Robert Webb (2) (1972–)

This book is EVERYTHING.

The End.

I know I need to say a bit more about it but really it just has it all going on. It's no secret that I love a time travel book so this one was a must read for me. By page 33 I had laughed and cried and I knew this was going to be a pretty special read.

Kate is dealing with grief and she's struggling. Her husband, Luke, has died after 28 years together. One day she finds herself back in 1992 on the day she first met him. Knowing what she knows now she thinks she show more can change the course of time.

This is the sort of book I want to make notes on as I read. I rarely do that. It made me ponder on the fragility of life, the idea that our fate might be pre-ordained by what's already inside of us. I really enjoy the way time travel gets me thinking.

I loved Kate. I loved how she defied all the barriers of stereotyping in 1992 and 2020. I also loved that she was only a year older than me and so I could really take myself back to 1992 along with her. I thought the author excelled with his supporting characters too; a bunch of more eclectically fabulous people you couldn't hope to find.

The book is divided into three parts: Kate now, in the past, and then returning to the present. I have to say I was not sure how the author could possibly sort out a certain issue in part three and I was just starting to really worry when he pulled it back with aplomb. Not an easy thing to do, wind up a time travel story, but I thought it was superb.

In case you hadn't guessed, I loved the whole damn thing. Robert Webb is a talented writer. I haven't read his memoir but I suspect I would like it, and I'd definitely read any future novels that he writes. He has a wickedly funny blokeiness to his prose but also writes feelings so well. Highly recommended! show less

The plot of this novel (bereaved wife goes back in time and meets her future husband 'for the first time' again, except that in her mind she is in her 40s and he is 18) should have been off-putting to me. I don't read time travel novels (not that this was exactly time travel) or paranormal stories or any type of speculative fiction. Nevertheless, I loved this novel. Perhaps it was because I also met my now husband very early on in our time at university. As I said, the time shift elements show more weren't taken too seriously (and the logic of them doesn't hold up to scrutiny anyway), but there was a lot of humour throughout, and also parts that made me think. I especially liked the paragraph where the bereaved heroine Kate realizes that being widowed changes the way you age: you and your partner meet when you are young and age together, and

'there's a part of you that sees yourself through their eyes - a part of you that is still eighteen. And when they die [...] you start to see what other people see instead.'

I loved the section where Kate meets all her university friends again on the first day of term, but in different circumstances from the first time around, and panics about changing the course of history. Toby was lovely and that whole strand was very pleasing to me. The final section was more or less a mad romp and went on too long for me, and the very ending was confusing, even in the context of it not actually necessarily having been time travel, but I would read this again. show less

I thought I knew what I was getting with this. The title and cover design channel Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman, which left me squirming in scandalised delight several years ago. And, to some extent, I was right; but Webb’s book takes the celebrity-does-gender-studies memoir to new and much darker regions. Written with fearsome honesty, it’s a ruthless exposé of what British society does to its young men, but also a tale of what it’s like to grow up in a world where you simply show more don’t fit in. It’s a humorous, frank and thought-provoking counterpart to Moran’s book, a welcome view from the other side of the gender barricade, and yet at the same time a completely different beast. Reading this, I feel (to some degree) as my male friends may have felt on reading Moran. Ahead lies terra incognita. And there may be dragons...

For the rest of the review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/02/20/how-not-to-be-a-boy-robert-webb/ show less

I guess my introduction to this book did taint me somewhat as I had been led to believe it was a takedown of toxic masculinity. It's not.

It's a pretty readable autobiography of someone who did some boy things and some things boys don't do, but it's the Guardian "oh that's nice" version of tackling masculinity rather than anything truly reflective or groundbreaking.

As it stands, it's a very readable, enjoyable autobiography of a man who worked hard to get to Oxbridge, and had some difficulty show more in the way. And then the final chapter is a essay on what needs to be done to reach table stakes in dealing with gender equality.

I can see why this sounds worthy to Guardian readers and revolutionary to others, but it's an autobiography. Anyone familiar with the shows Webb has written will be familiar with the self-defacing, gentle style, with the occasional curve ball, and it succeeds at fleshing out the man behind those shows.

Just don't expect it to change your world. show less