School Library Journal Review
At 23, Pip is trying to pay off her enormous student loan by working at a glorified call center job. She's so poor that she stays with other squatters in a dilapidated house in Oakland, CA-so maybe Pip can be forgiven for coming across a tiny bit hostile. Unfortunately, she has developed the qualities of an emotional leech, constantly seeking approval from father figures in a pathetic attempt to fill the void left by her own unidentified father. Then two Germans show up at her house, and Pip becomes part of a decades-old tangle of stories that link her mother to her father and to the enigmatic Andreas Wolf, an East German expat with a terrifying interior life. The individual tales are epic, nonlinear chronicles that brush up against one another, leaving tantalizing traces of what remains untold. Pip's mother is a mysterious personality despite her overbearing possessiveness. And Wolf has an obsession with a journalist named Tom Aberant. All of these people are vitally connected to Pip, whose youthful mix of intelligence, cynicism, and desperate yearning will hook teens. Readers with an interest in history, politics, and the implications of social media will enjoy the characters' intellectual discourse. Recommend this extraordinary novel to teens ready for a complex yet engaging read that delivers international events and trends with the same insight as the best nonfiction but is peopled with figures who will be impossible to forget. -VERDICT An exceptional introduction to fine literature for mature teen readers.-Diane Colson, Nashville Public Library, TN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In his latest, Franzen spins an intricate narrative web, which includes a murder in Berlin, stolen nukes in Amarillo, a WikiLeaks-like operation based in Bolivia, and a billion-dollar trust. Franzen renders half a dozen characters over the course of six decades, via extensive origin stories that plumb their psychological corners. The audio edition demands a great deal from its three readers, all of whom rise to the occasion in navigating Franzen's weighty prose amid such a complex plot. Stage, screen, and audio veteran Baker, who narrated the abridged audio edition of Franzen's The Corrections, packs a powerful punch in the middle section of the narrative, giving voice to adventurous, erudite journalist Tom Aberant and his colorful family life. Lamia shines as young Pip Tyler, a down-on-her luck recent college graduate who stumbles upon an international intrigue in her quest to solve the mysteries of her childhood. Petkoff, who comes on the scene in the later sections of the recording, does a masterly job of recalibrating characters and events from earlier in the story. A Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Does anyone have truly pure intentions, or are most people motivated by their own needs and desires? This is one of the questions posed by Franzen (The Corrections, Freedom) in his provocative new novel, a book rich with characters searching for roots and meaning in a world of secrets and lies. Pip (Purity) Tyler is burdened with college debt, a minimum-wage job, and a needy yet withholding mother who lives as a recluse under an assumed name. The identity of Pip's father is a taboo subject. Enter the shadowy, Julian Assange-like CEO of the Sunlight Project, Andreas Wolf, purveyor of all the Internet's hidden truths. With less than pure objectives, Wolf offers Pip a researcher position at his South American headquarters. An improbable sexual cat-and-mouse game between them causes a temporary drag in the narrative, but once Pip returns stateside and is embedded in the offices of an online journal, Franzen reveals moments of absolute genius. The cathartic power of tennis; the debilitating effects of jealousy; the fickle, fleeting nature of fame; and the slow death of youthful idealism are all beautifully captured. Verdict National Book Award winner Franzen, who often decries the state of our increasingly materialistic, high-tech society via his essays and novels, this time proffers a more hopeful, sympathetic worldview. Demand will be high. [See Prepub Alert, 3/9/15.]- Sally -Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.