Book #51: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A summer camp takes a significant role in this book, mostly because it is where its main characters meet. Opening in the 1970s, the book introduces the main characters as teenagers, who mostly lie around, take drugs, and chat. It looks at first that two characters, Ethan and Jules, will end up together.
Unfortunately, Jules does not think that she is right for Ethan, so when the book flashes forward to later in their lives, both of them are shown to be with different partners.
To me, this felt mostly like a book about peoples' lives and their relationships, and it did cover a large period at times, and near the start it seemed to jump around in the timeline a lot, so I wasn't sure about this at first, but it grew on me. I enjoyed reading about the characters' careers, and their relationships with each other (particularly Ethan and Jules, who felt like the central characters), and the occasionally tragic events that occurred.
For example, one character ended up disappearing for most of the book, after being accused of rape by his former girlfriend, and later on Ethan discovered that his son had autism.
The dense narrative structure felt a little offputting at first, but once I had started to take an interest in all the characters, this started to feel like a modern classic. The ending was different from what I expected, but nevertheless very well written, and avoided any cliches.
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