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“[A] light, fond, funny tale…about the likable oddballs who populate showbiz.”
— People
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“Hornby’s fictionalized evocation of the era is spot-on.”
— Entertainment Weekly
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“Hornby’s fluency in script-like breeziness and crisp banter makes Funny Girl a pleasurable read. So does page after page of perfectly timed and delivered humor, the subtle and understated kind, that starts with the first line.”
— USA Today
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“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 fifty 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.”
— New York Times
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“On the surface, this Funny Girl is about a working class English girl who comes of age as a TV star in the days of Carnaby Street, the Beatles, and the musical Hair; what it’s also about is the way the world turned over for everybody—but especially actors and writers—in that explosive era.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review
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“Endearing, humorous, and touching. Hugely enjoyable.”
— Sunday Mirror (London)
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“A smart comic novel that…induces binge-reading that’s the literary equivalent of polishing off an entire television series in one weekend.”
— NPR
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"Funny Girl may be read as Hornby’s latest defense of popular entertainment against high-culture elitism. Funny Girl makes his case for him eloquently and entertainingly… both hugely enjoyable and deceptively artful.”
— Spectator (London)
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“I loved this hymn to the 1960s, their infinite creative possibilities.”
— Scotsman (Edinburgh)
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“Hornby wonderfully captures the voice and rhythms of broadcast television of the time…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 (starred review)
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“The Oscar-nominated screenwriter and bestselling novelist takes readers back to the swinging London of the 1960s in this winning portrait of a British sitcom star…From the producer and writers to the co-stars and critics, Hornby captures all the elements of TV comedy in its heyday.”
— BookPage (Top Pick)
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“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…Hornby makes the reader care for his characters as much as he does and retains a light touch with the deeper social implications, as women, gays, popular entertainment, and the culture in general experience social upheaval.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)