katiieecat's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
whitmc's review against another edition
3.0
So I finally read this book after it has popped up on Amazon all year and then appeared on myriad 2013 book lists. It wasn't bad--I wasn't bored or anything, but I didn't find the story all that interesting. It was basically just the stories of people's lives, nothing overly fantastic or exciting. The main character got fairly whiny at some parts.
juliacosta's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
princessfabulous's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
eknachbar's review against another edition
2.0
I was very bored by the constantly repeating tropes in this book.
afox98's review against another edition
2.0
I started out liking this book, then didn’t, then did, then didn’t. Waffled between 2 and 3 stars. Went with 2 stars bc the book just wasn’t that...interesting. The story focuses on a group of teenagers who went to a summer camp for the arts every year. They all had their place - the lovable yet ugly guy, the funny girl, the beautiful girl, the handsome jerk, the musical genius. As they grow up, they stay in touch and their lives go down different paths. What I liked: the normality and reality in the depiction of how people live, the deep friendship between Jules and Ash, the lovingness and normalness of Dennis, Jules’s husband. What I didn’t like: the petty jealousy that Jules never seems to lose and how she takes her husband for granted, the way the Wolf family handled Goodman’s disappearance, the incomplete and shallow telling of the story of Jonah. Interesting to see the backdrop of NYC in the 80s-00s, but throughout it was more of a whisper, and would have liked to know more about how the context of the world impacted each of the characters. All in all, the story was about living life - the good, the bad, and the ugly, but wish the characters had dug in a bit more to live it more fully.
rebbemcc's review against another edition
5.0
Loved. The characters felt real. The pace of the book was perfect.
nostalgicspaceling's review against another edition
4.0
Before reading this book, I used to think of 'interesting' as a nothing-word. Now, I see the need for it. Interesting, and the Interestings, is not really good, not really bad, but definitely not boring. It's engrossing, perplexing, and insightful.
At the beginning of the novel, a group of friends form as teenagers at an arts camp. It's by far the most fun and fascinating part of the story, and their lives, until something terrible happens that teens aren't mature enough to process. What follows is a melancholy meditation on how it feels to become an adult while still keeping one foot in adolescence. The author doesn't give readers the space to love any of the characters, but they are sympathetic, and their dynamic, which shifts over the decades as they land at different levels of success, is, for lack of a better word, interesting.
At the beginning of the novel, a group of friends form as teenagers at an arts camp. It's by far the most fun and fascinating part of the story, and their lives, until something terrible happens that teens aren't mature enough to process. What follows is a melancholy meditation on how it feels to become an adult while still keeping one foot in adolescence. The author doesn't give readers the space to love any of the characters, but they are sympathetic, and their dynamic, which shifts over the decades as they land at different levels of success, is, for lack of a better word, interesting.
amberdebo's review against another edition
2.0
Jules, the main character and narrator of this book, will go down as one of my least liked book characters ever. I almost couldn't finish the book because she was a petty, jealous and despicable human being. the only thing that saved it was the secondary characters... if the book had been more about Jonah or Dennis or Ethan, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
cateslittlelibrary's review against another edition
4.0
unmistakably raw, and candid in its offensiveness in the way that only humans can be. i didn’t think i would like this book very much from the first hundred pages, and while at some level i still never did, on another i found myself enraptured by the morality of every character. i think if i had to pick one word to describe this book, it would be ugly- ugly, solid truths about what goes on inside peoples’ minds, the things we think and don’t say, the things we really, truly want, the things that we don’t ever discover about ourselves, the beliefs we hold without question. jules, ethan, and ash, their children and families, their lives. the core of this story, though i think i may have enjoyed the complexity of jonah the most, it was never really about him. every one of them had a story that never diverged completely from each others’, and every one of them made the wrong choices along the way, often for the right reasons, and sometimes even not. mainly, even if it doesn’t present itself this way, this was a story about jules, and at times i found myself hating her- hating her attachments to something long gone, hating her lack of empathy and maturity, and hating her view of the world at large. of course, at the same time, we are all jules a little bit- always a little discontent with ourselves and our lives, reaching for something that is, for all intentions, completely unobtainable. the part of this story that got me and hooked me in was goodman and cathy’s end. there was a not a second in this story where i believed he wasn’t at fault, and i feel sorry for cathy and the group’s attitude towards her afterwards. but their choice, not consciously made, but a choice nonetheless to keep their unwavering faith, the desire to hold on to their specialness, that magic quality that spirit-in-the-woods gave them, set the rest of their lives on its course. and while we are all of them at once a little bit, forever, i would like to think that most of us would choose the other road, regardless of the hardship it may bring. weird, poignant, and eloquently written, the interestings and their decades as friends are truly worth the read.