Point of View

Hornby tells the story from the point of view of the main character Rob Fleming, and as such, it is unreliable. One of the main reasons is that Rob's character is very self obsessed, so everything that happens effects him directly and he thinks it happens because of him. For example, before he meets Marie he gets jealous because he sees her sharing her microphone with T-Bone. His self-obsession can also turn into self-hatred, yet at the same time this self-hatred is a style choice with all the vanity that this suggests. He is happy communicating to the reader how miserable he feels about breaking up with Laura, constantly asking her if she has had sex with her new boyfriend Ian, but the reader has to wait for Ian to phone to know that he has been waiting outside his house.

In other words, Rob desires...