The Emperor's Children

A Novel

By: Claire Messud

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 18 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Two-time PEN/Faulkner Award nominee Claire Messud is hailed as "a writer of enormous skill and stylistic grace" by Publishers Weekly. This wonderfully crafted comedy of manners was called a "stinging portrait of life among Manhattan's junior glitterati" in a starred review by Kirkus Reviews.

Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s. Marina lives with her celebrated parents on the Upper West Side while trying to complete her book. TV producer Danielle's success is due to the puff pieces she churns out. Freelance critic Julius can barely make ends meet. Into this mix comes Bootie, Marina's college dropout cousin, who is just the catalyst the three friends need to start making significant changes in their lives.

©2006 Claire Messud (P)2006 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Tangy dialogue, provocative asides, glittering imagery, and nimble postulations build toward an electrifying and edifying conclusion." (Booklist)
"Her writing is so fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as a contemporary comedy of manners." (Publishers Weekly)

Worst book read in years

Was there a plot to this story? Thinly veiled AT BEST, nearly 20 hours of boring characters, boring story. 20 hours of my life I’ll never get back. I read a book a week & this was positively DREADFUL!!!!!

Predictable, long, and a mostly boring.

What could Claire Messud have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Better characters, better representation of pre-9/11 NYC, dialogue that was actually believable.

Would you be willing to try another one of Suzanne Toren’s performances?

As long as I don't have to hear her try to do an Australian accent ever again.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment.

Any additional comments?

Characters were sterotypes. I heard they are in talks to make a Hollywood film of this story... dear Lord, I hope not. Hollywood, if you can hear me... Stop. Please take the $70mm it would take to make that film, and use it to build water infrastructure, research diseases, or feed starving people.

Talk about the

The narration was good, but the book is not one that I can recommend. The characters, with the exception of one or two minor characters, were incredibly self-involved and annoying. I listened to the end, merely because I wondered if there would be any positive resolution to any of the story lines--there wasn't. It is difficult to care about the characters when they are so unlikeable. Although spouting rhetoric about the value of social conscience, none of the major characters acted in ways to support the rhetoric. The one character who did act responsibly (Marina's mother), was unfathomable to her family.

18 Precious Hours For This?

If you like whining, self-involved people with delusions of grandeur who do not even remotely evolve in any significant way despite living in the center of the earth shattering events of 9/11, then this book is for you. Ginger, from Vallejo was absolutely correct in her review. I decided recently to attempt to read or listen to every critically acclaimed book from 2006 which is why I purchased this pointless waste of time in the first place. It was well narrated and stylistically well written, but why it is so popular with the critics is far beyond me. You want to read or listen to a great and well received book from 2006, then download "Special Topics In Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl (don't let the wordy and scattered prologue turn you off.. stick with it. It turns out to be absolutely fabulous) or one that received hardly any recognition at all "The Divide" by Nicholas Evans. Both of these books are wonderful, and once I completed them I felt my time and money had been well spent.