⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (trigger warning at the bottom)

I’ve been going back and forth on how I should rate this book.

On the one hand, it was very, very St. Paul and that was kind of fun to read about, but it might have made me biased. Then I felt like the relationships between the main characters were too messed with too much cheating for me to be into it.

This is very much a character-driven book and if that’s a draw, then you’ll probably love it. As expected, Jonathan Franzen’s writing is compelling and fun(?) and you find yourself asking, “why do I care about these people?”, because it really is bewildering how invested you get in their lives.

I feel like Minnesotans will get a kick out of this book (depending on their triggers) but I wonder if this has the same appeal outside of the Twin Cities - especially for women.

This is a super weird review to say that I liked it, but like with the characters, I really did have to ask myself, “why do I like this book?” Because I really do.












TW: R-pe, cheating