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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
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    <body><![CDATA[I got off the bus from Bumbershoot around 1 AM, exhausted.  Convinced that even the cars speeding past my window couldnâ€™t keep me from this nightâ€™s rest, I opened the door to a stench of exceptional vileness.  Not a dead stench, or a spoiled food stench.  This was the stench of sewage.  From a s...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3766574">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
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    <body><![CDATA[Don't judge a book by its cover.<br/><br/>I'd seen this book on the shelves of a number of friends and in the arms of a number of travelers, so I decided to pick it up.  The title, &quot;Middlesex&quot;, suggested English countryside to me.  On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quo...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3066392">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
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    <body><![CDATA[This would have been better as an NPR story or an episode of &quot;This American Life&quot; than a novel.  Or maybe if someone other than Eugenides had written it.  An interesting idea, and a few engrossing sex scenes (I like the &quot;crocus&quot; and the peep-tank, and the whole long flirtation wi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6822625">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
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    <body><![CDATA[Would have given this book two more stars except for one resounding disappointment I can't get past.  I thought that one of the most important aspects of the book was entirely skipped over by the author without any explanation.  <br/><br/>*Spoiler Alert*  It's probably not a spoiler, but what I ha...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5651726">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.&quot; And so begins <em>Middlesex</em>, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the &quot;roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time.&quot; The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, <em>The Virgin Suicides</em>, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.<p>  Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:<p>  <blockquote>Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in &quot;sadness,&quot; &quot;joy,&quot; or &quot;regret.&quot; &#133; I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, &quot;the happiness that attends disaster.&quot; Or: &quot;the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.&quot; ... I'd like to have a word for &quot;the sadness inspired by failing restaurants&quot; as well as for &quot;the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.&quot; I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.</blockquote><p>  When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. <em>--Brad Thomas Parsons</em> </p></p></p>]]>
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    <body><![CDATA[(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)<br/><br/><strong>The CCLaP 100:</strong> In which I read a hundred so-called &quot;classics&quot; for the first time...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22465585">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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  <date_added>Sun Jun 10 15:37:04 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 21:10:27 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[&quot;When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine Stark.  Luce didn't care about criminally smitten grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets.  To a certain extent, I understand.  I even agree.&quot;<br/>     I agree...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1828141">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1828141]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>19</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[everyone with an open mind, and even some of those with closed ones.]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue May 08 15:27:44 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 19:07:55 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Mr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading <em>Middlesex</em>.<br/><br/>I passed on this book for a long time. I kept picking it up in bookstores and putting it down. I've seen quotes from it everywhere, all of which were beautiful, and kept hearing wonderful things a...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1108139">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1108139]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1108139]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>15879406</id>
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    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>23</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Apr 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Feb 20 05:42:01 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Apr 13 11:28:56 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This book has <em> all </em> the major players....<br/><br/>Incest, war, teenage girl-on-girl experimental sex, deadheads, undescended testes, and a 2 inch penis.  <br/><br/>Yep, it took me all of one chapter to realize that <em>Middlesex</em> was referring to something besides a county in England.  <br/><br/><strong>B...</strong><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15879406">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/15879406]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>14448233</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Martine]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>11</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Feb 03 10:22:07 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Feb 26 15:02:29 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I'm torn on this book. On the one hand, I loved the story, which is, as another reviewer put it, 'the greatest, most incestuous Greek epic since the <em>Iliad</em>'. On the other hand, I had serious problems with some of the writing. I haven't seen my quibbles mentioned anywhere else, so I guess I'm alone on...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14448233">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14448233]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/14448233]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>6075336</id>
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    <id>371765</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Jason]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>9</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Sep 11 20:37:24 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 10:10:07 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[If I didn't hate putting books down so much, I never would have found out how thoroughly unimpressive this really is.  I almost never have the urge to just stop reading a book, but this book managed it.  In fact, there is not another instance in memory (not including books like Ann Coulter that I gi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6075336">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6075336]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6075336]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>32574219</id>
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    <id>83051</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Seth]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Toronto, Canada]]></location>
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  <isbn>0676975658</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780676975659</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">138</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex : A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/605313.Middlesex_A_Novel</link>
  <average_rating>3.97</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>521</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.&quot; And so begins <em>Middlesex</em>, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the &quot;roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time.&quot; The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, <em>The Virgin Suicides</em>, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.<p>  Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:<p>  <blockquote>Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in &quot;sadness,&quot; &quot;joy,&quot; or &quot;regret.&quot; &#133; I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, &quot;the happiness that attends disaster.&quot; Or: &quot;the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.&quot; ... I'd like to have a word for &quot;the sadness inspired by failing restaurants&quot; as well as for &quot;the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.&quot; I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.</blockquote><p>  When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. <em>--Brad Thomas Parsons</em> </p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>9</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Tue Sep 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Sep 10 20:13:21 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Sep 24 09:37:11 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[&quot;So, what's going on, wha hoppen, I don't understand, I thought we were giving this 5 stars?&quot;  &quot;Yah, I thought maybe we would, early on, but we're not.&quot;  &quot;We're not?  What's wrong?  I thought you loved the book!&quot;  &quot;I did!  There's just--there's some problems in the...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/32574219">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/32574219]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/32574219]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>9414485</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Virna]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[South Jakarta, 12440, Indonesia]]></location>
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  <isbn>0312422156</isbn>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>94799</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>7</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Oprah fans, Avid readers]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Nov 21 19:26:43 -0800 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Nov 25 19:50:48 -0800 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Jeffrey Eugenides uses Calliope as his Muse â€“ according to the Greek mythology, sheâ€™s the Muse of epic poetry â€“, as a narrator of his story. He must be a fan of the Greek myths as the novelâ€™s full of allusion to Homer and the Illiad. The narrator eloquently unfold the story behind Calliopeâ€...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9414485">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9414485]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9414485]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>3294352</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Erin]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Arlington, VA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jul 19 18:25:35 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 01:16:44 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I started reading this book with high hopes because of all the great reviews I had read and heard. Not sure why the rave reviews. I definitely found the book interesting but at the same time disturbing and hard to read at times. The whole incest thing didn't do it for me and it wasn't until the end ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3294352">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3294352]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3294352]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>18560105</id>
    <user>
    <id>1020736</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Stacey]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Beaverton, OR]]></location>
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  <isbn>1593977344</isbn>
  <isbn13>9781593977344</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">45</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.86</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.&quot; And so begins <em>Middlesex</em>, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the &quot;roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time.&quot; The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, <em>The Virgin Suicides</em>, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.<p>  Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:<p>  <blockquote>Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in &quot;sadness,&quot; &quot;joy,&quot; or &quot;regret.&quot; &#133; I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, &quot;the happiness that attends disaster.&quot; Or: &quot;the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.&quot; ... I'd like to have a word for &quot;the sadness inspired by failing restaurants&quot; as well as for &quot;the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.&quot; I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.</blockquote><p>  When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. <em>--Brad Thomas Parsons</em> </p></p></p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[audiobook lovers]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[audible.com reviews]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Mar 24 20:04:02 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon May 12 14:24:54 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I've read quite a few reviews of this book saying that it was patchy in places, or it bogged down in the historical parts, the character not being believable in others, etc. <br/><br/>I have not read the novel, so perhaps this is true. As an audiobook however, it was magnificent. The story was com...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18560105">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18560105]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18560105]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>8</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jul 24 01:56:49 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Jul 31 12:23:29 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This Greek family saga, as narrated by a hermaphrodite, has many pages, but I flicked through them easily like so many moistened labia. Moments of tragedy lay concealed within, like undescended testes, but warm humour dominated, swelling forth like a budding penis. ]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28141418]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28141418]]></link>
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      <review>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>94799</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>8</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Wed Mar 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Feb 08 22:13:50 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Mar 20 19:54:01 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[     <em>&quot;Why?&quot; she kept crying softly, shaking her head...&quot;Why did you run away, honey?&quot;<br/>     &quot;I had to.&quot;<br/>     &quot;Don't you think it would have been easier just to stay the way you were?&quot;<br/>     I lifted my face and looked into my mother's eyes.  And I...</em><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45800730">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45800730]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45800730]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>3683492</id>
    <user>
    <id>217774</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Christy]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Cleveland, OH]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/217774-christy-clayton-petrencsik]]></link>
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  <isbn13>9780312422158</isbn13>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2187.Middlesex</link>
  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>4</votes>
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          </shelves>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Wed Jul 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Fri Jul 27 20:08:01 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 02:31:01 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I enjoyed reading Middlesex, but I'm not sure it succeeds as a work of literature.  As the book went on, it became clear that it was all a buildup to the climactic moment when Cal discovers the genetic truth about himself.  In this context, all the secondary plot about the grandparents and the paren...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3683492">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3683492]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3683492]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>2893489</id>
    <user>
    <id>114114</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Ferina]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[16954, Indonesia]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>94799</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>4</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Jul 10 05:01:48 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Apr 29 15:02:23 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Calliope Stephanides, menjalani kehidupannya selama 14 tahun sebagai seorang perempuan. Ia tidka menyadari ada keanehan dalam dirinya, sampai ketika ia beranjak dewasa, ia menyadari dirinya berbeda dengan teman-teman perempuan lainnya. Di usia dua belas tahun, ia belum mendapatkan menstruasi, berdad...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2893489">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2893489]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2893489]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>22862454</id>
    <user>
    <id>945127</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Eileen]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/945127-eileen]]></link>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat May 24 05:45:51 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat May 24 05:46:31 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I was one of two members of my ten-person Book Group who could not get through this book. Guess that means we are a minority... <br/><br/>I read about one-third. I could not get past the incest that the author was trying to pass off as &quot;ok.&quot; I think that John Irving handles the topic muc...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22862454">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22862454]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22862454]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>6862490</id>
    <user>
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    <name><![CDATA[Jessica]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[Middlesex]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.94</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>94799</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<em>&quot;I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driverâ€™s license...records my first name simply as Cal.&quot;</em><br/><br/>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <em>Middlesex </em>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.<br/>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2002</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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            <shelf name="aborted-efforts" />
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[intersex readers who are amused by big quirky ethnic families]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Sep 26 19:24:20 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Sep 26 20:44:24 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[People love this book. I could not read this book. I could not get four pages into this book. It just annoyed the living crap out of me.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6862490]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6862490]]></link>
</review>
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