Rating: 
Summary: A powerhouse novel
Review: Price's latest novel is a worty companion to his last novel, "Clockers". The story takes place over the 4 days following the reported abduction of a white child by a black carjacker. It switches viewpoints between the detective assigned to the case, a driven reporter and the child's mother. All three are fully realized, very human characters. Although the novel involves a police investigation, it is much more than another police procedural. It is a gripping, multi-layered portrayal of racial tensions in urban America and the motivations and hidden agendas of those on both sides of the issues. Give "Freedomland" a read. You won't find a better novel this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Clockers Revisited and Revisited and Revisited
Review: Freedomland returns to the world of Clockers and Price presents us with a compelling story, for about 300 pages. But it goes on and on. Thre is no reason for this book to be 546 pages long. I got the point half way through. Clockers was fast and tough and told with a new language. Freedomland is far less sharp.
Rating:
Summary: Good read. Not as good as CLOCKERS.
Review: Freedomland is a page turner and will probably get the praise that CLOCKERS deserved but did not quite get. The novel is essentially about two issues: race relations and parenting. Baby boomers in the New York City area remember the jingle, "Mommy and Daddy take my hand, take my hand to Freedomland." The problem then for parents and now is that the route to Freedomland was/is always a problem because of the assorted and sordid traffic. Price's character delineation is something special. The only character that remains blurry at the end is Jesse.
Rating:
Summary: Clockers redux
Review: I find myself resenting this book after 150 pages. It is artless, wordy, unedited as everything is today, riding on the coat-tails of Clockers which left me in awe for its veracity.... FREEDOMLAND received a rave from the New York Times that made me buy it.. but I fear it was because of everything that is wrong with American publishing, fascination with big names, approved content, reviewers with agendas rather than keen free-thinking tastes. Part of my impatience may in fact stem from the review that threw the gist of the story, killing some of the suspense. CLOCKERS was a phenomenal novel. Taut, evocative, breaking new ground. This reads like Price has kept hanging around the same precincts, pumping notes on everything he experienced (again) into his pad or processor, and dumping it all into his writing (again). This is mid-level journalism, not art. So much of the diction is without cadence or refinement, reptitive words, triteness, quick fixes -- it's like a typical police reporter given an entire newspaper. The failings are interesting given the fact this is obviously a man of such acute observational ability, investigational ability, and sharp-eyed understanding of the raw issues of our society. But the writing here, so far, is not advanced at all over CLOCKERS, it's less edited, worse. And the New York Times might as well just start issuing position papers on everything it covers, because it is one giant supercillious tract. A man of Richard Price's ability should have tried something new. From what I've read so far, he hasn't at all, and has gotten a tad lazy. God knows, good writing is awfully hard, hell on earth -- but all these thin, stereotypical (bald, not bald, lonely reporter who feels a shiver at her first touch in ages) portraits could have benefited from a long sit in a drawer. A first novelist would have never gotten this published as is, a formerly successful one can write any damn thing in the world and nobody in the process has the balls to help him out. Am I missing something?
Rating:
Summary: An Emotionally Exhausting Trip!
Review: I bought the mass market PB version of this novel. You know, the one with the excerpted reviews on the cover: "GRIPPING!" or, as the NYT book reviewer wrote: it has many "unforseeable turnarounds". I was intrigued by these raves and love crime genre that moves quickly along. Well, about 100 pages into this 721 page novel, I decided to re-read the reviews. I was enjoying the novel, and it WAS actually quite compelling, but the book seems to be selling itself as a thriller, when it is a much more serious look at this all too familiar racial divide we are forever trying to bridge. Once I knew how to take it, I enjoyed it all that much more. It does drag a bit in the middle, but I was always eager to turn the page, even when I realized that there was no mystery in Brenda Martin. But, I kept hoping, I suppose. Most of all, the characters are stunningly human, some strangly creepy, like the Kenters, Ben, and Billy. As far as the comparisons to "Bonfire of the Vanities", Price avoids cartoon-characterization and gives a truly tragic story an all-too human face. Great Job!
Rating: 
Summary: Dull Book by a Good Writer
Review: This was a slog, which I avoided by skimming after the first hundred pages. Too bad, because the writing is sound, and the characters almost came to life. Why do so many books have to be about dead kids, missing kids, abused kids? Obviously it's a powerful device to get most readers hooked, but I'm wearing out on the formula. Something fresh please.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: Hmmmm....with all due respect, I think some of the other reviewers here are missing the point. You don't pick up a 700+ page novel and not gear up for a long read, and if you know Price at all, you know he's not your standard thriller writer (which is a good thing, believe me). I'm a little mystified by the Price fan that didn't like it though--seems like we were reading two different books. And why see the titles of soul music songs in the book as a tired racial comment rather than the product of a character's completely deranged mind? At any rate, I found Freedomland to be an astounding achievement, with beautifully drawn fully human characters, pitch-perfect dialogue, plenty of action and tension, and a bone-deep sadness beneath it that's miles away from the prickly optimism of Clockers. Unlike Price's recent excellent Samaritan, it's not emotionally claustrophic either--Freedomland is in fact a modern urban epic, rich in character, depth, and texture. This is a book I continually recommend to people who believe that commercial fiction can't stir the soul. I will grant that reading Freedomland can ultimately be an emotionally exhausting experience, but that is what I look for in books--to paraphrase Kafka (at least I think it was Kafka), a book should be the axe that breaks the frozen lake inside us. And Freedomland is a great big axe.
Rating:
Summary: A slow spiral into the Abyss
Review: Once I read the back of the book, I figured that it had to be interesting, which it was. I believe, however, that it could still have been good if it was shorter than 721 pages. There was some unnecessary information here and there that would have been better left out. All in all, its a pretty good read if you dont mind a long book.
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