This is a book I wish would have many sequels. I started to deliberately slow down my reading of it because I didn’t want to lose the characters.

A “know it all,” cynical and editorializing novel about an American family which feels like it has such an agenda, it borders on the absurd at times. It sweeps too broadly with its tired stereotypes and judgmental rendering of how families work. If one character or one family or one couple were screwed up, ok. But Franzen acts like everyone is dysfunctional, selfish, cruel and predictable. It’s a downer and just wrong.

Couldn’t wait for it to end

This is a book I read slowly, so it wouldn’t end. The human insights and brilliant prose are impossible to describe well. Not for everyone, but my favorite novel since The Goldfinch.

This is the first Jonathan Franzen anything I have read. His skill as a writer, a novelist, is incredible. "Freedom" is simply not something I enjoyed. It is voyeurism into a fairly mundane American family's life. That is all.

Like no story I've ever read before. Franzen's clean and concise style seems to articulate even the most complex thoughts and feelings...effortlessly. The characters are so deep and real and diverse, that it is impossible for the reader not to relate (or at least understand), in some deep way, to every one of them. As a 25 year old, it exposed to me obvious truth... That life does not get easier just because you're an adult. It stays as weird and scary and confusing as any other time in your life. No book explains that better than this one. Loved the book.

Perhaps, having just finished Freedom, I should wait before heaping it with praise. And yet the kinship that I feel with its author, his grip on the reins of my heart, demands hearing. Bravo!

Great book, well written. Presents many thought provoking issues

This is not a bad book but certainly not a great one. Interesting but way too long so a bit disappointing overall...EAF

I picked up this novel out of curiosity and I'm glad I did. This book is amazing on many different levels. I enjoyed reading the Berglunds growth and there ups and downs as a family and in their personal lives. The dialogue exchanges are purposeful and don't come on as forced. The characters are intriguing and make you wonder what happens to after the end of the novel.