The Books Behind the Summer's Best Movies
Check out the books that inspired the blockbusters and thoughtful indies of 2018. Read...and see!
By Mark Athitakis
6 of 9
Juliet, Naked
By Nick Hornby
416 pages;
Riverhead
Juliet, Naked,
out August 17, is a romantic comedy as
sweet as an acoustic indie rock song: Annie (Rose Byrne) is caught between a
burgeoning email relationship with Tucker (Ethan Hawke), an obscure singer/songwriter
who abandoned the spotlight decades ago, and a crumbling relationship with her
boyfriend, Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), a Tucker superfan. The film, like the book,
addresses the ways that meeting your heroes can be a letdown, and how finding
romance in middle age can be a steep challenge. The 2009 novel itself, though,
is captivating as a return to form for Hornby, who—just as in his
classic debut,
High Fidelity—captured
the odd ways that music geekdom intersect with romantic dreams, and how a
single song can create the kind of "mental turbulence" that changes
who we care for and how much.
— Mark Athitakis
Published 05/29/2018