The letdown with FREEDOM is that it doesn't establish or distinguish voices as thoroughly and believably as THE CORRECTIONS did. Though they shouldn't given their backgrounds and environments, everyone's dialogue and narration sounds more or less the same -- similar rhythms, diction, idioms. All the more disappointing because THE CORRECTIONS did this better than any other novel I've ever read.
It's also less funny, but then most things are.
Still on display: characteristic to-the-quick psychological insight, masterful uncondescending expression of how a woman feels and processes things, agonizing demonstrations of how no one can just about kill you with words the way someone you love can.