2013 book 108

Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings
So, this book has been getting a ton of buzz. And I've liked the other books I've read by Wolitzer pretty well. But . . . this completely fell apart for me in the third and final part. The book is described as being about six teenagers who meet at an artsy summer camp in the 70s and dub themselves "The Interestings," and then we flash back and forward from the 70s to 2009 and all the years in between. But really the book is only about three of them--Jules, the typical middle-class character enraptured by her rich and charming friends; Ethan, the very talented animator (who creates a Simpsons-esque show); and Ash, who doesn't actually have a personality in retrospect, but is a theater director. A fourth, Jonah, has a pretty fascinating story, but he doesn't come into it as much. And I'm not even getting into the other two, who are cast out of things early on after a gross and terrible incident (and the loss of Cathy is particularly disgusting). I was wrapped up in the story anyway, and Wolitzer's prose is clever and funny, and she's saying some interesting thing about teenage friendships and self-perception, but man, that ending was kind of ridiculous in every way. B.