Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
Jonathan Franzen got too cocky about being labeled an author who can capture the current American zeitgeist that he overdid the "topical-ness" of it. Also the le1o9n8a0rd chapter was so caustic and bitter that I found it pretty difficult to get through.
Couldn't make sense of this book until halfway through when everything began to piece together. It was a bit tedious to read and I found myself skimming through it to get to the story. I read freedom and the corrections, but this may be his last book that I read.
It is rare, but it happens: I gave up on this book (page 83). It isn't for me... and there are far too many books out there to read to slog through the rest of this one.
I managed to finish this book even though I didn't enjoy 90% of it. I hated all of the characters and why were all of the mothers so unstable/smothering/horrible? The writing was fine but lacked emotion or grace. The one redeeming quality is that I liked the ending.
This is another excellent Franzen book, though I enjoyed Freedom more. Purity seems an exploration of lives mostly unpure, and a journey to correct that. Franzen's writing is always engaging, and his stories compulsively readable. The best parts of Purity are the sections about the supporting characters. Their lives are where I was most lost in the book. Pip is not all that likable to me, or her mother. But, taken together, Franzen weaves the novel's cast into a success.
I got about a quarter of the way through this one before taking a step back and realizing I was wasting my time forcing myself to read a book that was getting on my nerves. A lesson I learned the hard way from finishing A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I did skip ahead and read the last chapter, and I find it mystifying that Pip's happy ending includes getting together with the coffee shop creep from Chapter 1 - I guess Franzen doesn't see him as a creep?
While it's not perfect by any means, where it's good - complex and intriguing characters, commentary on our social media and fame-worshipping culture and the high-tech “gig economy" - it's great.
This book took me forever to get through, and I blame Andreas Wolf for that. I couldn’t get into anything coming from his perspective. Didn’t enjoy the portions from Tom’s perspective either—something was missing in the portrayal of Annabel’s power over him, causing that relationship (and Tom’s first person narratives) to fall flat.
But Pip! She was great!
But Pip! She was great!
I still like Jonathan Franzen, even though I'm not too keen on how he writes female characters. Not quite as good as The Corrections or Freedom, but still a good read.
