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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. [...]
Three in the afternoon was a time of danger in these gerontocratic suburbs of St. Jude. [...]
Ringing throughout the house was an alarm bell that no one but Alfred and Enid could hear directly. It was the alarm bell of anxiety.
Beautifully written. Took me forever to get through, mostly because I couldn't stand most of the characters. Which kinda is the appeal. Such a human book. Incredible.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Great story though a lot of times I felt like I was being told too many things about too many irrelevant situations
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A story of a rich and complicated family. I’m not as interesting as any of these characters but that’s part of the fun. Also it’s hell to get old.
I read Freedom first. This is equally monumental, although more basic and primeval. Amazingly, the timeline is only a few months (unlike Freedom's decades). I love a similar thing in both, which is how he looks over and over and over again at the Thing he is exploring - in this case, corrections - can you correct your past? Someone else's path? A misstep? An impression? Your vision? Your neural circuitry? And for all of these, there is the companion question he shares with his dead friend David Foster Wallace - should you?
Oh, and sometimes I forget how good a writer he is (the plot is so compelling I lose sight of that) but there is one passage I loved so much - when Enid and Albert are on their cruise and it is nighttime and Albert and Enid are each suffering in isolation, and Franzen spins out a beautiful parallel between their lives on one hand, and - on the other - the dark skin of the sea barely dividing its mountain-high depths from the air.
Oh, and sometimes I forget how good a writer he is (the plot is so compelling I lose sight of that) but there is one passage I loved so much - when Enid and Albert are on their cruise and it is nighttime and Albert and Enid are each suffering in isolation, and Franzen spins out a beautiful parallel between their lives on one hand, and - on the other - the dark skin of the sea barely dividing its mountain-high depths from the air.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Some of the strongest, most well-written characters I've ever read in a novel. They felt like real people.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced