High Fidelity
Artistic
Witty
Honest

High Fidelity

Nick Hornby1996
Follows the love affairs and belated growing up of a "Generation X" pop music fanatic and record store owner
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Reviews

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vanessa@ps_itsvanessa
5 stars
Feb 29, 2024

Brilliant. This should be required reading for everyone before they turn 30.

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Tobias V. Langhoff@tvil
5 stars
Feb 24, 2024

I was just dumped, so I bought this book on my Kindle. I've read it before on paper, about every time I've been dumped (I'm a serial monogamist), but on Kindle I can highlight and share all the witty sentences that Hornby never managed to replicate in any of his other books – this is the only Hornby book I like, but it's also one of the best books I know. It's still the best book to read for newly single and immature men with no direction in life. Especially if you read the first part of the book when you're freshly dumped, and then have a break and read the ending after a few weeks.

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Laura Mauler@blueskygreenstrees
5 stars
Dec 25, 2023

I liked it much better than the movie because it is fuller, more fleshed-out about why things are happening and what people are feeling. The fun and silly stuff from the movie is still there, and still funny, and somehow better because of the balance with the emotional stuff.

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Aamna@aamnakhan
4 stars
Dec 20, 2023

Had I known the movie was based on a book, and that too that it was just a shorter version of the book, with everything including the dialogues exactly the same...I would have totally read the book first. Though both the book and the movie are fun.

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Amelia Raptis@shmeils
5 stars
Dec 15, 2023

My new favourite book! I loved every sentence; that was up until the last one. Other than that half-assed ending, it was perfect.

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John Lopiano Jr.@jlopiano44
5 stars
Jul 17, 2023

Besides the fact that I see so much of myself in the main character, this book really excels at having characters that are incredibly grounded in reality. Sometimes when I’m reading books about relationships, it all feels too much like a story and you know whether the ending is going to be really sappy or really sad; or even if you don’t know, it kinda sucks when you finally get there because you feel like no real person would act the way those characters are acting. I love that this story never gets to that point. You genuinely empathize with both sides of the relationship. You see the good, the bad, and the ugly in each of them. It’s real.

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Daniel Carril@daniblues
4 stars
Mar 30, 2023

Como bien dijera en su día la usuaria de Goodreads Núria: recomendado para "los inmaduros que hemos escuchado demasiada música pop".

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Gavin@gl
3 stars
Mar 9, 2023

Loved it at the time, probably because I was Rob, as a teenager (emotionally incompetent, hooded by vivid insecurity, monomanaical about music).

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Liana@liana
5 stars
Nov 17, 2022

High Fidelity hits me like a shared late-night conversation and an overflowing record bin. Hornby pours out love, career woes, and life's mixtape like the author's my bartender and I'm drowning my sorrows in relatable honesty. Not a perfect mirror, but damn if the reflection doesn't make me laugh and nod in recognition.

+5
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Elda Mengisto@eldaam
4 stars
Oct 12, 2022

"My genius, if I can call it that, is to combine a whole load of averageness into one compact frame. I'd say that there were millions like me, but there aren't, really: lots of blokes have impeccable music taste but don't read, lots of blokes read but are really fat, lots of blokes are sympathetic to feminism but have stupid beards, lots of blokes have a Woody Allen sense of humor but look like Woody Allen" (28). The main protagonist, Rob, describes himself this way as he goes through a list of his top five most memorable split-ups of all time. This prologue highlights the number of quirks which ended his previous relationships, from not being allowed to touch Penny Hardwick's breasts to his drama with Charlie, who looked like "the one who got away". Told in the second person to Laura, it sets the stage in his life after he "split up with girlfriend; junk college; go to work in record shop; stay in record shops for rest of life" (25). I honestly expected the whole book to be several chapters with top five lists, to show how Rob and Laura's paths cross again. Hornby doesn't do this; instead, he intersperses them with his misadventures working at his record shop, lamenting about life, and hooking up with the American singer Marie LeSalle. I like how it works here, especially with his writing style. You could get a feel of what is going on in Rob's head, and how he sees the world. For example, "It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. If I lived in Bosnia, then not having a girlfriend wouldn't seem like the most important thing in the world, but here in Crouch End it does. You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film..."(74). This combination works well in one of the climatic scenes in the novel, where Rob and Laura talk after "getting back together": "As a human being. You have all the basic ingredients. You're really very likable, when you put your mind to it. You make people laugh, when you can be bothered, and you're kind, and when your decide you like someone then that person feels as though she's the center of the whole world, and that's a very sexy feeling. It's just that of the time you can't be bothered" (265). That being said, I'm curious about the pacing. Around 2/3 of the way, I was wondering if Laura would return, as is suggested in the blurb. My general vibe with how Rob goes through the book almost seems like he was waiting for something to happen, even though he goes out of his way to try to reconnect with those whom he broke up with. It slowed down the pacing a bit, until he finds out Laura's father died. Overall, I enjoyed "High Fidelity" for its writing style and its commentary on a mid-thirties man wondering about love and life. The ending was well done in terms of connecting everything together, which can get a bit frayed in places due to characterization issues. However, it's not a read you want to miss, especially if you like music and love and life (7.5/10)

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Alfredo santos@alf
4 stars
Aug 26, 2022

it`s a must read for nostalgic and music loving men out there.. a must and will make you laugh and realize a big WTF

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Patricia Macías García@quillrain49
1 star
Aug 2, 2022

I don't want to hear about this book anymore

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Julia R. Santos @julesreads
5 stars
Jun 18, 2022

The first book to truly keep me up at night, thinking, wondering, longing for its words. As a big fan of the movie version, which keeps the essential sulky light-heartedness of the book, but fails to deliver the delicious “British-isms” and internal monologues, I was beyond pleasantly surprised by this much too short novel. I am grateful for the way in which it has been told. Several times, I became the terrible Rob. I felt Dick’s social anxiety. I was Liz and Laura and next thing I knew I was a part of the story, and the book was a part of me. Not often is such an amusing work held up so close to your face like a well-lit mirror at four-thirty after a party you have no idea why you went to; It shows you all the pores and spots and provides amusement, bemusement and catharsis. You root for the villains and the heroes and then lose track of who’s what. Please do yourself a favor and read this book. You’ll emerge from it a distinct and seriously entertained being.

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Sabetha Danes@aconitecafe
5 stars
Mar 27, 2022

i can't believe it took me so long to read this book. I'm obsessed with John cusack so I discovered the movie as I own all of his movies and fell in love with it instantly as it combined two of my favorite things, him and music. but even though this is one of the closest book to movie conversions I've come across, the book is laid out brilliantly. I'm not going to rave about all the bits I loved just read the damn thing because it's only 200ish pages. p.s. I still dislike Laura.

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Sarah Escorsa@shrimpy
2 stars
Mar 8, 2022

I just finished reading this book but can't say I really enjoyed reading it... I just didn't manage to get into the story and didn't like the characters much...

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Erin Noel@erinhnoel
5 stars
Jan 9, 2022

I'm ashamed I've waited so long to read a book this awesome. I'd hope I wouldn't date a guy like Rob if my real life depended on it, but I fell in love with the way Nick wrote his character. I couldn't put this book down!

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Olivera Mitić@olyschka
2 stars
Nov 24, 2021

It's really a 2.5 read. This is one of those times where I'm mad Goodreads doesn't have half star ratings, because rounding up is just the worst option ever.

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Gemma Craig@bambam89
4 stars
Sep 3, 2021

Just like the film which I loved! Really enjoyed the book.

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Erifili G@erifili
3 stars
Aug 12, 2021

Hmm okay mixed feelings about this! I picked it up specifically because I had to recover from A Little Life, so I needed something very light, easy to read, and far from sad. For that, it was perfect because it was exactly the kind of pretty indifferent book that helps you get over a very impactful book. This was the first book by Nick Hornby I've ever read, and I liked his writing style and how realistic his characters are! I just also felt that there wasn't really anything to this book to make it special, and I struggled to see how some people have rated it 5/5 stars, just because it's very simple and doesn't really make you feel anything. To me, books that don't make you feel or learn anything are rarely good enough to get 4 or 5 stars. I wished I'd been able to connect with the characters in this book a bit more, although I appreciated how honest and how realistically created Rob was as a man, that was truly fun to read. I'd read more of Hornby's books, this one left me with a good impression overall, but I'd probably like something a little bit more memorable.

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Max@ffitch
3.5 stars
Mar 3, 2025
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Virginia L@virgi
3 stars
Jan 7, 2024
Photo of Shari Ilg
Shari Ilg@shari
4 stars
Nov 30, 2023
+5
Photo of Austin Wagner
Austin Wagner@wagneram
4.5 stars
Nov 3, 2022
+3
Photo of Julia Kouwenhoven
Julia Kouwenhoven@juliakouwe
3.5 stars
May 1, 2022

Highlights

Photo of Shari Ilg
Shari Ilg@shari

When I nestled into Laura's back in the night, I was afraid because I didn't want to lose her, and we always lose someone, or they lose us, in the end. I'd rather not take the risk.

This highlight contains a spoiler
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Shari Ilg@shari

But most of all it has prevented me from sticking with a relationship, because if you stick with a relationship, and your life becomes dependent on that person's life, and then they die, as they are bound to do, unless there are exceptional circumstances, e.g. they are a character from a science-fiction novel ... well, you're up the creek without a paddle, aren't you? It's OK if I die first, I guess, but having to die before someone else dies isn't a necessity that cheers me up much: how do I know when she's going to die? Could be run over by a bus tomorrow, as the saying goes, which means I have to throw myself under a bus today. (…) To me, it makes more sense to hop from woman to woman until you're too old to do it any more, and then you live alone and die alone and what's so terrible about that, when you look at the alternatives?

Page 188
This highlight contains a spoiler
Photo of Shari Ilg
Shari Ilg@shari

After a couple of cups of coffee, however, I realize that this sort of thinking is not profitable, that it is, in fact, likely to drive me potty, and I decide to arrange something positive instead.

Page 162