A review by readhikerepeat
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

4.0

The book, in a nutshell, is about a socially conscious set of parents and their two children, who, by all appearances, live a pretty idyllic life, at least until a series of events catapult them into a new life. Distanced from their son, socially awkward with their daughter, and reliant on the reliability of their relationship so far, Walter and Patty Berglund enter middle age with not a clue as to how they got there or where they are going. The best way I can describe them is to compare the family to a delicate piece of china that begins to fracture and fall apart after a cumulation of dings that were overlooked at the time that they occurred. Freedom tells the story of this disintegration, starting with Patty (the jock) and Walter’s (the nerd) childhoods and straight through to middle age.

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