peigethesage • read

"About A Boy" was a favorite movie of mine when I first watched it as a young teen. After reading the book as an adult, I really wish young me read this 10 years ago. I was worried that the movie would carry too much weight, but aside from hearing Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult's voices narrating the story, the book version was able to thoroughly get inside the two characters' heads, which is something that wasn't expressed as well on film. The story hit home for me in so many ways, from growing up as that socially awkward teenager, being raised by a single mother whose views were not so different from Fiona's—just swap hairy jumpers with ethnic-type jumpers, though I'm sure Fiona owned a couple of those herself; to the doldrums of dating and the existential crises that come with aging. This has been both a nostalgic and refreshing read; my past self colliding with the present. Would have given it five stars but took out one star for the one-too-many Nirvana references.