A review by cateslittlelibrary
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

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.