This is actually very interesting and funny book at the heart of it, but you really need to slog through the first few parts in order for it to make sense and have any of the pieces fit even remotely together. If you are the type of person that needs to have a novel make sense from the get go, this is not the book for you.

There are parts at the beginning that feel wholly irrelevant and initially they really are irrelevant. It’s probably true that Franzen does give a few too many unnecessary details in these backstory parts. They almost feel like short stories (and they probably could have been, had the editor been a little more strict). It’s easy to get a little lost in these details and it’s hard to see the importance of all of this stuff without having the full picture and scope of the story. But by around page 300 it gets complex and things start coming together, and I finally found it worth it because I saw the connections and the relevance of all of the details that were mentioned before. Well, maybe not all of the details. But a lot of them! And that’s why while I think it’s worth pursuing to finish it, it’s certainly not a perfect book and not a five star read because it goes to too many places but in a shallow way.