Reviews with content warning for Rape - Die Interessanten

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Die Interessanten by Meg Wolitzer

18 reviews

sarita3's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

santo amado, o que é que acabei de ler? 😭
este livro é irritante. as personagens são irritantes, a história é irritante, a maneira como procede sobre tudo é irritante, até a escrita, apesar de ser tão interessante (irónico, não?), chega a ser irritante, por se perder em devaneios e levar o leitor a perder-se também (e não da melhor forma)
mas o mais irritante disto tudo, é quão bom o livro é. porque está mesmo bem construído e é extremamente real. um livro diferente de tudo o que tenho lido, mais profundo, grotesco, genuíno e interessante (sim, interessante, ora vejam só) do que o típico normal. não é o que se está à espera e vai mais além do básico
e é isso que é o mais irritante de tudo porque, em termos de construção literária mereceria 5 estrelas. é aquele tipo de ficção que capta e transmite tão bem a realidade que faz o leitor sentir-se nu perante a sua lupa de análise só por ser tão precisamente específico e quase ofensivamente acusatório destes sentimentos e características desagradáveis, esplêndidas e essencialmente humanas que encontramos em nós mesmos
mas a experiência de leitura foi miserável. profundamente miserável, acho que já há algum tempo que não sofria tanto a ler um livro. foi horrível, parecia uma tarefa, uma que me irritava profundamente e me fazia sentir extremamente desconfortável de vez em quando (eu sei que o confronto com o desconforto era o objetivo da obra, mas havia alturas em que era demasiado infuriating para aguentar) e depois o livro era massudo e demorei semanas a terminá-lo e passou a ser só uma coisa que eu queria ver longe dos meus dias
e a pior parte é que eu sabia que apesar de tudo, o livro era bom 😭 até me sinto mal a dar duas estrelas, porque sei que ele merecia uma melhor classificação. mas for the love of god, nn conseguia dar mais a algo que só me proporcionou uma experiência tão sofrível
que venham as leituras boas 🥂 (acho que pior que isto não fica)

Content Warnings

readingoverbreathing's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a difficult one for me to rate, because as much as I disliked most of the characters and thought the plot was lacking the emotional depth it really needed to carry this story, I did find myself swept up in it all anyways. Crafting a story that takes place across decades is no easy feat, but Wolitzer's writing definitely has a seductive, thoughtfully human quality to it that really saved this book for me.

But let's first talk about the characters.

I hated Jules. As conscious as she might have been of her own envy, as much as she never truly let it get in the way of her relationships, I still could not stand her. Let's not forget that when she

accidentally revealed her best friend's lifelong family secret to her husband

, her reaction afterward was "Before we get into that, can we talk about me in all of this?". That one line elicited a rare, physical gut reaction from me. Who, in those circumstances, says something like that?

I wouldn't go as far as to characterize Jules as a pick-me girl, but there is definitely a lot of "not like the other girls" energy about her. I'm pretty sure Ethan even says something to her to that effect.

As for everyone else, the only person I really liked was Ethan. Everyone else felt either too flat or too self-absorbed for me to connect with them. I think Ash's character in particular had a lot of potential, but, despite her own staunch feminism, she becomes this stereotypical perfect woman, beautiful, talented, the perfect wife and mother. I wish Wolitzer had played with her perspective at least a little bit. I think by choosing to narrate only from Jules, Ethan, and Jonah's perspectives, the story lost a lot of the depth it could have had. It's very much skewed in favor of poor, poor Jules; even Ethan's point of view is rather disgustingly consumed by thoughts of her. We actually barely see any of Jonah, whom I think also had a lot of wasted potential. Wolitzer bases his entire character around one childhood trauma and pretty much refuses to define him otherwise aside from his token gayness.

That all brings us onto the plot itself, my other major complaint. One of the book's defining plot points,

Goodman's rape of Cathy

, had such a sense of unreality to it, at least for me, that it was difficult to take the rest of the book seriously. I think some of this was perhaps because we were pretty removed from the event which didn't happen on page, and that a lot of the characters refused to think too hard about what happened after the fact. But this particular case was a pretty big signifier for the rest of the book, in that, as I mentioned above, there just seemed to be a lack of emotional reality to much of the plot. So much felt so surface level, like the characters themselves were half numb.

I found the choice to end the book by literally

killing off Ethan quite frankly lazy and uninspired

. It was clear that Wolitzer simply could not think of any other way to end this story, and I did not appreciate the fact that she chose

to eliminate the only character that I actually truly liked

to accomplish this.

The negative largely out of the way, I will admit to some positives. Usually books with fake famous people really bother me, but I think because we saw the slow steady rise of Ethan and Ash's fame, that actually turned out to be one of the most believable aspects. So that was a surprise.

As I said above, though this book is quite long, Wolitzer is an excellent writer and really does suck you into this story. There's a kind of creativity to a lot of the details she includes that I always appreciate, especially in something like this that covers so much time and where it's easy to cut more of the day-to-day.

Overall, I remain for the most part in the middle about this. It's not for everyone, but it does have a certain appeal, especially if you're a fan of a decades-long character study or anything set in the 70s/80s. I would in fact pitch this as A Little Life meets Daisy Jones & The Six, just with a lot less trauma and a little less music. Take all of that as you will.

Content Warnings

rivareads's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I always thought this book would be a pretentious, trying to hard to be deep coming of age story, but now I know for sure it's a pretentious, trying to hard to be deep coming of age story.
I honestly just finished because it has the right amount of literary quality under all the pretentiousness and the perfect pacing to be read in waiting rooms.
The characters are deep down flawed in a way that makes them truly unlikable, shallow and tonal. The character driven conflict is completely circular, which destroys any chance of character development. The inner conflict goes in circles and it's kind of hard to believe a 50 year old who was a therapist would still react the same way has she would when she was a teen. The characters are very black and white up until the point they are made to be morally grey, which fails and makes them dull. These people never actually develop anything, they a re always recycling the same things they felt when they were teens.
The truly remarkable thing about this book is how shallowly it addresses controversial and heavy topics such as sexual assault and AIDS. These are treated like things to add to the plot and create a dramatic moment. there's no deep conversation about the consequences of sexual assault and how it affected a young girl. Instead all is presented in a careless and even tacky way. "so this happened because it's a good plot point and made this guy, who is very cute by the way, did we mention that?, only 200 times , run away to Iceland and fullfil his tragic descent into a degenerate "
It runs in circles to nowhere and it is as pretentious as you'd think about a group of people who titled themselves the interestings.

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