High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Growing up has ruined my life - at least as far as media consumption is concerned.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
What I Like: the record store setting, the side characters, it’s well written, but honestly, the film adaptation did most of the heavy lifting for me because I love John Cusack.
What I Don’t: the writing style was a bit much on its own, lots of eyerolls and I absolutely despise Rob
Trigger warnings: Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Death of parent, Racism, Rape, Abortion, Ableism
What’s funny about High Fidelity is that I expected it to be a five star read and maybe it would have been had I read this book in college, around the time I first saw the film adaptation with John Cusack. The year was 2005 and I was head over heels for John’s portrayal of the toxic, flawed but somehow lovable Rob as he took us through his meticulously curated top 5 lists of his life. However… I did not read this in college. I read this last month, as a fully grown woman deep in her 30’s. A mistake was made.
As I said, the story follows a man named Rob who is fresh out of a break up with his long time, live in girlfriend, Laura. Rob owns a record store and is passionate about music. He has an ever growing record collection that takes up a ton of space in his house. He is a chaotic, flawed, problematic and passionate man who curates his collection and his life by way of Top 5 lists. The book opens to him the night of his break up with Laura, she has left and Rob proceeds to walk us through his “desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order” a list that Laura does not make.
These were the ones that really hurt. Can you see your name in that lot, Laura? I reckon you'd sneak into the top ten, but there's no place for you in the top five; those places are reserved for the kind of humiliations and heartbreaks that you're just not capable of delivering. That probably sounds crueler than it is meant to, but the fact is that we're too old to make each other miserable, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing, so don't take your failure to make the list personally.
Those days are gone, and good fucking riddance to them; unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money. If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.
This excerpt shows a bit of Hornby’s writing style as well, cluttered and blunt. I honestly didn’t mind it because I had the film to refer to and John Cusack embodies this energy so well but had I never seen this movie, the writing would’ve given me anxiety.
As we continue on, Rob keeps the story moving forward with more looks to the past - the people who hurt him, the mistakes he made, his hunt for answers and closure. We meet his friends/coworkers at the record store he owns which, again, were made lovable by the casting on the film. Barry in particular because Jack Black is one of my true loves.
I do like this book but I love the movie and a lot of that has to do with timing. When I watched the movie in 2005, I was in love with Rob and his grungy, directionless existence because I related to it. His toxic, selfish behavior and whiny diatribes toward love, music, the world in general appealed to me because I, myself, was toxic, whiny and selfish. His passion cut through all of the bad stuff and made him endearing to a teenager. But here’s the thing… Rob wasn’t a teenager. Rob was 35. Guess who else is 35 now…
I have to tell you… Rob’s appeal went way down as I began catching up with him in age and life. I could go off on a tangent right now about how younger women have been indoctrinated by media to overlook and excuse immature, toxic behavior in men for decades but I won’t. I just think this High Fidelity and the formats and times they entered my life are a prime example of how growing up, learning about yourself and the kinds of things you are and aren’t willing to accept or overlook greatly changes the way you consume and enjoy media.
All this said, I do think this book is well written and a layered, interesting story. I hated the characters and found myself rolling my eyes so much I got a headache, but I don’t have to like the characters to have a good time. I still think this is a good book. I just also think it’s funny to compare my personal reception to the different formats. The 2000 movie was red hot, the book I read in 2023 was lukewarm. Growing up is so weird.
I would still recommend this book to you if you like the chaos of unlikable characters in a slice of life fiction. I would maybe even recommend enjoying it in tandem with the film. I think John Cusack does a lot for the likability factor.