Rating: 
Summary: Most Overrated Book of the Year
Review: This book had its moments, most of which have been amply described in printed reviews (the character shoplifting the salmon by stuffing it in his pants, and it begins to slide down to his crotch). But the notion that this is somehow an insightful look at family life is absurd. All one learns is that the author must be terribly bitter to write such mean-spirited prose and that he must have a real thing against his father.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy Sledding
Review: I received this book as a gift and thus felt duty bound to read it and report back to the giver my response.The first 30 or so pages were really tedious, -- I had to keep looking in my dictionary to find the meanings of the words describing Chip's life and activities. Because it was a gift I kept plodding on and endured the hideous and unlikely travails of Chip, Denise and Gary. Gary was a boor, Denise was unbelievably indiscriminate (albeit at times, wonderfully empathetic) and Chip was a flake and his travails unbelievable. What, thankfully, kept me going was my interest in Enid and her husband. The dynamic there was incredibly authentic and compelling. ... However, as stated earlier, Franzen eerily captures Enid's challenge in handling her husband's illness and one can feel and smell the environment of their home to the extent that one can understand why she sought, in desperation, the help of her inept offspring. The resolution of the book was fine with me but I do want to mention that I think the author was correct in refusing to have it on Oprah's list. Most folks, who weren't (or were) given it as a gift, would abandon it very quickly. I applaud the author for his action at withdrawing it from "her Book List" and I'm surprised Oprah actually put it on there. I would expect she'd have a better grasp of her readers'
capabilities. That is not meant as a put down, -- it is simply reality. I think that most folks who weren't English majors or Literary Critics would stop reading it pretty darned soon after starting it. While I'm glad I finished it, I would never recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it or hate it
Review: I think this is pretty interesting. I read the reviews after trying several times to read this book. I finally gave up after realizing it bored me totally. I just didn't care what happended to any of them. This is the type of book I usually enjoy but I found the writing pretentious and lazy. I finally gave up. The interesting part for me is that some people absolutely loved it and gave it a great reveiw and others felt as I did. Go figure. BTW, the American Beauty test didn't work for me. I liked the movie quite a bit but obviously didn't care for the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Go There
Review: This book was suggested for our bookclub because of the book critics review. However, not one of the twenty members of our club could even finish this book. A waste of time. The characters were uninteresting, did not capture anyones attention and the chilren were unbelievable. We are located in St. Louis and some of us knew the authors family. Where he got his characters remain a mystery to us. Boring and depressing.
Rating:
Summary: Year's greatest fiction??
Review: Oof! Jonathan F. obviously has his craft down, and the book flows quickly enough. but I would think that for a character driven novel, 500+ pages are enough to create people whose main traits aren't the face-value facets lifted off of poor shmucks parading themselves on day time talk shows. I felt none of the characters had any depth to speak of. I'm sure my parents would love to have my copy along side their countless Dick Francis novels.
Rating:
Summary: Would have been excellent at 2/3 the length
Review: I know this must be one for the ages because all the pros told me so. The National Book Club told me, Newsweek told me, The New York Times Book Review told me, of course Oprah told me, and every other profesional critic out there told me. I was interested therefore to see that out of 305 reviews (clearly a pretty broad sampling of Amazon readers), the average review was only 3 stars. I guess that the pros must have different standards and criteria than us hoi polloi. I gave it 3 stars as well, but not perhaps for the same reasons that others were critical. I had no problems with the disfunctionality of the family. Nor was I troubled by the unlikability of virtually all of the 5 protagonists or the fact that whatever redeeming virtues they each may have had were overwhelmed by their negative qualities. I could also live with the fact that the story is almostb relentlessly depressing. The fact is that, notwithstanding all of that, the author has presented us with an absorbing and thought-provoking portrait of a family in chaos and disarray. Each of the 5 Lambert's was incredibly well carved out, almost as if the author was right inside their heads. My major complaint however is that the book was just too darn long and, in my view, could have been told just as well in about 350 pages rather than 568 pages. The result of this surplusage is that there are numerous portions of the book which are simply boring or added little to the story and which could have been excised altogether. By way of example, I felt that the "At Sea" portion was way too long and almost all of the material on Chip' adventures in Lithuania was just boring. Clerly, the author feels that he has certain points that he wants to get across and it goes without that he thought that everything in the final draft was worth including. I simply don't share that view. I also felt that the substantial unnecessary length of the novel was a fairly serious shortfall. For that reason, and only that reason, 3 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it IN SPITE OF its being an Oprah selection
Review: Exceedingly well-written, thought-provoking fiction about family and how its idiosyncracies affect people's lives. This book deserved the National Book Award, which it won. Hopefully the medal replacing the ugly orange "O" on the cover will put the whole Oprah flap behind it. This is the best book I've read this year. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
Rating: 
Summary: Was skeptical but now . . .
Review: I was dead set on NOT reading this book. After the whole charade between the author, Jonathan Franzen, and Oprah I promised I would not read it. But, when I ran out of reading material and saw the book on my sister's bookcase I decided to read it. The book turned out to be a good read. The characters come to life and you start to feel for these characters and the situations they get themselves into. Some parts of the book get a little slow, but overall the book moves along quickly. The characters and easy to relate to and I'm sure every person that reads this book can relate the characters to somebody in his or her own life. Each section of the book takes one of the five characters in the Lambert family (Alfred, Enid, Gary, Chip and Denise) and talks about the life each one has had. The description of each person and the events in their life is very interesting. As times while reading the novel, I felt like a psychologist. This is a normal, everyday dysfunctional family trying to make it even though they live apart from each other and each has their own ideals and agendas. I found the book to very interesting and there are some twists and turns. I would suggest this book to anyone who enjoys reading about fictional but realistic storylines. This was definitely worth the time I took to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Not as Good AND Not as Bad As People's Hype
Review: Franzen's account of the Lamberts is terribly moving and harrowing in parts. His command over language has become more impressive since his last novel, "Strong Motion", and some sections are brilliantly and achingly told - such as Gary's inebriated struggle against his depression, Denise's adolescent acquiescence to loveless sex. There's no one writing today, in my opinion, that can best Franzen in deploying the omniscient third person narration. He deftly moves in and out of his characters' thoughts, molding them expertly with the social landscape/significance. Every individual thought and action of the character is made to hold a significant social, and even, metaphysical import. At the same time, Franzen's approach to his characters as an unbiased, omni-socially conscious narrator makes certain portrayals of the characters appear stock, and stereotyped to fit a certain mold. Even some of the most acute of observations seem this way at times. Enid and Alfred's failings especially are portrayed in this fashion, and makes Franzen's style seem manipulative. The plot of the book is meticulously thought out and weaved, and I'm blown away by the intricacy with which Franzen has navigated through the lives of the Lamberts. However, mechanisms aside, there really isn't a compelling 'story', and Franzen himself has made it clear that he was interested in the inner lives of these characters over a fictionally contrived story. But as I came away deeply impressed, immersed and moved by the novel, I don't see myself assessing it as a work that will monumentally change the notion of 'literary fiction' as some critics and author himself had mentioned. Certain self-conscious post-modernist touches are distracting as well. The Schopenhauer quotes in the middle of the book are needless and aren't half as pertinent to the character's thoughts as Franzen wishes them to be. Franzen didn't need to highlight the inclusion of these quotes, either. Patches of writing are alarmingly over-written. There are laundry lists of descriptions and ideas that go on and on and on... "The Corrections" is a movingly told downward-spiralling tale of the Lamberts. The characters come alive under Franzen's amazing account, and that alone merits much praise. But if you're looking for a fresh, authentic pioneering of fiction, look to the works of Sebald, or even George Saunders. This is merely an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: It's real to life and definitely worth reading to the end.
Review: I have never read a book that caused me to alternately love it and hate it. It was only because this is supposed to be the best book of the 21st century that I finished reading it, and I'm glad I did. The characterizations were so real, and the book reveals the truth about the decline of family and morals in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
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