Purity

Sorry guys… I’d wrote a huge long review on Purity by Jonathan Franzen on my phone and then I lost the whole thing. Needless to say…. I’m pretty mad with myself, I’m annoyed with my phone and I refuse to try and recreate this book review again.

The whole thing has left me rather bitter, so to close this one out I’m going to write a mini review and case close this so I can move on and stop getting angry that I lost 600 words…

At first I found it quite difficult to get my teeth into this book; the complexity of the characters and the way the plot flowed in multiple directions was quite taxing on my brain but, once I knew all the characters and settled into Franzen’s unique style I began to divulge this book greedily.

The book’s main character; Pip, is determined to find her father and by taking an internship with Andreas Wolf, the owner of a project similar to WikiLeaks, she believes she will have access to the tools she needs.

The story flicks to the past and we learn about Andreas’ past. Andreas opens up to Pip about a deadly secret that has been hidden for years which he is frightened someone will reveal. That ‘someone’ is Tom, who works for Denver Independent.

Pip agrees to work as an intern at the Denver Independent to spy on Tom. Whilst there, she develops a close relationship with Tom and Leila, and Pip discovers that Tom has a close connection to her mother, Anabel. As the story explores the past of Tom and Anabel, Pip’s conscience gets the better of her and she comes clean. By coming clean, Pip is rewarded with the answer she has been searching for – her father.

This book is HUGE but as I reflected on the book towards the end, I decided that the ending was worth the wait – it was rewarding. Franzen, has a unique writing style with a level of detail and complexity which surpasses even Burton and Riley.

In my previous round up paragraph (bitter face…again) … I’d explored whether I’d buy another book by Franzen; I compared reading this book to climbing a mountain, i.e. the climb is always hard but the summit makes it worthwhile and this analogy works well for Franzen’s style. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to buy another one of his books… Unless the blurb persuaded me to make the trek again!

Until next time, Chloé x