This Book Will Save Your Life

I'm a bit amazed at the overall middling reviews for this book, which from my perspective is a nearly perfect novel. It's funny, wry, and consistently surprising, with a view of the big questions of life that will get you thinking. The characters are excellently drawn. It kept me awake until five in the morning. I wish I had 500 more pages of the book to read.

Yes, it has a surreal feel, but comparisons to Pynchon are off the mark, I think. The surrealism here is a kind of frosting on a base of realism; it's necessary to capture the very real absurdity of life in modern America, and particularly in Los Angeles, the most surreal of modern American cities. But unlike in Pynchon, whose openly satirical names, plots, and characters serve a show more goal of reflecting The Modern Condition, here the focus is purely on the central character, a very real figure, and the central dilemma of his life, which is his alienation from himself in response to emotional trauma. It's a dilemma that I would hope many readers would find easy to understand and identify with.

For all its wackiness, drama and adventure, this is a book with a gentle heart that has lessons for those who are open to them. I could hardly recommend it more. show less

Richard Novak is in his mid-50s and has led a mostly insulated life. He is wealthy but has no social relationships, even with his son and ex-wife. One day after an unnerving health scare and the sudden appearance of a huge sinkhole in front of his swanky LA home, he suddenly awakens to the world around him. With the help of a runaway wife and a donut shop owner, he begins to connect, discovering the various joys life can offer. Yes, it sounds a bit precious but in this author’s capable hands it really works. It is also a perfect California novel, with all the fads and other idiosyncrasies that the Golden State is known for.

I do not read a lot of fiction: if it were all as good as this, I would.

They say everyone has a book in them; well, Amy Homes has stolen mine! I do not know how she got into the oblique neuron links that are the only place that it existed, but she has definitely stolen my magnum opus. I cannot be offended, however because, even I have to admit that she has done a far better job of committing it to paper than I could - even in my dreams!

The book has that brilliant combination of being light and humorous, whilst hitting you like Mohamed Ali at his prime. This is the book of the human condition: it sets out how we all feel about life. Our hero, Richard Novak, has died, not physically, but internally. Suddenly, he becomes aware of what he show more has done and tries to put life to rights. It is not as simple as it seems to do the right thing and everything does not go smoothly, but by at least trying, he rejoins the human race.

This is one of those strange books that chose me, rather than the more usual system. I picked it off my shelf of unread tomes and wondered why on earth I had bought it: it is not my usual fare but I am very glad that I did. If the name A.M. Homes means as much to you as it did to me, then you are lucky - GET OUT THERE and find her books and read them - as the Frosties tiger might say, "They're GRRRRRR-eat!!!" show less

Buckle up. Quite the satiric romp, (very funny yet also moving). We follow Richard, a privileged, self-absorbed man who trades stocks and lives a very isolated life on the west coast. When things suddenly start to go very wrong (Emergency Department-visit-inducing pain and the appearance of a sink hold on the property of his cliffside home) Richard's adventures begin. We watch him reconnect with his east coast family, his neighbours, strangers, and--most important--himself.

This was my first A. M. Homes book, and I'm afraid she just isn't in my wheelhouse. There was some solid writing, but the book has a fundamental flaw. Presumably, the narrative is meant to showcase the resurrection of the main character's humanity. He suddenly begins engaging with the world around him after a health crisis. The message seems to be that he is living a better, more connected life. But the things the character does are highly correlated with his wealth and entitlement - very few people could engage with people in the ways he does, and the solution always seems to be for him to throw a stack of cash at the problems he sees. The rich, whiny, and self-importance with which he goes about this new life overshadowed the better show more nature of the message of human connection and memory. show less

Sorry Richard and Judy, I just couldn't finish this one. Not because it was bad - on the contrary I was quite intrigued for the first third. But the intrigue never really went anywhere - random things happened which made me feel like something was about to kickoff, but it was all a bit _too_ random, and unexciting as a result.

I can see why people either love or hate this book, and for me it just didn't gel.

Maybe my life doesn't need saving.

This was a light, refreshing read. Populated by surrealist situations and characters just on the near side of believability, This Book Will Save Your Life sometimes erred on the side of being too frivolous. On the other hand, the voyage of Richard was poignant and extremely applicable to modern times. Richard starts the novel as a perfectionist, number crunching, rich business man, who only eats the healthiest, most organic, of foods and has no real connection to other humans at all. Through the introduction of increasingly wacky characters including an Indian donut baker with a penchant for puns, a lonely housewife, a rich movie star and Richard's even more self-absorbed ex-wife, and even more wacky situations (kidnappings, all-white show more houses, horse-filled sinkholes and silent retreats), Richard learns to reach out and embrace the world. My only other complaint, beyond the twee-ness of several scenes would be the way that the only way Richard actually manages to meet so many people and free himself from the banality of life is by being incredibly rich, which kind of undercuts the message. show less