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Dec 17, 2009

Trina rated it:

I got off the bus from Bumbershoot around 1 AM, exhausted. Convinced that even the cars speeding past my window couldn’t keep me from this night’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 spot in the center of the living room I surveyed the apartment and discovered the source: the commode and the area around it were covered in yuck. I dialed up the landlord. The exchange went something li More...

20 comments like (224 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Peter added it

Don't judge a book by its cover.

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, "Middlesex", suggested English countryside to me. On the cover was what looked like a steamship, and a quote on the back began "Part Tristram Shanty, part-Ishmael..." So I came to the foolish conclusion that this was some 19th century English seafaring novel. (Typical.)

I couldn't ha More...

1 comment like (104 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2008

Andrew rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

20 comments like (67 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kelly rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

14 comments like (39 people liked it)

May 17, 2008

Jason rated it:

(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.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Book #15: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

The story in a nutshell:
The tale of "the most famous her More...

3 comments like (47 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Trevor rated it:

"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."
I agree too. This quote comes from page 263 and is really where the story picks up and gets into the subject the book promises--Cal's life as a hermaphrodite. Honestly, while the first 263 pages were inter More...

1 comment like (34 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Taylor rated it:

Mr. Eugenides can do everything, or at least I am convinced of such after reading Middlesex.

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 about it from friends. To be perfectly honest, what kept me from picking it up in the subject: a hermaphrodite. I think of myself as someone with an open mind, but the thing is that I just wasn't sure More...

7 comments like (36 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2010

Jason rated it:

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 give disgusted glances at in the store).

Eugenides' writing is verbose, uncontrolled, and surprisingly content-less given its weighty appearances. I actually found the family story more engaging. It wo More...

3 comments like (16 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2011

Stacey rated it:

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.

I have not read the novel, so perhaps this is true. As an audiobook however, it was magnificent. The story was compelling, the history inseparable from the development of Calliope, and the voice of the reader - Kristoffer Tabori - was genius. His character variations made an interesting concept into a fascinating More...

3 comments like (17 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

Kim rated it:

This book has all the major players....

Incest, war, teenage girl-on-girl experimental sex, deadheads, undescended testes, and a 2 inch penis.

Yep, it took me all of one chapter to realize that Middlesex was referring to something besides a county in England.

Best Part: Answering Maurice's question "What's that about?" then watching him squirm and cross his legs in obvious pain.

Worst Part: Glaring Oprah sticker on the cover telling m More...

47 comments like (40 people liked it)

Feb 26, 2008

Martine rated it:

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 Iliad'. 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 them. Or am I?

In a nutshell, Middlesex is the story of Cal, a Greek American who was born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl before finally realising he was boy as a teenager. In about More...

5 comments like (28 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

This was my first book by Eugenides, and I wasn't sure what to expect really. I expected a coming-of-age story, yes, but not like this.

This book has a little bit of everything. Part memoir, part family tree, part medical case study, part sexuality enlightenment, part love story, part cultural history and identity revolution... Eugenides could have called his book "Baklava" and been perfectly accurate. There are many layers to this story, each one adding their own little bi More...

6 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2007

virna rated it:

Jeffrey Eugenides uses Calliope as his Muse – according to the Greek mythology, she’s the Muse of epic poetry –, as a narrator of his story. He must be a fan of the Greek myths as the novel’s full of allusion to Homer and the Illiad. The narrator eloquently unfold the story behind Calliope’s transformation, like the Chinese Princess Si Ling-Chi, as Eugenides puts it: upon discovering the unraveling of a silkworm cocoon that fell into her teacup, handing its loose end to her maidservant, who in t More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Erin rated it:

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 of the book when the book touched on the scientific explanation of the childs condition did I find it interesting to read. The writer spent way too much time on some of the family history which did no More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

Maureen rated it:

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.

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2009

Alison rated it:

"Why?" she kept crying softly, shaking her head..."Why did you run away, honey?"
"I had to."
"Don't you think it would have been easier just to stay the way you were?"
I lifted my face and looked into my mother's eyes. And I told her: "This is the way I was."

Most people know that Jeffrey Eugenides's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Middlesex" is the story of a girl who was "born twice"-- More...

8 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Jeffrey Eugenides is another author with whom I was given a blind date via introductions from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. Following the blind date - a little awkward at first but I really liked his style in the end - I have had subsequent dates with The Virgin Suicides and also enjoyed that very much. I won't give you any more detail as that would be too much like a kiss-and-tell and this is Goodreads, not the News of the World.

Middlesex is a trans-continental, trans More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Christy rated it:

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 parents felt like an obstruction to the real story. The focus on the previous generations stole the focus from Cal the narrator, and it was the narrator I was interested in. In digging for information ab More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2008

Ferina rated it:

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, berdada rata dan bertubuh lebih kurus dan jangkung. Di atas bibirnya, mulai ditumbuhi rambut tipis. Dan, ia lebih cenderung menyukai teman perempuan dibanding laki-laki. Keluarganya, terutama ibunya, Tessie More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Bree rated it:

I was halfway through and decided I really couldn't finish this book. I found the writing irritating and I couldn't wrap my head around most of what the narrator was talking about, let alone how it jumped around and he/she would say "but more of that later" or whatever. It just grated on me. I'm sure now that the narrator is actually IN the story it would get better, but I just couldn't handle it anymore...and I gave up.

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2007

Jessica rated it:

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.

10 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2011

Angus rated it:

Disclaimer: This is not a review. This may have spoilers. Read at your own risk. Visit original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

When I first heard of this novel, I thought it would be about town life. I think there is a place called Middlesex. I imagine it is a British suburb, somewhere in the outskirts of England.

I asked my cousin, who was then in Japan, to buy me a copy of this. Why would I ask someone to buy me a book without even knowing what the More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Samantha rated it:

I have to admit I was sorely disappointed with this book. I expected… well… greatness! It won a Pulitzer for God’s sake! I guess the Pulitzer Prize must be more political than I thought, because I cannot for the life of me understand what about this book’s writing was particularly ground-breaking. Sure, the subject matter is flashy, but I felt that the “epic scope” this novel was trying to achieve fell rather flat. The book's prose was not amazingly poetic, nor was the novel’s construction. I fe More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2007

Lane rated it:

I should probably reread this. I should definitely explain the two stars, especially since the first half or so of this book, the sections set before the birth of the "main" character" really engaged me. OK, I'm really tired of the family-secrets-will-out-and-in-really-fucking-unexpected-ways theme...but Eugenides hooked me for a long while and I didn't mind. But the last section of the book, the section that made it "controversial" (yawn) bored and annoyed me. (Real More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2007

Jeff rated it:

Okay, seriously: I loved this book. It was big sweeping, heartfelt, funny, sad, it had everything you could want in a book, or hell even a lifetime. I wanted to read it forever and ever (but then none of the other books would get to play).
I’m not kidding when I say, “You should read this book.” And yeah, I’m talking to you, the red head.
I know, it’s not like I’m going out on a limb here. It won the Pulitzer. It won best book of 2002 from The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Lauren rated it:

I was skeptical about this book at first. I really only read it because it was a book club pick. In fact, 100 pages in if someone would have asked me if I liked it I would have immediately said “nope!” But it grew on me. I became fascinated with Cal’s story intertwined with his family history. We follow a gene mutation in order to describe the narrator’s peculiar and rare condition. Starting at his grandparents on a small island in Greece which continues on to his parents in the then booming cit More...

8 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

Galen rated it:

Although I'm not a compulsive book-finisher, i tried multiple times with this story because a number of friends raved and raved about it. Ultimately I abandoned it. I couldn't stand the premise and felt no sympathy for the characters and their contrived and grotesque incestual predicament. Sometimes a story gets stretched so far out of this world through plot and character manipulation that it loses its last thread of authenticity. this one fell victim.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2009

Logan rated it:

It’s always a bit of a gamble for me to pick up a book that has made the rounds of the awards circuit, especially when it’s a Pulitzer-winning Oprah book. The thing about award-winning novels is that they’re rarely mediocre. I always tend to find myself either absolutely blown away by them or shaking my head in wonder that such a travesty should ever find print, let alone win the Pulitzer or Man Booker (I’m looking at you, Blind Assassin and Line of Beauty). Still, even if I find myself loa More...

13 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I wanted to like this way more than I did. One of those books you read because you've already invested so much time so you might as well finish. On the "good-bad"/"lame-awesome" scatterplot, I put it in the same quadrant as I put it in the "technically good but lame" corner. It was probably a good thing when I misplaced my copy of it for all time. If anyone wants to tell me how it ends, I'd welcome that.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2008

kthread rated it:

About a month ago, online buzz surrounded a "gender analyzer" tool designed to determine whether a Web site was written by a man or a woman.

I was reminded of the flurry of indignation and amusement caused by the tool (on my personal site: "We guess http://kthread.com is written by a man (58%), however it's quite gender neutral. Is this correct?") in the review my friend David posted of Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex the other day:

Despite the fact that More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)