My65 Update: All of these characters are horrible people
I said that I would keep you updated on my reading progress and I haven’t really followed through on that. I am already on Book 4, so I feel like I should probably start recapping Books 1-3. On a sidenote: I’m about 99% sure I will not finish all these books before I’m 30… which is fine with me because I am happy to have a huge list of books to plow through. I promise to not post any spoilers in the event that someone reading this gets interested in the book and decides to read it. I am not even pretending to be a legitimate book reviewer here. I am just giving my opinion and moving on to the next book. So here we go.
The story itself is alright and did have potential, I suppose. It “climaxes” with the events of September 11, 2001, so we are basically following these people who have no idea what is going to happen. I don’t count this as a spoiler because you can find this out all over the Internet and it’s in many descriptions of the book. I suppose if you didn’t know it, you’d be surprised, but she also mentions the dates and it starts to get ominous, so deal with it.
Messud’s writing style is pretty difficult to get used to, in that it essentially consists of one run on sentence after another. It also seemed to me like Messud grew tired of writing the book about halfway through because the timeline starts to speed up exponentially and character development pretty much goes out the window. All of this was fine with me considering the fact that I was already so sick of the book that I wanted to skip to the next one.
Main Characters:
* Murray Thwaite – Also considered “The Emperor” in this scenario, he is basically the main character, in my opinion, even though the book is supposed to revolve around his daughter and her two BFF’s. Thwaite is an author secretly writing his “masterpiece”. He has some interesting things to say, but overall, an egomaniac that I hated by page 50. My hatred grew as the pages turned.
* Annabel Thwaite – Murray’s wife and literally the ONLY likeable character in the entire book. Not coincidentally, also the only person who thinks about anyone other than herself. She basically chose to devote her life to helping underserved teenagers through social work and is sort of an angel. Everyone should wish they had more Annabel in them, but she is merely a minor character in Messud’s eyes.
* Marina Thwaite – Murray and Annabel’s only child and wannabe author who lives in her father’s shadow. She basically has so little sense of self that she does whatever the men in her life tell her to and that gets annoying.
* Julius Clarke – Marina’s BFF. Just…. Get your shit together dude. You got problems.
* Danielle Minkoff – Marina and Julius’s BFF. Literally my least favorite character due to her incredible tendency to be an idiot and the 3rd worst person in the book, led only by Murray and Bootie.
* Frederick “Bootie” Tubb – I shall call him Bootie simply because he hates it… and I hate him. Murray's nephew. Pretentious, whiny, and overall mean to his only living parent. You’ll understand why I hate him so much after 9/11… if you make it that far. If you don’t, call me and I’ll tell you what a dipshit he is.
* Judy Tubb – Murray’s only sibling and Bootie’s mom. Sweet woman, albeit needy, but I can’t really blame her.
* Ludovic Seeley – A seemingly attractive Aussie who comes to America with the dream of starting a magazine to expose hypocrites, especially Murray Thwaite, who he feels is overrated. I’d be on his side if he weren’t such a douche.
It might be kind of sad to say that my favorite part of the book is where the title comes from, which you learn is derived from the title of the book that Marina is writing. I wonder if I would have liked the book more if I had ANY hope of forgetting how horrible all of the characters are. If you look up the Amazon review, one reviewer actually says “The characters are not likeable”, so I’m glad I’m not alone in my loathing for them. I promised no spoilers, but this doesn’t actually ruin anything, so much as point to how bizarre and emotionally fucked up these people are.
At the beginning of the book, Marina finds the family cat on the guest bed (where they are about to host a house guest) and realizes that she has passed away peacefully in her sleep. She screams, which draws Murray out of his office, where the two of them have a very calm chat involving no feelings what-so-ever for the animal they have kept for 15 years, after which, they leave the dead carcass on the bed for the maid and Annabel to deal with in the morning. A DEAD ANIMAL. ON THE BED WHERE SOMEONE WILL SLEEP IN TWO DAYS.
Let’s hope Buzzfeed has some better suggestions up their sleeves!
