Resumo de About A Boy

Bottom Line Up Front: Book is better than the movie, but they?re both hilarious and touching.
Do not read ?About a Boy? without diapers on, because you may laugh so hard an embarrassing accident could occur. This is a common hazard when reading Hornby?s novels and ?About a Boy? is no exception. What makes Nick Hornby?s books so funny are that his characters are so human, so stupid, and so selfish. Eventually they all attempt to make something good with the messes they have made of their lives. The attempts are usually awkward and half-hearted, but hilarious and moving nonetheless.
The story?s protagonist is an unusually lazy and self-centered thirty-six-year-old British man, Will Freeman; not a terribly sympathetic or engaging character at first, but one who draws you in with his wit and slowly revealed underlying decency. Because of family wealth, Will has no need to work and has never held a job or pursued any serious project or ambition beyond courting women. He discovers that there is an untapped market of desperate, beautiful single mothers that are looking for casual sexual relationships to build up self-confidence and dating experience after disastrous marriages. To tap into this market, Will makes the cunning ploy of posing as a single parent himself and preying on single mothers at a support group. He is so despicable, self-centered and British he is hard not to love right form the beginning. Honestly, he is just the man I would want to jump in bed with after a horrible divorce, especially if he looks like Hugh Grant.
Despite his best attempts to live the most fabulously indulgent and irresponsible life possible within his means, Will gets caught up in the family drama of Marcus and Fiona. Fiona is a depressed single mother whose failed suicide attempt catalyzes Marcus, her son, to force a relationship with Ronald, under the philosophy that ?Two wasn?t enough.? Ronald is Fiona?s worst nightmare of a mentor for her son. As a vegetarian and hippy, Fiona is the total opposite of the hip, free, and apathetic Will. Nonetheless, against Fiona?s wishes, Marcus doggedly tries to build a relationship with Will that becomes more big-brother than father-son to give Marcus security missing in his relationship with his mother.
The book becomes dangerously philosophical at one point when the depressed Fiona questions what Will has to live for. She demands purpose in every speck of her life and betterment of society in action she makes. But even while raising a son, eating vegetarian, and recycling she feels hopelessness towards life. Will on the other hand, who has no family, no job, and no ambition in life lives for no other purpose but the pursuit of his own happiness and feels nothing but pleasure in his life. The book questions the common assumption that a purpose driven life brings satisfaction and happiness. It just so happens that a dosage of hip and social apathy is what the bully-plagued Marcus needs for survival in middle-school, and a touch of earnestness and emotional responsibility is just what Will needs to bring some meaning into his life and relationships with women. Don?t worry, though, Will doesn?t become so caring or responsible and that he loses his biting wit. The fun he pokes at an un-cool twelve-year old, a suicidal single mother, and his own string-free life bring waves of guilty out-loud laughter out of the most earnest reader.

B.L.U.F. = The book is an enjoyable, quick, and hilarious read. If you liked the movie you will like the book and vice versa.

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