A review by denimclature
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History by Jonathan Franzen

3.0

As memoirs go, this was fine (and short), but not exactly revelatory. There were some amusing vignettes to help turn the pages, but Franzen's disjointed style, combined with his distracting affectation of referring to all of his childhood/high school friends - male and female - by their last names (would you refer to the girl you had a long-standing, but unconsummated, love for as "Siebert"?) and the occasional ludicrous bit of writerliness ("girls with wavy album- art hair and personalities that were sweet the way bruises on a peach are sweet" - what does that even mean?), conspire to make this not the most recommendable book I've ever read.