Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dude, what can I say about this amazingly awesome book, other than it was totally amazing and awesome! Eugenides rocks. He takes recessive genetic mutations and makes them so incredibly gripping, you can't put the book down.

Now that I've read two of his books, I can say that I like his way of obsessively poring over topics that many people would find disturbing, uncomfortable, taboo. He palpates his plot details gently until their strangeness starts to feel familiar.

I have also discovered something about my own taste in books from reading Middlesex. I like novels that are brazen about their own fictionality -- books that loudly remind us that they are pretend. That don't take themselves too seriously.

For all of Ian McEwan's artistry, his characters are trying too hard to be real -- it kind of loses the magic. Eugenides writes fictional fiction that revels in its own made-upness -- like enjoying being the center of attention. You can't forget that this is a story and a damn good one at that.

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The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Captivatingly voyeuristic, deliciously disturbing. Eugenides captures that cringe you get when you see a gaping wound or hear too much about an acquaintance's personal life. The story is sickly fascinating, the writing addictive and the characters blank, evanescent, holy.

By far the best piece of literature I have picked up in a while. I could rant on about Eugenides' vicious condemnation of the upper-middle-class white suburban nuclear family, but it might spoil the gentle luminosity of this story.

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