Its kind of shocking how much you don't read when you spend most of your days sightseeing and most of your evenings drinking wine from a box. Who knew?

One of the few things I have read while I've been here is something I've been meaning to read forever. Nick Hornby's Long Way Down. Its the story of four misfits who meet up when they all head to the top of the same building to jump off it one New Year's Eve. It doesn't sound very funny, but it actually is pretty hilarious.

Martin, Maureen, Jess and JJ all have very different reasons for being there, but they're all four pretty screwed up. Martin is a former TV show host, just out of prison for sleeping with a 15 year old (she told him she was 18) divorced and unemployed. Maureen has been looking after her vegetable of a son for the last twenty years and just doesn't think she can do it anymore. Jess is an incredibly angry 18 year old, mad at the world since the disappearance of her older sister three years ago. JJ has finally realized that he'll never be the rock star he always imagined he would be.

The four decide to form a club, to see them through till they decide to try again. Which leads to some pretty great laughs, as per usual with a Hornby novel. My only complaint about the book at all was the character of Jess. Who seemed suspiciously like an angry teenaged boy. Other than that though, it cracked me up but good.

Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
ISBN 1594481938
352 pages