'm beneath contempt because I've got to fly to Chicago, talk to some men in a hotel conference room for eight hours, and then fly home again…"

"Well, I'm sexist, aren't I? Is that the right answer?"

You just have to smile and take it, otherwise it would drive you mad.

This weirdly smug lack of awareness. This is the end of a chapter like it's supposed to be some kind of mic drop. Imagine having written this. How incredibly embarrassing for you, Nick Hornby.