About a Boy by Nick Hornby
Review by: Candi

The boy in question lives with his divorced, single, liberal, hippy mother who has suicidal tendencies. He's picked on and teased relentlessly at school for wearing the wrong clothes, thick glasses, having a bad haircut, and humming Joni Mitchell songs. He finds an adult friend in the most unlikely of circumstances, a GQ kind of guy who hates kids, but reluctantly takes on the task of trying to guide the boy into fitting in, which his mother doesn't understand because she thinks fitting in is conformist and calls them sheep. It's about losing parts of yourself but gaining others.

I have absolutely no idea why the story drew me in like it did, considering I had nothing comparable happen to me when I was a kid, but it was witty, albeit heart-wrenching at times.

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