Hornby's a good writer, so the book goes by fast and is entertaining, but that is a different thing from saying it's "good". To me at least, "good" means something permanent: Am I going to remember this book? Are people still going to read this book 50 or 100 years from now? Did I learn something from the book that I can apply in my own life?

This book doesn't fulfill any of those criteria. It's full of dumb people acting even more dumbly. Hornby's portrayal of teenagers seems forced and unnatural; they seem both childish and too mature at the same time.

The skateboarding seems thrown in for no purpose other than to try to make the book more "hip": it has absolutely no purpose in the plot and could be replaced by any other hobby without changing anything else.

So, definitely a minor Hornby.