Book Reviews
In Funny Girl, Nick Hornby uses the story of a reluctant beauty queen from Blackpool as the hook for a rambunctious cultural history of British television comedy 50 years ago. As befits a novel about a popular sitcom, this novel packs in lots of laughs, but it's also got more heft than Mr. Hornby's readers may expect
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Funny and fast moving, perceptive and sharp.
Los Angeles Times

A smart comic novel that...induces binge-reading that's the literary equivalent of polishing off an entire television series in one weekend.
NPR


Beautifully captures the thrill of youthful success and of discovering your own talent.
Daily Telegraph (UK)


Funny Girl may be read as Hornby's latest defence of popular entertainment against high-culture elitism. Funny Girl makes his case for him eloquently and entertainingly...both hugely enjoyable and deceptively artful.
Spectator (UK)


I loved this hymn to the 1960s, their infinite creative possibilities.
Scotsman (UK)

 
Endearing, humorous and touching. Hugely enjoyable.
Sunday Mirror (UK)


Engaging...Hornby’s fictionalized evocation of the era is spot-on.
Entertainment Weekly


[A] light, fond, funny tale by the author of About a Boy…[a] fizzy delight about the likable oddballs who populate showbiz.
People


Theera and the theme (surfing the crest of a revolution, then getting dumped in its wake) are pure Mad Men, but the pulpy warmth and sprightly dialogue are classic Hornby.
Vulture


(Starred review.) Hornby wonderfully captures the voice and rhythms of broadcast television of the time, and seems to delight in endless inversions of art imitating life imitating art.... The result is a delightful collection of characters that care as much as they harm, each struggling to determine who they want to be.
Publishers Weekly


For a novel about comedy, the humor is off camera, implied but not evident. Hornby's usual spark is missing. A readable but melancholy and definitely not funny book. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Art and life are intertwined in a novel about TV sitcoms set during the cultural sea change of the 1960s. Hornby's...most ambitious novel to date extends his passion for pop culture and empathy for flawed characters in to the world of television comedy. "It's funny, and sad—like life." And like this novel.
Kirkus Reviews