The Interestings

A Novel

By: Meg Wolitzer

Narrated by: Jen Tullock

Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

“Remarkable.... With this book [Wolitzer] has surpassed herself.” (The New York Times Book Review)

"A victory.... The Interestings secures Wolitzer's place among the best novelists of her generation.... She's every bit as literary as Franzen or Eugenides. But the very human moments in her work hit you harder than the big ideas. This isn't women's fiction. It's everyone's." (Entertainment Weekly)

A New York Times best-selling novel by Meg Wolitzer that has been called "genius" (Chicago Tribune), “wonderful” (Vanity Fair), "ambitious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and a “page-turner” (Cosmopolitan), which The New York Times Book Review says is "among the ranks of books like Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot."

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful - true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

©2013 Megan Wolitzer (P)2013 Penguin Audio

A Realistic Novel about Adulthood and Dreams

Any additional comments?

This is a great book thanks mostly to the stark realism. The characters are idealistic teenagers, growing up at a performing arts camp that tells them they can be anything they want if they just follow their dreams. Unfortunately, that is not how the world works. This book can be frustrating and sad, but that is the beauty of it: it truly exemplifies the realities of life. It perfectly captures the hardships everyone faces behind closed doors, and the struggles one must accept when our childhood dreams don't come true.

I'm on the Fence

Would you try another book from Meg Wolitzer and/or Jen Tullock?

Yes. This book was well written and had solid characters. I did find them interesting, but I'd sort of hoped that it would amount to more. (Maybe I'm just greedy.) There was no emotional peak to this book - it was just a solid, steady, careful yarn about the complexities of friendships - and how both we and our friendships age through the decades.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The Wolf family dynamic and the story lines centering around Ash and Wolf packed the most drama. While the book centered on Jules, she offered a somewhat unsympathetic perspective - she was too consumed by what she didn't have.

Fascinating

An absorbing book with interesting characters, as they name themselves. They, however, are outpaced in being interesting by Jules’s husband Dennis, not one of the original Interestings.

why so fast?

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

just started the book and seams pretty interesting but I don't know if I will be able to enjoy it as this narrator is making me dizzy. why is she reading so fast???? this is crazy! so upsetting!

The Insufferables

I retitled this book "The Insufferables" because I just found the characters cloying. The fact that they name themselves The Interestings really shows their level of self absorption. The storyline was ok, but I'm not recommending it to my friends.

Terrific writing, delivery and story!

The Interestings, especially as presented by Jen Tullock, is an intriguing, absorbing, funny, poignant story. Avoiding cliches and focusing intently on questions of belonging, class, creativity, and money, it tells the story of four main young people (two peripherals) who meet at a summer camp and stay in contact as they mature. Wolitzer's observations of our expectations of ourselves, parents' dreams for their children, how wealth cushions or complicates our lives, are all trenchant and thought-provoking. A bonus is the storyline following Ethan, the oddball cartoonist who creates the "Figland Empire," a media creation that bears close parallels to "The Simpsons." Highly, highly recommended--and hats off to Jen Tullock, for her amazing narration.

What the heck ? Worst ending ever!

I really liked the story, for the most part. It was creative, some of The character for interesting, but it was a little dreary in some parts. I really hated the ending. What the Heck!

Good

What made the experience of listening to The Interestings the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed listening to this because I didn't know what the book was about before I began. I found myself interested in what might happen even though seemingly nothing happened, it was just the story of friends growing up together.

Excellent writing

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, if you enjoy a well-written character study.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Interestings?

I'm honestly not a huge fan of character studies, but Meg Wolitzer is such a fantastic writer that the characters really came alive for me. I enjoyed the wry humor as well.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Jen Tullock?

Yes, although as many other reviewers mentioned, she spoke too fast and was a tad inconsistent during the first half of the book. She seemed to settle in to the characters by the second half. I loved her Ethan and Dennis voices.

Excellent read/listen--with a fantastic reader

Would you consider the audio edition of The Interestings to be better than the print version?

I'm not sure since I only listened to the audio, but I do think it added something.

What does Jen Tullock bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She's good at doing different voices--male/female/accented.

Any additional comments?

Funny, grand in scope, emotionally intimate--a really fantastic novel.