Freedom

I liked it overall. Most of the characters were well-written and struck a chord. The plot was kind of silly at times, though. Also, the sole minority character in the book gets killed off towards the end for the sake of the plot (spoiler!). But Franzen must not be a fan of...mainstream television and movies, otherwise he would have known what a cliche that is. Or he didn't care? Also, I really hated Walter, but I don't think I was supposed to hate him, so this probably reveals something about me psychologically--like maybe I'm secretly afraid I'll become him. I didn't hate him for linking with a coal-mining company, though that was obviously not a great move. I hated him because he was irritating. Also, the preachy parts about birds and stuff were tiresome.

Listening to it as an audiobook, I couldn't pay as much attention to individual lines of prose, but a few lines still stuck out as poorly edited. There was a line in one scene that highlighted how Franzen is out of his element in writing about technology, or at least should have hired a few more editors. One teenage character wants to show Richard Katz a fan webpage, so he says "I'll get my computer to show you" that webpage, talking like it's the '80s and he uses his computer to talk to Inspector Gadget.

I mean, I still liked reading it.