In high school, I did my best to morph from shy wallflower into mysterious guitar-slinging writer. Not as a pose, but because I felt the most ME when I was jamming with friends or banging out a story. I thought I found myself and my group. I wanted, more than anything, to ring true. I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted the same thing. That was my ideal life. Fast forward fifteen years. I’m an attorney walking downtown, lost in thought about some […]
The Interestings, maybe not so Interesting, but still compelling
This was my first read for the Schaumburg Library book club “Beyond the Book.” This was a great read for a book club because, well, this book was not beloved overall. There were 16 people in the club and I think 4 of us (self included) gave it a 4 out of 5, everyone else did a 3 or lower. But that made for a lively discussion. The Interestings follows a group of friends from when they meet, at an arts camp in the summer […]
Yeah, but WHY are they friends?
Jules miraculously lands at a creative arts summer camp her junior year of high school. Even more miraculous, she is somehow taken in by the most popular crowd there. The six of them decide they are the Interestings and Jules redefines her life based on what they see. For reasons that Jules never understands, the beautiful and perfect Ash becomes her best friend. Jules doesn’t see why she, or any of the Interstings want her around and she knows at any minute they will realize they’ve made […]
Teenagers work through their grief
I can’t remember how this book got on my wish list. I haven’t read anything else by Meg Wolitzer. I generally stay with young adult books and she is more known for her adult books than this YA one. In any case, I put Belzhar on my list at some point and it became available recently. I had no idea what to expect, but was quickly drawn into a world of troubled teens. The story is told from perspective of a high school student named […]
The Only Moderately Interestings
Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings tells the story of six friends who meet at a summer camp for the arts in Massachusetts in the late 1970s. The six youths remain great friends into their 40s and beyond (well, four of them do) and experience life, love, death, heartbreak together in New York City. Jules (nee Julie), Ethan, Jonah, Cathy, Goodman and Ash gather for the first time in a teepee at Spirit in the Woods in 1974 and dub themselves “The Interestings” at first ironically, but one […]