The Black Tower, by Louis Bayard

This is a historical fiction book set in 19th century Paris after Napoleon has been ousted and the Bourbans have been restored to power. The book is a mystery novel about the lost Dauphin of France, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's son. I think there really was mystery about the Dauphin's death, but different than the mystery or location of the Dauphin in the book... I think in real life the Dauphin was supposedly killed by revolutionaries.

I was going to say that I was lukewarm on this book, but that's not quite right. I was hot and cold on this book. I would get bored with it from time to time, would start reading really quickly and poorly, then BAM something would happen and I wouldn't know how it got there. It definitely happened twice, with me saying: "What? He's holding someone's wound as the person dies?" I didn't know who it was that was dying or what the events were leading up to the wound. I gleaned later on that the character was killed. And: "What? His house is on fire?" Not sure how that happened either.

But there were exciting parts too. Most of the end was quite exciting, from the fire onward. Until the very end, which I thought was unsatisfying. The best part of the book was the writing style - lovely imagery. I think my biggest problem with this book is that it's a Sherlock Holmes style murder mystery, a genre that is just not me. I do enjoy a mystery or thriller every now and then (see The Girl Who... series here, and here, and here), but not often.

Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

I think I liked this more than The Corrections, which was a book I liked very much. But I don't remember much about The Corrections, and I think this plot and these characters will stick with me a little better. Just like The Corrections, Freedom is about a lovely dysfunctional family (well, of course, who would write about a nondysfunctional family?). The parents are Patty and Walter, the kids are Jessica and Joey. Franzen does such a good job of feeding you little anecdotes that really make you understand what makes these characters tick. The timing of the anecdotes was, however, sometimes frustrating. He'd leave me, for example, with a stupendous cliffhanger about Joey for a tangent about Walter's childhood to explain why nature was so important to Walter. Grrrrrrrrrr! I know that he's trying to leave the reader hungry, but the effect on me was to read the tangent way more quickly than it deserved. He also gave wonderful physical descriptions of the characters (except Jessica). The best was Richard Katz, who he simply described as looking like Muammar Gaddafi. Franzen had no way of knowing when he wrote the book how familiar all of America would be with the face of Gaddafi at this particular moment in time!

Plot-wise, this book absolutely did it for me. Loved it. I cared about everything that was going on. He weaved in so many issues into his plot (e.g. mountaintop removal mining, overpopulation, Iraq defense contracting, etc. etc. etc.), it was fascinating. I loved the characters too. There were so many things about these people that I could relate to myself or someone close to me. In fact, there were parts that evoked a little too much self reflection for my liking! Oh, and speaking of self reflection, I guess I could complain that Franzen made his characters a little TOO self-aware to be realistic. No one understands himself quite that well! But it was a great tool for us readers to understand the characters.

The only thing I didn't absolutely love was the amount of sexual description. I'm not totally a prude, but I am a little bit of one. This just got too much for me about 75% of the way through. Early on, I thought he dealt with sex really well. But it just got too in my face as the book went on. It was an important part of the book and I don't want to eliminate it; I just could have gone for some editing there.

Overall, an A from me. Definitely recommend.