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Freedom

Written by: Jonathan Franzen
Narrated by: David Ledoux
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Publisher's Summary

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What, exactly, is Richard Katz - outré rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival - still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor”, an implacable fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?

In this instant number one best-selling novel, Jonathan Franzen charts the mistakes and joys of these intensely realized characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world. An epic of contemporary love and marriage, Freedom is a deeply moving portrait of our time.

©2010 Jonathan Franzen (P)2010 HarperCollins Canada
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What listeners say about Freedom

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soso

the book is hard to follow and understand what it is talking about. Overall its okay to read if you enjoy books in a social context way

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    1 out of 5 stars

A long time spent with people I hate

The narration was excellent.
Unfortunately this a very long novel about characters that are loathsome, AND boring.
I wanted to hang in there to at least find out what, if anything happened, but ultimately I left early, just as I would do from a party attended by these characters.

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I tried to like this book and I just couldn't

I was excited to see the length of this book because I thought that it might lend time to really develop a great cast of characters and an interesting storyline. I was sorely disappointed. All of the characters in this book fell flat for me. I couldn't relate to a single one. I've thoroughly enjoyed books without relatable characters before but the characters in this book weren't even interesting. I found myself more annoyed than anything. In terms of the overall story, at the twentieth hour of listening I still didn't know if there was really a story to the book other than each characters day-to-day grappling with their own "freedom". I really tried to like it. I listened to the whole thing. It just didn't happen for me. Unfortunate waste of a free credit.

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3 people found this helpful