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

The Uninterestings

There is nothing "interesting" about the book or the characters. There's no depth to any of the characters, and after hours of listening, I found I didn't care about any of them. There's nothing overtly wrong with the story - it's just boring. There are better books to spend your time on.

Very engaging listen

Actually loved this story. As a creative person myself, I felt this story mirrored many elements of living as a creative individual in a culture which does not embrace the creative. Great character development.

Amazing Story

Any additional comments?

The Interestings is a wonderful book. I fell in love with the characters and miss them terribly now that I have finished the story. I found myself constantly checking my chapter number, fearful of how close to the end I was getting. You meet a set of 5 teenagers the day they all meet at a summer camp and follow their lives all the way into adulthood. They are good but flawed people - just like most people in the real world.

My only complaint is the narrator. I have listened to hundreds of audio books, and this is the first one for which I had to slow down the narration speed in order to keep up. Even at a slower speed, the voices aren't distorted and I wasn't at all distracted by the pace. Do buy this book. It's absolutely enchanting.

Feel good story

Not a page turner in terms of action, but a page turner because you want to know what the characters are going to experience next. Really a pleasure to read.

Post Baby Boomer Bildungsroman

What immediately struck me upon finishing this book was the truth in the saying that everyone has a story. We just don't have Meg Wolitzer to tell that story. I begin with that thought for a reason...

I started this read hopeful, how could I not with such fanfare proceeding its release. A good enough start, six teenagers meet at an exclusive summer camp for the arts, each with distinct traits and talents, and form a group--a grand starting point for a novel, but not an entirely original concept. Autumn approaches, camp comes to an end, and the friends scatter back into their individual lives connected by their camp experience and the notion that they are special, they are *interesting*. How these six teens' lives progress and stay connected from that naïve summer, when they looked at the generation ahead of them so sure they would do better, have better, be better, is the story. At some point I thought, none of these 6 characters are larger than life, they were very real and almost familiar--this could easily be any group of friends' story.

Wolitzer engages us, the listeners, by creating believable and flawed characters that, as they grow and experience life, stir our personal memories. What first seemed like a slow-moving and pointless novel to me, finally became experiential and moving. You begin to watch these people like you have watched your own friends through the years. The world spins around this nucleus of friends, historical events marking the decades; you remember with them--Nixon, the soapy taste of that new herb cilantro, the first (two-handed) cell phones, the Moonies, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the World Trade Center attack (like so many of us remember and feel "where were you the day Kennedy was shot" or "what were you doing when we landed on the moon"). You recall your own life-story along with them as they struggle, succeed, fail, have children, lose family members. The emotional landscape of friendship also becomes physical with the inescapable ups and downs--they feel love, happiness, resentment, envy and jealousy ("Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success” Oscar Wilde).

Where's it all going; What's the plot; What happens? ...Life happens. And in Wolitzer's hands, it happens with great skill, intelligence, and grace. That simple axiom captured by Wolitzer is what won me over by the end (because truthfully, I experienced it as a little slow and unnecessarily lengthy--but felt less that way by the time I finished). Like life, this story is made up of the special relationships and shared events, good and bad, that shape us and fill our hearts. Suggest for those interested in a contemplative, character driven novel; similar to the works of Franzen and Eugenides.

Outstanding Characters, Compelling Reading

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

Would highly recommend this book to my late 50 year old friends. This book will be something that touches your experiences and makes you grieve that it is over.

Long, slow, and...well - - - interesting!

This book takes a long time to finish, a long time to care about, and is slow to build. But even after all of that criticism, I must say I liked it. I confess that much of the reason was sharing a common youth and adulthood enables a shortcut for getting to relatable emotions. I remember many of the anxiety provoking things these characters go through so it felt as if we were going through it together.

While I avoided the "artsy" people in high school almost as much as I avoided the stoners and the preppies, it was fun to see how that small group might have turned out had they actually had talent and a leader. The characters are really complete, multi-dimensional, and with a few exceptions, not stereotypes. My only real criticism was the rather thrown together ending that you knew had to come. But, nostalgia is fun, so if you're over fifty, enjoy. Much younger than that and you may want to keep on truckin' (and if you have no idea what the heck that means, you should DEFINITELY find another book!).

VERY INTERESTING

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about the life of 4 friends. It's a classic character driven novel that has a cast of really likable characters. What could be better?

Good contemporary fiction

Spans the lives of privileged and not-so-privileged NYC kids who become NYC adults and have lives that intertwine and things happen that are both good and bad and people have regrets and do some awful things to one another but we love them anyway. Just like life!

The Interestings

Good, fully developed story. Can get inappropriately descriptive at times but overall okay. Good insight into friendships and dealing with mental disorders.