The Interestings

Hard to get into but got Interesting over time, just like the characters.

Sarah Wilson

Nice, low-key, Chekhovian and with a lovely pace to it. It's one of the better novels I read in the last few years. One can argue that there isn't much going on in it but I think it's by design. 

Gia Palamos

the interestings walked so a little life could run

Lynette Pedersen

Well, this is definitely not the book to read if you're dealing with any level of existential crisis, that's for sure. Nothing much happens in the book, which is pretty accurate when it comes to the ebb and flow of everyday life, but real life doesn't make for exciting reading.  My biggest issue is with the main character, Jules. She comes across as petty, self-absorbed, and just plain miserable. She is, ultimately, the poster child for mediocrity, and instead of doing anything about it in order to actually enjoy her life she just stews in her envy of her friends. Then again, at least Jules is relatively three-dimensional-the other characters are all pretty flat and seem to be more walking symbols of things we want in life than actual people. Even the disconnect of all of these characters from the socio-political upheaval that they experience during their lifetimes (Nixon's impeachment, tearing down the Berlin Wall, 9/11, etc.) makes them either terribly unrealistic or terribly shallow. Neither option is pleasant. Whatever the case, there's just a tone of heavy ennui through the entire book, which isn't really much fun to read through.

Jeannette Ordas

I was really impressed by this book, the long-reaching arch of it all and just how well-written it was. But, at the same time, it didn't grab me fully. 3.5 stars.

Julie Weber

Almost every single character in this book in this book is detestable. I preferred the past timeline than the future one, which you got much more of. Felt so meh about this.

Fraser Simons

Slow, rhythmic pacing with something meaningful in the character work and overarching plot. Packed full with a lot of small moments that really make the book. It’s not what I would call “exciting”, but it’s surprisingly impactful at the end of it all.

Cindy Lieberman

If you have any patience for the type of person described in Springsteen's "Glory Days" then you might enjoy this novel. It's about a woman who can't seem to grow beyond her two summers at camp when she became one of the self-proclaimed "Interestings." Yes, things in our past influence our future, but really one has to move on or risk becoming most un-interesting. Wolitzer has a keen ear for characters and reveals not just their secret shames but how self absorbed each of us is, starring in the personal drama of our life.

Robin M Cabana

I really enjoyed this story about six friends who meet at a summer camp for the arts in the 1970s and follows them through relationships, love, history, family, careers and loss through the decades. I did wish there was a bit more about some of the characters since it mainly focuses on Jules because I really did find them to be an interesting group. It's funny at times and also heartbreaking. Also, I'd really like to watch Figland.

Carroll Lachnit

Listened to it and enjoyed it. The rendition of friendships, marriage and what happens to the relationships of people who've known each other a long time all rang true for me.

Jeremy Anderberg

“Talent could go in so many directions, depending on the forces that were applied to it, and depending on economics and disposition, and on the most daunting and determining force of all, luck.”

The search for meaning in Wolitzer’s novel is subtler than in Miller’s book; the existential questions are being explored more with inner dialogues and veiled conversations. But the ideas presented are just as potent.

It starts at a summer camp for artsy teenagers. Six of them form a group of high-minded creatives who anoint themselves the Interestings. Honestly, I didn’t find the plot itself all that interesting, but the characters certainly were, especially as they moved into middle-age in the second half of the book.

Early on, it’s sure possible that the story didn’t resonate with me simply because I’ve moved on from that teen/twentysomething creative idealism — it’s more a fault of my own reading than with Wolitzer. But as the Interestings aged into careers and families, successes and failures, and crises beyond just their art, it seemed to speak more to real life.

Most resonant to me was how each sought to define the role of their creative work and talents in their life. There’s only one character who seems to have “it” and becomes wildly successful, but even that one wrestle with the role of luck and connections and gender. Others give up their creative side entirely, having been scarred by past experiences. And a couple of them simply realize that their gifts aren’t enough to make a career of; how do they then fold their passions into the practicalities of having a family? And bills to pay?

While is was a little slow for my liking at times, Wolitzer does know how to craft a sentence, especially when it comes to dialogue. I loved this line, for instance: “Everything you do, it’ll all feel really slow for a long time. But looking back, much later, it will have seemed like it was fast.” The play with tense there, especially in those last eight words, is brilliant.

I can’t decide who I’d recommend this book to. So, reader, I’m leaving you to your own devices on this one.

Rachel Peterson

My favorite thing about this book was that I found the characters at the same time relatable and totally unlikeable. The story is quiet and wide-reaching and totally captivating at the same time. I am into it.

Daryl Houston

I tend to feel really conflicted about books of this type, because they're so infuriatingly and so lushly detailed about mundane things. The lushness is marvelous to behold, but the mundanity makes all this attention to detail feel like much ado about little. Wolitzer could've written the basics of this story's content pretty easily in 200 pages, but she gives is so much detail and so many largely trivial details that it's honestly sort of audacious. Where does she get off?

But also: Geez, what a feat. Once she captured my interest after that first few dozen pages of frustration, she sure held it. I don't reckon I felt a whole lot for the characters, but I sure admired how richly Wolitzer told the (mundane) story. She does here with perfect touch what somebody like Franzen is desperately failing to do in his ham-handed way in his tomes. I thought often during this book of Joyce Carol Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys, which is similarly sort of simultaneous boring and textured and which I also found paradoxically a snooze and a marvel. (I just looked back at my notes on Oates's book, and I mentioned it too as the sort of thing Franzen tries but is bad at. I'm no fan of Franzen and guess I have to get my digs in where I can.)

So, kudos to Wolitzer. I don't really know why I liked the book, but I did, and she seems like a real heavy-weight in terms of how she puts a book together. I've just started another of hers and am really glad to've dipped into the work of a real artisan here.

The Interestings

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