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A review by ashley073
Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen
4.0
The thing I hate about Jonathan Franzen's essays is that they always make me want to read OTHER books. Like- the man writes about so many different books/writers that my mental "to-read" list just gets longer and longer as I make my way through his book!!
In all seriousness, this was a pretty good collection. The pieces I liked, I LOVED- the pieces I didn't like...well, they were normally pretty short and didn't get in the way too much.
Standouts:
Pain Won't Kill You
Farther Away
The Greatest Family Ever Storied
No End To It
The first three pieces were undoubtedly my favorites, but the entire book was pretty good.
The end of the book felt kind of sloppy and just...pointless. Like a lot of filler material was thrown in at the end with the shorter pieces. Our Little Planet and Our Relations were terribly boring for me and I was thrilled when I realized how short they were. Interview With New York State was frustrating as well, but quite a bit longer.
So I guess I wouldn't actually recommend the entire book, because there was a LOT of skippable material in here...but the good parts were so incredibly good that this still easily earns 4-stars from me.
I have no doubt that I'll be returning to the first two pieces time and time and time again.
In all seriousness, this was a pretty good collection. The pieces I liked, I LOVED- the pieces I didn't like...well, they were normally pretty short and didn't get in the way too much.
Standouts:
Pain Won't Kill You
Farther Away
The Greatest Family Ever Storied
No End To It
The first three pieces were undoubtedly my favorites, but the entire book was pretty good.
The end of the book felt kind of sloppy and just...pointless. Like a lot of filler material was thrown in at the end with the shorter pieces. Our Little Planet and Our Relations were terribly boring for me and I was thrilled when I realized how short they were. Interview With New York State was frustrating as well, but quite a bit longer.
So I guess I wouldn't actually recommend the entire book, because there was a LOT of skippable material in here...but the good parts were so incredibly good that this still easily earns 4-stars from me.
I have no doubt that I'll be returning to the first two pieces time and time and time again.