This is a profoundly depressing book. First, it’s about the sad and useless suicides of a family of daughters, abused and crushed by their mother’s behaviour. At the end the author has a minor rant about how they had taken on something that should have been left for god- a comment that seems wrong after the endless descriptions of the girls’ hopeless lives. Surely if god were about, someone would have stepped in and stopped this from happening.

The second reason it is depressing is because the writing is just so darn good. Occasionally, I tired of the lengthy descriptions of minor characters or scenes, but over all, the prose sings with a competence I so wish I had.

I didn’t like the book, but I may have to reread it just to see how he did it, how he put me in that town, with those people, so quickly and deeply.

That said, there are some places where his being a man writing about womanly things runs away with itself. I can’t imagine boys wanting to collect women’s tampons (used), and in one place the author compares the sadness of this family and town to investigating one’s testicles- sorry, not the same. At times the writing gets too precious, too fond of its voice. Are young boys really this obsessive?

Maybe they are. For me, it’s a grim grim tale that somehow misses making the reader feel involved- we are observers, just as the town is, and I’m left with a distant colouring of guilt, as if I could have helped the girls, but chose to watch them pruriently instead.

Must go wash my hands. ( )

Most of my theories on the world change every few years. New evidence, new voices in the mix, new ways of thinking tend to do that to a person. But my theory that every book written in the third-person plural is a masterpiece was formed when I read The Virgin Suicides back in my now-distant teens, and it remains unchallenged. ( )

I never quite got into this. It provides an interesting picture of a place at a particular time, but the characters and events never reeled me in. I might have overinflated my expectations because of how much I loved Middlesex.

Update: this comment really resonates: http://www.metafilter.com/156948/one-weird-trick-that-makes-a-novel-addictive#63... ( )

Eugenides in one of my favorite authors and I have rated all his other books very highly. I have never read this because I saw the movie, but I felt I should read all the books of an author that I really enjoy. This book which was highly rated by many did not work for me. The writing was excellent and it did contain some excellent humor but somehow its' almost fable like style seemed to trivialize the real tragedy of the girls' suicides(not a spoiler because that comes up immediately). Perhaps there is some symbolizing etc. that I missed but for. me this book did not merit more than 2.5 stars and that was based on the quality of the writing and interesting and ofter funny descriptions of the many characters in the book. It you want a great Eugenides book than read "Middlesex" which is a classic. ( )

Inizio a pensare di avere un problema con Jeffrey Eugenides. Come per Middlesex, infatti, non posso dire che il romanzo non mi sia piaciuto: posso solo dire che non è riuscito a far breccia nei miei sentimenti. Apprezzo molto le idee che stanno nel romanzo, ma queste non hanno smosso niente dentro di me.

Avrei voluto solidarizzare con le sorelle nella loro prigione e con i ragazzi ossessionati da loro, ma non ci sono riuscita. Salvo qualche sprazzo di interesse, dovuto alle possibili spiegazioni su quanto stava accadendo e agli effetti dei suicidi sui giovani del quartiere, la prosa di Eugenides non è riuscita a coinvolgermi.

Ho continuato a leggere con la speranza che accadesse qualcosa capace di accendere tutto il mio interesse, ma purtroppo non è accaduto. Forse l'ho letto nel periodo sbagliato; forse un giorno gli darò un'altra chance. ( )