I’m afraid I didn’t think all that much of Just Like You. It’s perfectly readable but it all felt like very familiar terrain and didn’t add up to much in the end.
The story, set in 2016, is of Lucy, the white, 42-year-old Head of English at a tough North London comprehensive school and Joseph, a young black man, 20 years her junior who works in her local butcher at the weekend. They form a relationship and Nick Hornby explores the issues which arise. The trouble is, he doesn’t explore them very deeply or convincingly. It all meanders along amiably enough, but the background of Lucy’s privileged, wealthy North London acquaintances, awkwardness around race (and some out-and-out racism) and the Brexit referendum all seemed very stale. This is particularly true of the Brexit stuff, which has been extensively explored by a lot of writers and for me Hornby adds nothing new. Even the age-gap, class and interracial issues in Lucy and Joseph’s relationship seemed somehow rather trivially dealt with, so it felt more like a Richard Curtis romcom than much of an emotional or political exploration.
I also have to add a personal hobby horse. A head of department in a large tough school who has no work to do at home and limitless energy and time both in the evenings and at weekends? I’m prepared to suspend disbelief to a pretty large extent when reading, but there really are limits. Every such teacher is almost always either working, trying to cope with domestic demands or asleep. I will restrain myself from ranting further.
For me, Just Like You is readable but disposable and a long way from the insightful brilliance of classics like Fever Pitch or High Fidelity. I van only give it a very qualified recommendation.
(My thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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