Review - Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Time taken to read - gave up after 1.5 days and 83 pages



Blurb From Goodreads



Both a page-turner and a work of art... an almost perfectly written novel' — Sarah Sands, Evening Standard



This is the story of the Berglunds, their son Joey, their daughter Jessica and their friend Richard Katz. It is about how we use and abuse our freedom; about the beginning and ending of love; teenage lust; the unexpectedness of adult life; why we compete with our friends; how we betray those closest to us; and why things almost never work out as they 'should'. It is a story about the human heart, and what it leads us to do to ourselves and each other.



My Review



This is only the second book I have ever gave up on. I just couldn't get on with the way the book is written. The story starts with a group of neighbors and their relationship with each other and their children and their arguments. They way they engage with each other was just grating for me and mostly arguments and there didn't seem any path the story was going, I just couldn't follow it.



Then the story moves to Patty Berglund (one of the neighbours from the first part) as an autobiography type as advised by her therapist and goes to when she was younger. Again it just didn't work for me, she is attacked and her and her parents attitude to it is bizarre at most and then it just simply moves on to yet another bizarre relationship with a girl from college.



My heard was bursting reading this and after trawling through 83 pages I just had to give up. It isn't something I have ever said but I am not sure I would try anything else by this author and if I did it would be a long time from now to get over this brush. His writing just isn't for me although he has won lots of awards and does have fans out there, 1/5 for me as I didn't complete the book.

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