“Not my cuppa char really. I found it very hard to connect with the characters and the story, which is told in two parts and felt disjointed.
When I met the author she explained that it had intended to be a novella, when she read it back it lacked something, so she wrote a second part and tried to combine them.
Not for me but what do others think who may well appreciate the story line?
Score 4.5/10
Date read June 2011
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“Can’t make my mind up if I like this book or not. Oliver Tate is 15 years old, he is a tag along bully, has his first proper girl friend, his parents appear to going through maternal crisis, sound like my growing up!
It could be a more adult Adrian Mole, felt a bit like Curious Incident of the Dog. I found some parts entertaining and funny, others a touch padded out.
A quick read (just as well). I’m meeting the author soon so I’ll have to see how he describes his novel.
Score 4/10
Date read April 2011
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“An interesting experiment of a book – creating the future by writing a rant from a disillusioned London taxi driver.
Time shifts between modern day where Dave has a relationship which goes wrong, he becomes estranged from his wife and banned from seeing his son. Skip to the future 500 in the year of ‘Our Dave’ where a society has been formed based on the ranting of modern day Dave.
Its taken me a year to read it and I’m glad its finished. I met Will Self and promised him I wouldn’t give up after he said it would get easier, it didn’t but I did. The tricky part is the futuristic mockney…my advise is to read it out loud.
Score 7/10
Date read April 2011
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“Although I didn’t read The Corrections I will go back and do so.
Critics rate Freedom as inferior, I can’t judge that yet but can say I enjoyed Freedom a lot.
Not a quick read at nearly 500 pages, and can get a bit stodgy in places.
This isn’t a plot driven novel, more a family saga of Patty/Walter/Richard etc. What Franzen achieves is to detail all of the characters and make none of them likeable, the book works because of it.
Don’t give up on it. Our book group loved it and couldn’t stop discussing, we also scored it at a high average for the group of 7/10
Score 8/10
Date read February 2011
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