LISA: I really liked this book, though it was just about characters. There is no story, really, and from time to time Franzen gets on a soap box about various and sundry things. I must say he has me a little freaked out about population! It is about a family, though they are never actually really a family in the story. More individual characters tied together by blood. But they have little interaction with each other. It's hard to explain, but I would definitely recommend it.
HALLIE: I went from strongly disliking the "autobiographer" of this book to really enjoying it and back and forth for the entire story! As said above there really is no storyline and it jumps around but it has this way of keeping you sucked in and wanting to continue to see what happens. And yet then there are some passages where it was all I could do to keep myself reading. I wanted to throw my kindle against the wall at some of the actions of the main female character, Patty. I wanted to slap her son Joey at most points in the book and then he ends up being an actual decent guy! Overall every character, story, and thought in the book is a contradiction and you go can't decide between wanting the book to last forever or finishing as soon as possible! And it's very long already!
Oh yea, I also feel very strongly about only having two kids now and that's just because at some point i'd like to have kids! haha, the population scare is strong in it!
