By: Nick HornbyH2BG starts out as a pretty depressing read actually - Kate is in a miserable marriage, married to David, "The Angriest Man" (according to his newspaper column), and is in the middle of an affair with a guy she could really couldn't care less about. Just when things couldn't get any worse- they do. Because David suddenly becomes "nice", and that just makes things harder.
David becomes a model citizen and all-around-good guy when he visits GoodNews, a faith healer. The irony of course, is that he visited the faith healer with the intent on pissing off Kate. However, David and Goodnews strike up a friendship and then set about on devising a plan to save the world, or at least, make it a much nicer place. This makes things even more difficult for Kate.
H2BG changes tone around the time that David makes his transformation, and becomes a reflection on all the denial of harsh realities that makes middle class life possible. It does this quite well- Hornby uses David's over-zealousness at doing what he can to help others to show how this willful ignorance is what holds society together, but also that being mindful of it doesn't help either.
One of the nice little things I enjoyed about this book is a passing reference to the character of Dick in High Fidelity. He has a small inconsequential cameo. Sometime I think that these little self-referential moments are nothing more than ego-boosts, but there is something fun about that recognition of a character from another book. Its like spying someone you know on the street. Hey! What are you doing here?
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