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Summary: Brave Oprah
Review: Oprah was brave to pick a complex, demanding novel about the contemporary landscape. This is a great book. It digs into the complexities of family life in a corporate, media culture--a culture that barely seems to leave room for free thinking. Even less room now. Aside from being extremely fun to read, the book does have a plot. It moves along in several movements, like a fine sonata, and ends up giving the reader a complex and beautiful sensation of cohesion. Sour grapes will appear. The hipsters will lament the success of this book. They'll look away from its grand beauty. They'll poke it until it pops. But the book is good and worthy. It is what it is. It isn't Naked Lunch, but then Naked Lunch is the only Naked Lunch.
Rating: 
Summary: Great American Novel? Who cares!
Review: Great book. If you are a reader of serious fiction...not fluff..then buy it you will enjoy it.
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Summary: uncorrected
Review: Like the first chapter of the last book in Updike's Rabbit trilogy, the last chapter of Connections is brilliant and makes all your petty annoyances with the flashback -after-the -punchline technique go away. To find that you actually understand and sympathize with the father character (Al)after being exasperated with him throughout the previous chapters takes your breath away. Surely there cannot be an older woman who doen't identify with the character of Enid in some aspect of her life, personality, and challenges.
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Summary: Lives up to the hype
Review: I admit that I was gearing myself up to hate this novel. But in spite of the inordinate amount of hype and a slight annoyance at the author's arrogant personality, I realized on page one that this was going to be one knockout of a book. It's easier to detail the failures of a bad book than accurately praise the triumphs of a good book, so I do find myself with little more than superlatives to describe The Corrections. It does so many things so well. But at its heart, this novel is built on the five central characters--characters that are described, observed, and built-up almost perfectly. And they're all really annoying, idiotic people (like the rest of us). There's no one here that we have much sympathy for, and yet we want to follow their stories nonetheless. This alone is testament to the author's skill as a storyteller. I do feel the book lagged a bit in parts of the second half. The tension and pitch of the prose seemed to wane or be slightly off. But the last hundred pages had me gripped again. I read dozens of literary novels a year, and this is one of the best I've come across in a long while.
Rating: 
Summary: I Don't Think So
Review: This book did not hold my attention for too long. He expounded on topics that he didn't need to and didn't expound enough on topics that actually interested me. He attacked family values just as hard as he could, and provided no resolution to anything. Sometimes as American people, we confuse reality with negative ideals. Right, there is no perfect family, but glamourizing adultery, tyranny in marriages, no respect for children or parents, just contributes to the confusion and disarray that corrupts today's family. We should make a conscious effort, as writers, to work towards rebuilding a positive foundation. With more people reading than ever before, we have to be careful about the messages we are sending across. I hold no ill will towards Jonathan Franzen, just what he wrote. GOD BLESS, Tamara Ward
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Insight
Review: Jonathan Franzen has brilliant insight into the psyche of the traditional role of a mother as we know it. Where does his exactling knowlegde come from? He raises many if not all of the socially important issues of the last few decades in a sometimes page turning zeal.
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Summary: Not the Rob and Laura Petrie family, for sure
Review: The itchy sex and the post-cold war corruption add spice to the story, but it is the family pathology that made the pages burn my fingers. I shifted from thinking, "People aren't this weird." to "Sure they are; remember that Christmas when . . ." If the book itself doesn't win the National Book Award, the flashback dinner table scene gets the 2001 chalk-on-a-blackboard prize. Franzen did top notch research. Read carefully his description of railroad rights-of-way. You'll learn a lot about something that you see everyday but don't think about. There's a lot of that sort of thing in this good read.
Rating: 
Summary: An Exercise in Vocabulary
Review: I wonder if Jonathan Franzen had a thesaurus by his side as he was writing this book? It seems so - and he dipped into it a bit too often. While some may call this writing style "poetic", I found it to be heavy laden with obscure wording which did not move the plot forward in any meaningful way - and in some cases, provided an obstacle to that movement. The characters were difficult to like, the situations they found themselves in pathetic (if not mystifying as to purpose) and at book's end, I found myself wondering - "So what was the point of telling that story?" Admittedly, I read this book as it was recommended by Oprah Winfrey... Now that I've read it, I can't say I understand why she would recommend it... Not an enjoyable read...
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Summary: I laughed out loud and cried out loud
Review: The man can write. He taps the pulse of life today - family, love, job, ambition, disappointment. It's all there. I recognized and enjoyed being with the characters. They're human. What can I say. And he knows them inside out. I liked Alfred, so human, so flawed. And, in the end, so sad. But my girl, Enid, is a survivor. Bravo! The upshot of it all is that everyone is struggling, trying to be happy and do the right thing at the same time. And, it's hard! Can't wait for the next book. Can't wait to read his first books.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, brilliant, problematic
Review: Much of this book is fascinating to read, as it is funny, psychologically insightful and creatively literate. I would happily call it a great American novel if not for some serious problems, which in my mind, keep it from achieving that higher level. I found the constant level of anxiety and the degree of self-centeredness of most of his characters to grow wearisome and indicative of a too pessimistic outlook. The plot also falters at several points where he allows his characterization to grow thin just when it would have benefited from some additional dimensionality. Aside from these drawbacks, it is impossible not to be impressed by Franzen's talent as he describes a Midwestern nuclear family lurching along like a mini-juggernaut through adulthood and old age, making corrections at every step. One question of this book is whether or not the three adult offspring can rally to their parents' aid even though they resent much of what their parents stand for and their own lives are running dangerously off course. Each life is put up for examination, but most poignant is the fate of the father who is developing Parkinson's disease, still entrenched in rigid values while making end-of-life decisions. Franzen has a lot to say about each of these issues in a story that has never before been told quite like this. Based on this book's remarkable strengths, I recommend The Corrections as long as you don't mind overlooking some flaws in order to experience a great talent at work commenting humorously, but very seriously, on modern life.
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