Linda,
Thanks for your review. It's exactly how I felt. I was considering seeing the movie as an attempt to try to figure out what's so great about this story since I couldn't find greatness in the book itself. From your comment, I think I'll save myself an hour or so by skipping the movie.

Agreed...Middlesex was amazing.
After Middlesex, V.S. was a disappointment.
Thanks,
Clare

That is how I felt about the movie, and I thought the book might elucidate things for me. Now I'm not so sure.

overtly pretentious and so utterly meaningless
Cannot agree you more.
This book is depressing,yet books disturbingly depressing can be also masterpieces.
However V.S.is none of them.

Exactly. I never really got a meaning out of it. <_<

Your review says what I wanted mine to say... you did a better job! :) And yes... I cannot believe that I forgot to take issue with the inaccurate title!

I am nearly appalled with your review. How does one so obviously miss the point of a book?
Did you expect a suicide pact to make sense? Did you expect Mr. Eugenides to explain fully and in small words how horrible suicide is, how breathtaking it is, how it doesn't make sense and will never make sense no matter how committed you are to finding answers? This novel is a suicide note that the Lisbon sisters never wrote- it is as close to a diary as the neighborhood ever got. It is the only explanation and yet, it is not an explanation- just like a real suicide.
The title does not refer to their virgin state, although, that did not become clear to me at first. For all intents and purposes, the Lisbon sisters (ALL of them, even the promiscuous Lux) were virgins. They lived and died in an abusive household. They lived in tiny rooms in a tiny world and they peered out dirty windows and knew that the world was bigger and they would never see it. Virgin refers to their innocence and their misused lives, not their hymens. I'm not sure how you missed that as that part WAS spelled out very clearly. Throughout the book, the narrator refers to virgins sacrificed at altars, especially when the first and youngest dies- she is like a virgin being handed over to a priest, condemned to die for the pleasure of an unknown God.
I think you, all of you, should re-read the novel and forget about the movie. This book is an account of a family who lived in a middle class American home, with everything to live for, but with abuse, fear and depression ruining any chance of normalcy. It's a "behind closed doors" novel that takes place in nearly full view of the neighborhood but no one steps forward and no one helps and everyone watches as young girls die instead of live their oppressed and seemingly impossible lives.
Your review is almost offensive. I hope you realize that this novel is a great insight into depression, abuse and coming of age and give it another chance.

Regardless of the meaning, this book reads effortlessly, like poetry. Even if you didn't enjoy the plot, you should still have some appreciation of the poetic writing. It's a dream to read.

Jocelyn wrote: "I am nearly appalled with your review. How does one so obviously miss the point of a book?
Did you expect a suicide pact to make sense? Did you expect Mr. Eugenides to explain fully and in small wo..."

Jocelyn - I only just saw your comment and it is offensive and catty. Some people do not like this book, it does not speak to them -- that is ok. It would be a very boring world if everyone experienced books the same way. Disagreeing is fine but I think you should try to be a little more diplomatic. Perhaps take a leaf out of Brogan's book... Brogan's comment made me think maybe I should give it one more go. Your comment on the other hand just made me cross.

I didn't "get it" either...I couldn't understand what I was missing...glad I'm not the only one!

Thank you, Athena and Linda! I didn't get it either. And like Linda, I searched for the hidden meaning, especially since the book has widely been described as allegorical. Unfortunately it just didn't resonate with me.

i didn't get it either :) so glad that i skipped many pages and read the ending

It's strange how people are thanking OP for articulating distaste.

Regardless of anything else, I liked the book because its ruminations on adolescent obsession ring true to me. I was once a 12 year old boy, and Eugenides' prose evokes those formerly-private feelings into something with which I can actually achieve dialogue. I'm sorry for anyone else who can't say the same.

There were many things I loved about this book. I found the prose to be fluid and evocative. The desperate attempts to find meaning behind the girls' behavior and suicides was rendered in a deeply moving way, without a hint of sentimentality. There are certainly many more things I liked about the novel. but no one here has yet touched on what I found to be the most brilliant, unsettling theme throughout: the human (ultimately vulture-like) compulsion to pry, to gossip, to get the juicy details no matter the final cost. It is one of the most insidious kinds of invasion of privacy, that carried out by "friends" and neighbors. Eugenides explores this by having the narrator give us a multitude of second- and third-hand testimony from just about every citizen in town, often contradictory, stained with bias and opinion. He finally embodies this lust for dirty laundry in the pseudo-intellectual reporter who just refuses to quit vomiting out her ever-changing theories in provocatively titled articles. Near the end of the novel, I suddenly realized that, in my page-turning frenzy to reach the climax, I the reader had implicated myself in the collective, wholesale invasion of privacy being carried out by all these characters I'd been condemning! While thinking myself necessarily separate from, even "above," all these gossipers; when, in the relative calm center of the novel, I found myself thinking "When are we going to get back to the violence of the first chapter?", I was an unwitting participant in the relentless hounding of the Lisbon family, and didn't even know it at the time. By slowly drawing the reader, the author slyly makes us participants. In the end, I could only smile, shake my head, and think "Oh Mr. Eugenides, you crafty devil!". What a wonderfully chilling and obsessive tale.

You are so wrong it hurts.

@Jocelyn- your comments were snarky and if this was my review, they would have been deleted. (Linda-- you did know you could do that, yes?) This was her review. She can write whatever she wants. She didn't like the book. That is her opinion. Remind me not to invite you to read my reviews.

It's the Virgin Mary not actual virginity

Hidden meaning? Nothing is hidden. Are you looking for an underlying theme? The decay of life in the suburb, the misunderstanding of young women by young men, the misunderstanding of tragedy by society and media, the passing of youth into adulthood and things that are lost in its passing. There is no hidden meaning. Just beautiful writing about an impossibly sad tragedy.

I think Jocelyn's response was perfectly reasonable. In fact, it was Linda's review that I found "catty" and "snarky" here. It's nothing short of insulting to those of us who did enjoy this book. I felt almost as though it was a personal attack.
I don't think this book was pretentious or meaningless at all. Even if you couldn't personally find any meaning in it, I simply don't understand how it could come off as pretentious. I found it downright sweet, even though the topic was pretty grim. It was about adolescence and infatuation and the innocence (thus "virginity") of the girls (and the boys obsessed with them) trying to cope with tragedy and overearing parents while trying to grow up and simply be normal.
I don't know what extra "hidden meaning" there needs to be. I found it a gorgeous read, and I honestly think it would have detracted from the story to have some central moral lesson spelled out to the reader, especially considering the narrators' involvement. I don't think they have it quite figured out themselves. In the real world, who would have been able to "figure out" such a tragedy?
Anyways, I totally respect "not getting it" but I think Linda's response was unnecessarily harsh.

I'm almost done reading this book and I don't know if I want to finish it. At first I loved it, the writing style is amazing but now it is simply boring. It's so repetitive and not very unique at all. And there is barely any action to keep me entertained and the character development isn't quite there either. I want to check his other book out, Middlesex, since I like his writing style and I think the other book will be more impressive.

Searching for a "hidden meaning " in a book is a sure fire way to not enjoying the book. You're making it out like a school assignment; don't read too far into the meaning - just READ. If you try and find the meaning in every book you read, then I feel sorry for your level of enjoyment.

For all the "I didn't get it" crowd: What you're getting is an experience of youth, tragedy and the power of personal myths. It isn't a whodunit puzzle to figure out. If plot driven fiction is the thing you look for in a book, stick to genre fiction and leave literature to the literate.
Jocelyn was right to be appalled. It's an appalling and poorly written review that does little more than highlight the reviewer's narcissistic ignorance with no real justification or examples given to show how the book is bad, just that the reviewer doesn't like it and can't explicate her way out of a paper bag.

M.C., wow. Thank you. Thank you so very, very much.

See, I was part of the "I didn't get it crowd" but after hearing from the final authority (although, maybe I tripped across the same message in a thousand lit. rag columns; can't remember) it turns out that I "got" all there was to "get"...and that wasn't good enough.

I admit that I violated the order of things and went ahead and read the book without my literacy license. I assumed you were backed up, with all the applications you have to evaluate. I really expected that if I were denied, I would have received a rejection notice.

Since you are so keen on seeking out opportunities to let people know who they are, their intellectual limitations, what they should be allowed to think about or (God forbid) express, I thought you might appreciate the following: I don't like or agree with all opinions. I like that there are opinions. It makes me think and critically assess my own opinions. See how that works? See how the first two statements are related, insofar as they incorporate some of the terms but have different meanings because the little words that connect those terms are different? Of course you do. Your literacy implies that you can handle advanced nuances of logic like that. But that's not the point I'm trying to help you with. It's a distinction that I need to identify in order to highlight a derivative...because it seems like you like that you dislike some opinions. (That's a third statement using the same terms but with a different meaning.) That's where I think you would benefit from hearing that engaging in in matters of opposing views is more rewarding if you engage, as opposed to alienating. This is true even if your aim is to condescend in order to feel like you're really really smart, only if others are really really stupid. Where you misfire with that approach is that in merely making condescending statements, you haven't demostrated anything. Surely, you're too sophisticated for that ham-fisted strategy. You should pull them in and establish a body of ignorance. Be clever. You can shear a sheep many times...unless you don't require public evidence or acknowledgement of your superiority. My goodness, all of a sudden I am thinking about the word "narcissism."

I have been turning over the term "narcissistic ignorance" over and over again and I can't figure out what it means. One word doesn't seem to modify the other in a sensible way, (the only thing I can think of that makes sense is "ignorant of the concept of narcissism"; which doesn't makes sense in the context in which it was used.) Little help? I mean, since you're such an enlightening giver and all, can you throw another nugget to one of the ignorant mass? I'd like to grow. Thus far, I have stunted literacy and am limited to simple terms like "snob," as in: "Some people who seek out posts in which they know they will find targets for the purpose of cheap and artificial self-aggrandizement are self-righteous, condescending, narrow-minded snobs who pass time fondling their pulitzer replica while waiting for the secret society of literature pundits to notice one of their brilliant and helpful slams and call them up to the big leagues."

Seriously though, any further help or suggestions as to what
my former crowd should leave to whom would be better placed in your rectum, as it must be so tight that nothing can escape.

One more thing M.C. I thought he book sucked. I don't need a reason (and surely not one for which my method of supporting it needs your approval) and I'll say it all day long, anyway. The thing is: Linda had reasons. She expressed and supported them as we have to assume she saw fit. So, maybe you just don't "get" her review. It didn't speak to you? Not your preferred style? Did you find the messages excruciatingly trite and demand that there be more to it? It seems to me that those are the most common problems that many people have with The Virgin Suicides, Linda included.

You said: I don't like or agree with all opinions. I like that there are opinions. It makes me think and critically assess my own opinions. See how that works?"

I enjoy reading well-written negative and positive reviews for the same reason. The critical difference here being, well-written. I don’t like raspberries, in fact, I hate raspberries. Assuming there was a food review site where people were encouraged to review foods for the benefit of people who hadn’t tried them yet, or compare their own reactions to others, would it be beneficial for me to post a review stating that: “I hate raspberries. YUCK! I mean, I get like, these are supposed to be nutritious or something but just EW! I hate them!” ? I don’t expect anyone to like something just because I like or or dislike it because I do. I too, enjoy living in a world of diverse opinions and experiences. However, I do object to the willy-nilly, unqualified (as in no reasons or explanation given), and unconsidered brandishing of one’s likes and dislikes in what is supposed to be a *review* of a book. Naturally a review is comprised of the reviewer’s opinions, but without any qualifying reasons for the expressed opinions, it is narcissistic indulgence. I’m not reading reviews to find people who agree or disagree with me, but to see how others understood the text and where they found or did not find relevance. In this case, it is the reviewer’s narcissistic ignorance I took exception to. Re-read the original review. The reviewer is *proud* of her ignorance. From OP: “Okay, sure, I get that there may have been metaphors and themes about the hypocrisy of middle America, oppressive religion, etc. etc., but I wasn't impressed.” – Why not give an example of an unimpressive metaphor or theme from the book to give the claim validity and allow a dialogue about this claim? Instead all this review offers is the fact that the reviewer (whose intellectual capacity is demonstrated in the manner in which she/he chooses to express herself, I.e “and hello! at least one was not a virgin when she committed suicide”) isn’t impressed. Well so what? How is that meaningful to anyone other than those who also hate the book and lack the OP’s eloquence?

You said: “’Some people who seek out posts in which they know they will find targets for the purpose of cheap and artificial self-aggrandizement are self-righteous, condescending, narrow-minded snobs who pass time fondling their pulitzer replica while waiting for the secret society of literature pundits to notice one of their brilliant and helpful slams and call them up to the big leagues.’"

Are we talking about you or me here? Because what you accuse me of doing, is exactly what you seem to be doing. My diction may cause you to bristle, but my comments are sincere. The OP’s post used bristling diction (OP said: “Why waste so much paper and ink on something so overtly pretentious and so utterly meaningless?”) and as he/she posted their review in a public forum that allows user comments, I assumed they could take what they dished out.

You said: “Did you find the messages excruciatingly trite and demand that there be more to it? It seems to me that those are the most common problems that many people have with The Virgin Suicides,”

Excellent! That’s right along the lines of what I was looking for. See there’s hope for Goodreads yet ;-)

Yay! I believe you and agree on nearly all points. Sincerely. Your response is constructive, erudite, focussed, cogent and...um...and a very different message than "leave literature to the literate." If you tweaked the first paragraph to be contextually appropriate and injected it into your earlier post in place of the offending conditional command, the world would be a better place in this one miniscule way. I enjoyed the food metaphor. Apt. I used to have the same problem with others' under-substantiation. Then I realized that I was too lazy, underskilled and too lazy to become skilled at backing up while still having opinions. You're clearly more adept. Sincerely. But I wonder how much encouragement and freedom for experimentation and (education notwithstanding) *constructive* criticism you received in order to develop an effective critical voice and technique. I think your latter comments are pursuant of a more robust amateur literary community with helpful, albeit not particularly diplomatic, criticism. I think the comments in the former post were approaching the opposite of helpful, in both tone and content. Thank you for taking the time to explain.

As far as my hypocrisy goes: Yep. Exposed. Although, I too do not seek it out and my motive is rarely self-aggrandizement. Rather, the aggressiveness is somewhat mitigated in that it was reactionary. My reaction to anything approximating "leave literature to the literate" will always approximate: No. Wrong. Bad.

Imagine the damage that can be done. Imagine the consequence if the right person had said "leave literature to the literate" to our author at the right moment of vulnerability in his life to make him do something else. That's extreme. My point is that there is little that is positive that can come of it, as opposed to your subsequent explanation, and a whole lot of potential negatives. At the very least, it was cruel. I don't presume to be qualified to lecture or chastise and I certainly don't mean to belabor a point that I think has been resolved. I'm (at least to my own satisfaction) justifying the cited hypocrisy.

I apologize for and retract any comments involving your anus and anything that should or shouldn't be stored therein.

Michael wrote: "Yay! I believe you and agree on nearly all points. Sincerely. Your response is constructive, erudite, focussed, cogent and...um...and a very different message than "leave literature to the literate..."

Were my comments cruel - Yes, without a doubt. Was the OP equally cruel? I believe so. I do not believe in a culture that coddles everyone to the point of inanity. I enjoy lively debate and exchange of ideas, and I enjoy using rhetorical means to provoke people into passionate discussions.

I don't mean for everyone to get all butt hurt over the literature comment, but seriously, it's okay to not like literary fiction - but you can't come in and judge it by Genre fiction standards. They are not the same.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to kick back with a good book and simply be mindlessly entertained - but I believe, rather passionately, that there is something wrong with judging a work of literature by the same standards you'd judge a mystery/adventure/sci-fi/western novel by.

I refuse to take any kind of Dr. Who time-warp-like "imagine if you said that to someone at the wrong time" kind of responsibility however. The OP reviewed at their own risk.

Thanks for retracting your comments from my anus, greatly appreciated.

*from* your anus - priceless

Well, I guess when one is my age and still paddling around in the same depth as many younger, hesitant, unsure minds that endeavor to become more fluent with literature on their own, one might understandably develop hypersensitivity and a tendency to over-empathize with one's peers. That said, I'd like to think that I'd be tolerant and encouraging when presented with il-formed or unsubstantiated ideas, even were I more literate; much as one would treat an adolescent niece or nephew who is trying to participate in a holiday dinner discussion. I think it's ok to coddle, at the expense of perpetuating frequency of inanity, as long as it's oriented toward improvement. People aren't bad or harmful because they miss the point because I also like to think that most who bother to participate are doing so from a position of openness and a genuine desire to hone their understanding, and analytical and communicative tools. It's a Pollyanna streak that I cherish in myself...and I think you have revealed a complimentary, if not similar, streak in bothering to engage here (albeit secondarily) with rational, supported contributions (as angular as some of them are.)