Freedom in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Feb 03, 2011 Jane rated it really liked it

amazing. I'd give it a 4.5 really. I loved the characters and the sentences and the many ways in which the theme of freedom echoed throughout the book. So many problems with freedom. I don't think that all of the sections worked and balanced each other...too much about the mining/Walter's plans and dreams...too brief a tender conclusion. The parts didn't balance the whole. Also, I'm a little unclear about which part of the diary Walter read earlier, before he kicked his wife out of the house, an ...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Debbie rated it it was ok

I added this to my to-read list on Goodreads quite a few years ago, but it took me until the PopSugar 2016 Reading Challenge to get to it... and I only prioritized it because the challenge required an Oprah Book, and I didn't want to read any others on her list.

Initially, I started reading it with a book from the library, but I would only be able to read a few pages at a time before needing to reread those pages, or falling asleep, or just getting bored and wanting to close the book. The first I added this to my to-read list on Goodreads quite a few years ago, but it took me until the PopSugar 2016 Reading Challenge to get to it... and I only prioritized it because the challenge required an Oprah Book, and I didn't want to read any others on her list.

Initially, I started reading it with a book from the library, but I would only be able to read a few pages at a time before needing to reread those pages, or falling asleep, or just getting bored and wanting to close the book. The first 20-30 pages had a lot of characters, and it turns out that several of them were not important people later in the book... but I didn't know which ones would be, so I tried to keep track of them all.

This book is fairly epic in scope. Each of the main characters get their opportunity to tell their side of the story, always with an 3rd person limited narrator. However, the author plots each character's development back 2-3 generations, so the book really does have something of an epic feel in parts. However, because the characters really do tell their stories in depth, it puts their faults under a microscope so thoroughly that I really don't like any of the characters much. They were definitely honest depictions of real people's thoughts (or the things they refuse to think about themselves), but inhabiting 500+ pages worth of stories with the sad, petty, self-involved, greedy, hypocritical, angry, and manipulative people was difficult. If I never see any of those characters again, it'll probably be too soon.

It's important to note that I switched between reading the book, to listening to the audiobook, and then back to reading the book for the last 100 pages or so. The audiobook reader is great with accents, but his sarcastic, stilted William Shatner type reading added a level of cynicism to the narration and dialogue that may or may not have been intended by the author. Either way, the audio helped me get through the book faster and with less effort, but may have contributed to why I don't like the characters much, too. ...more

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Mar 10, 2014 Sam rated it really liked it

Really it's more of a 3.5 stars book - after not liking the characters but being drawn into their web of spite and feelings compounded by years of being unable to speak freely I finally got to the payoff of the book only to be let down by end, kinda like all the sexual encounters described in the book.

No one actually gets what they want and no one is truly free from the vicious cycle of parental damage, which is an imagined prison. All in all Franzen captures the knot of problems that befall a m ...more

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Nov 03, 2014 Megan rated it liked it

Shelves: finished-2014

While reading this tome, I kept thinking, "Boy, is this one messed-up family!" But really, in retrospect, I don't think they are any more or less messed up than anyone else. ...more

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