The only reason I couldn't rate this book more highly is that it truly felt more like a set of amazingly insightful character sketches rather than a coherent novel. It makes sense knowing now that this was Messud's first novel; however, it's a trait that her subsequent novels haven't entirely grown out of. Still, what a gift she has for articulating the distances between people and the reasons we don't try harder to bridge them.

This book was written well- but very long chapters, and no "high" points...kept waiting for something interesting to happen and nothing ever did! Not one of my favorites...that's for sure!

i raced through this one....mainly so I could get it over with and start Into the Wild. Messud is just not my cup of tea. reading her is like going out for a drink with your highly intelligent, priveleged friend who just whines at you about their not-very-impressive problems...and then continues to look down on absolutely everything around them. One of the characters, Virginia, even admitted so much in the book, that she takes pride in being negative. I tried to think that was the character talking, but I am entirely convinced that Messud's not very imaginative plots, horrendously chauvinstic male characters (some of them -- I liked Nikhil. Maybe it's because he was Indian. But he was a bit dim, sadly), and pathetic, self-loathing female voices are not meant to give us any insight into anything, they're just meant to get us down. Just not where I'm at right now. But Messud does write well, from a purely technical standpoint, so it was not a chore to read in terms of style.

Clare ...she of the readers reviewing... said what was necessary.

I like the ay Messud writes. I thoroughly disliked the sisters who are the feature characters of the book BUT are further joined by other ‘dislikeables’... which of course ( yes, you agree w me?) makes it difficult to ‘enjoy’ reading the thing. So, a bit of an harrumph
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I am sorry to say it fell off my hands... I loved The Emperor's Children soooo much ! I give it three stars because Messud managed gorgeous descriptions of Human Relationships. It undoubtedly is a very good debut novel, but not the wonderful one promised by the Praise For part.

Excellent. I'm a sucker for any book that takes place in Bali.

This an interesting read - a character study, really, of several not very likeable characters - but the startling and abrupt ending was a letdown for me. Many readers gave this two stars, and I think if you pick it up expecting a conventional story arc, which you won't get, and relatable characters, which you won't get, you'd be inclined to rate it pretty low.

So why would you bother with this? Well, for one thing, the writing is just very, very good. It's precise, and realistic, without a single word wasted - pretty impressive when you think back that this is the author's first novel. Also, you probably won't like any of the characters (which seems to be something of a Messud specialty). Virginia is pinched and righteous, Emmy is entitled and condescending, and their mother is an irascible pain in the ass. But they are undeniably realistic, and maybe the challenge is recognizing it can still be a still a good book, even when you dislike everyone in it. They all receive their come-uppance, so to speak, and spend the book struggling to set their lives to rights after its foundation has been yanked from under them. They don't exactly succeed, not neatly, anyway, and that's the frustrating part of this story. You want to see things resolved, wrapped up with some tidy ending... but you're not going to get it. Presumably, these two just muddle on, not necessarily wiser than they were when this started, though certainly less smugly certain about their lives.

There are a fair number of reasons for disliking this, but I still think it's worth reading. It's probably just important to be forewarned about what you can - and can't- expect to get out of it.

Not my favorite by Claire Messud.

Fine. A bit meander-y and unneccesarily confusing.

Didn’t finish

I am a big fan of Claire Messud but have only now got around to reading this, which for a first novel was pretty impressive. Two middle-aged sisters, Emmy and Virginia, find themselves respectively in Bali and the Isle of Skye, trying to sort out their middle age crises. Although slightly clumsy in its execution, Messud examines how a belief in either fatalism or free will affects life choices.

I came about Messud's work in reverse-chronological order, and having done so has allowed me to take more from "When The World Was Steady" than I feel I might have otherwise. I can see the germ of her best work (the novel "The Last Life" and "A Simple Tale" from the volume "The Hunters") here and it is an impressive debut. In conversation, I've described her fiction as 'writerly,' which seems vague and a little simpering in retrospect, but I guess what I mean by that is mostly indicative of the following things.

Messud's understated character studies are the hallmark of her craft.