Richard Novak is a modern day everyman, a middle-aged divorcee trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good job getting his life under control that he needs no one, except his trainer, nutritionist and housekeeper. His life has slowed almost to a standstill, until two incidents conspire to hurl him back into the world. THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE beautifully captures the strangeness of life through its depiction of the weirdness and instability of LA, a surreal city of earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, feral chihuahuas and doughnut-sellers with big dreams. And it reveals what can happen if you are willing to open up to the world around you. Since her debut in 1989, A. M. Homes has been among the boldest and most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her storytelling. Her keen ability to explore how extraordinary the ordinary can be is at the heart of this touching and funny new novel, her first in six years.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
65 of 72 people found the following review helpful
By M. Dean
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I thought this book was fantastic!
The book is an easy read, and I found it very difficult to put down. It's about Richard, a wealthy but lonely man in LA who needs to do something more with his life. You don't feel particularly sorry for him, but get intricately involved in his life, as he develops a friendship with Anhil, who sells donuts and provides wisdom, and from there seems to pick up people along the way who are in need of a friend, as is he. The people he meets are very interesting, and vividly described, so that they become your friends too. The book also explores Richards relationships with his family; his brother, parents, ex-wife and son.
As it's set in LA it also describes how life differs there - the Beverley Hills way of life, with constant sunshine, a focus on looking good, eating healthily and 'being someone'. (Its references to Malibu Beach and Santa Monica and the pier brought back great memories of a holiday I went on to those places last year).
Ultimately however, it shows that people are all individual human beings who need friends and need to be loved, and it doesn't matter where they come from or how rich they are, they all have the same needs.
It was a joyful, uplifting book, which didn't preach, but just told a story which was funny to read and sad to have finished. So quickly over! Read it in the depth of winter to cheer you up and bring sunshine into your life, or on holiday as an easy, relaxing read. It will fit the bill.
The book is an easy read, and I found it very difficult to put down. It's about Richard, a wealthy but lonely man in LA who needs to do something more with his life. You don't feel particularly sorry for him, but get intricately involved in his life, as he develops a friendship with Anhil, who sells donuts and provides wisdom, and from there seems to pick up people along the way who are in need of a friend, as is he. The people he meets are very interesting, and vividly described, so that they become your friends too. The book also explores Richards relationships with his family; his brother, parents, ex-wife and son.
As it's set in LA it also describes how life differs there - the Beverley Hills way of life, with constant sunshine, a focus on looking good, eating healthily and 'being someone'. (Its references to Malibu Beach and Santa Monica and the pier brought back great memories of a holiday I went on to those places last year).
Ultimately however, it shows that people are all individual human beings who need friends and need to be loved, and it doesn't matter where they come from or how rich they are, they all have the same needs.
It was a joyful, uplifting book, which didn't preach, but just told a story which was funny to read and sad to have finished. So quickly over! Read it in the depth of winter to cheer you up and bring sunshine into your life, or on holiday as an easy, relaxing read. It will fit the bill.
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It is a long time since I have read a book until 3 in the morning, well this one did it, for 2 nights running.
It is a very strange book and I will not go over the story again, just to say it is very original. I enjoy books when I care about the characters. I found myself caring about all of the characters in this novel, and even now I wonder how they are doing. That is what this book does to you. It is like looking through a big window, at a group of real people and taking a few snapshots at their lives.
At first Richard seems to be a pathetic, geeky wimp, but without trying too hard, he gradually changes. It is a coming of age novel, except that the main character is in his fifties. But because he appears to have been hibernating for so long, coming of age at his age, is okay. Richard doesn't try to be nice, he is nice. The remaining characters cannot help but like him, and he, them.
Despite all the negative things you hear about the folks of 'la la land' this novel reminds you that there are nice/different people everywhere. Please read this book, keep an open mind and it will make you smile and lift you.
It is a very strange book and I will not go over the story again, just to say it is very original. I enjoy books when I care about the characters. I found myself caring about all of the characters in this novel, and even now I wonder how they are doing. That is what this book does to you. It is like looking through a big window, at a group of real people and taking a few snapshots at their lives.
At first Richard seems to be a pathetic, geeky wimp, but without trying too hard, he gradually changes. It is a coming of age novel, except that the main character is in his fifties. But because he appears to have been hibernating for so long, coming of age at his age, is okay. Richard doesn't try to be nice, he is nice. The remaining characters cannot help but like him, and he, them.
Despite all the negative things you hear about the folks of 'la la land' this novel reminds you that there are nice/different people everywhere. Please read this book, keep an open mind and it will make you smile and lift you.
36 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I, personally feel that this book would have slipped through the net if it hadn't been for all the hype attached to Richard and Judy book nominations.
It was an easy read, but left me feeling a bit empty, like I wasn't sure why I'd bothered.
We meet Richard Novak, a reclusive on-line investor, as he starts to show all the signs of the onset of a heart attack. As a result he is forced to leave his enclosed world as he calls an ambulance and goes to hospital. This seems to have been a bit of a wake-up call and he decides to change direction and make something of his life. Then it all starts to become a bit unbelievable as one calamity after another hits his house and he becomes a bit of a local hero / superman figure. The odd bit of assistance here and there would have been fine, but to have managed quite so many good deeds and heroic actions in such a short space of time was rather stretching belief.
The one aspect of the book that I did enjoy was the repairing of bridges between himself and his son, who he'd left with his wife after the break-up of their marriage.
The finale is suitably over-the-top, a fitting end to a strange book.
It was an easy read, but left me feeling a bit empty, like I wasn't sure why I'd bothered.
We meet Richard Novak, a reclusive on-line investor, as he starts to show all the signs of the onset of a heart attack. As a result he is forced to leave his enclosed world as he calls an ambulance and goes to hospital. This seems to have been a bit of a wake-up call and he decides to change direction and make something of his life. Then it all starts to become a bit unbelievable as one calamity after another hits his house and he becomes a bit of a local hero / superman figure. The odd bit of assistance here and there would have been fine, but to have managed quite so many good deeds and heroic actions in such a short space of time was rather stretching belief.
The one aspect of the book that I did enjoy was the repairing of bridges between himself and his son, who he'd left with his wife after the break-up of their marriage.
The finale is suitably over-the-top, a fitting end to a strange book.
23 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By John Self
Format:Paperback
On the penultimate page of This Book Will Save Your Life, the protagonist Richard Novak thinks about a story he has been told and wonders:
"Was there some larger meaning - was it a parable, an allegory, or just a story?"
It's clearly intended to apply to the novel itself, which is quite one of the strangest things I've read in some time. On the one hand, all the events are dealt in a deadpan, somewhat blank prose, so there's a benevolent straightforwardness to it all. On the other hand, many of the events are highly implausible, and it is only the style which keeps it from seeming either forced or - the dreaded - 'quirky.' For example at one point Novak finds himself on the television news helping a movie star to rescue a horse from a subsiding hole in the ground outside his Los Angeles home. Ah, his home:
"Above and below, a chain of houses climbs the canyon wall: a social chain, an economic chain, a food chain. The goal is to be on top, king of the hill - to win. Each person looks down on the next, thinking they somehow have it better, but there is always someone else either pressing up from below or looking down from above. There is no way to win."
And it must be this realisation which has jolted Novak's body out of its routine, and broken him away from his controlled, orderly and efficient life as a market trader ("placing his bets, going long and short, seeing how far up or down he can go, riding an invisible electronic wave") to fill him with an excruciating physical pain. This is how the novel begins: with the sudden crushing pain - never diagnosed - which sends Novak to the emergency room and out into the world, into the mess and fuss of humanity, for the first time in years.... Read more ›
"Was there some larger meaning - was it a parable, an allegory, or just a story?"
It's clearly intended to apply to the novel itself, which is quite one of the strangest things I've read in some time. On the one hand, all the events are dealt in a deadpan, somewhat blank prose, so there's a benevolent straightforwardness to it all. On the other hand, many of the events are highly implausible, and it is only the style which keeps it from seeming either forced or - the dreaded - 'quirky.' For example at one point Novak finds himself on the television news helping a movie star to rescue a horse from a subsiding hole in the ground outside his Los Angeles home. Ah, his home:
"Above and below, a chain of houses climbs the canyon wall: a social chain, an economic chain, a food chain. The goal is to be on top, king of the hill - to win. Each person looks down on the next, thinking they somehow have it better, but there is always someone else either pressing up from below or looking down from above. There is no way to win."
And it must be this realisation which has jolted Novak's body out of its routine, and broken him away from his controlled, orderly and efficient life as a market trader ("placing his bets, going long and short, seeing how far up or down he can go, riding an invisible electronic wave") to fill him with an excruciating physical pain. This is how the novel begins: with the sudden crushing pain - never diagnosed - which sends Novak to the emergency room and out into the world, into the mess and fuss of humanity, for the first time in years.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it in a weekend
I love it. I read it without being able to stop. It is so well written with a story a bit off the wall which touch you and make you smile all the way trough. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Sylvie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved this book
Richard is searching for redemption/ the meaning of life in the surreal setting of LA. Fantastic mix of the ordinary and extra-ordinary.
Published 24 days ago by Eileen
2.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't really get into it
I struggled to be gripped by this book. I have found it quite a task to finish.
Not for me, sorry!
Not for me, sorry!
Published 28 days ago by Ktt14
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Uniquely Satisfying Book
This is a uniquely satisfying book - the right balance between ordinary coincidences and the fantastic. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Hugo Minney
1.0 out of 5 stars
This Book will NOT save your life
What an irritating book. Writing by numbers, LA style 'xanax-prose'. Style over substance. Superficial characters and story. Read more
Published 1 month ago by bubba b
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best new writer for me.
This is why we pursue fiction. A fresh voice to me, and I am now impatient and eager to read everything she has written. It is an easy read, but a wily and deceptive one. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Peter Kettle
3.0 out of 5 stars
life not changed
easy read but not life changing for a 32 year old female. funny and okay to read but by no means life changing
Published 2 months ago by anon
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strange, meandering little book. Good for book clubs.
This is an unusual book. A guy gets a wake up call and the book follows the next few weeks of his life, which are full of twists and turns. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mrs. P. Buckley
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its not what you think
Loved this book ! it was not what I expected at all. Was hooked from the first page. Would recommend this to anyone who likes a light hearted read.
Published 2 months ago by carol taylor
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hole in the middle
Despite the gimmicky marketing-ploy title, this makes a promising start. Fifty-something Richard has used his wealth gained in the finance industry to create a self-contained... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Antenna
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