I am a big Jonathan Franzen fan and Crossroads is my first time listening to one of his books on audio. The Hildebrandt family sucks you in to their story with all of their messiness, flaws, teenage angst, and adult discontent. You've got sex, drugs, the Vietnam War, religion, and so much more at play as we follow this family in the early 1970's. I didn't find a lot of the characters very likable, but I'm invested in Marion and Becky's stories and look forward to the next books in this series.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.

“Crossroads” begins Franzen’s new series A Key to All Mythologies, surely a reference to Eliot’s Middlemarch, one of my favorite novels. Franzen’s examination of the dysfunctional Hildebrandt family is an engrossing look at the struggle within a marriage and family, action set towards the end of the Vietnam war, complete with social insights that few authors can top. Russ Hildebrandt is an associate pastor at a large liberal church, and his mid- life crisis is affecting his faith, his ministry, and most of all, his family. It’s difficult to like Russ, who is no longer satisfied with his marriage, because Marion, his wife, now weighs 143 pounds. (Honestly, 143 pounds is within the recommended healthy weight range for women 5’4”. I checked.) Poor Marion, also extremely unhappy, believes she is unloveable due to her weight.
Well, there is a lot going on in this family: adultery, mental illness, drugs, faith, and perhaps the individuals’ difficult struggle to simply be good.
Franzen returns at the top of his game with a brilliant cast of characters and I, for one, can’t wait to read more of this series.
Highly Recommended. Unputdownable.
#Crossroads
#NetGalley

This novel did not work for me on audiobook. I didn't care for the narrator, who spoke too slowly at normal speed, but also didn't work on the netgalley app at increased speed (the app really doesn't allow for changes in speed without significant distortion). I'm giving this three stars because I cannot actually speak to content. But, I do not recommend on audio.

I disliked this at first because of my strong conviction that, if Franzen were female, their works would be dismissed as "chick lit" instead of as one of the best novelists of this generation.
Be that as it may, the story grew on me. Franzen has a gift for characterization, specifically for showing how events appear differently from different perspectives.



Review copy provided by publisher.