One thing I pride myself on usually is managing my expectations for books accordingly - hype? Doesn’t bother me at all, the book is what it is! But with The Virgin Suicides, my intense love for Middlesex put a dampener on my reading experience - self sabotage! I kept expecting the greatness of Middlesex, the attention to detail and impeccable characterisation... and it never materialised.
.
From the start I was hesitant because of the weird, collective teenage boy narration. A book about five girls being narrated by a horde of teenage boys who are obsessed with them was probably never going to be a good time for me. The narrator(s) are looking back on the tragedy that struck the Lisbon family and seem to be collating some sort of scrapbook about it, the point of which is never explained and felt like some sort of gimmick to me.
.
Had Eugenides did what he did for Cal in Middlesex for one of the Lisbon sisters (Lux would have been great) then this would have been another stellar read, but as it stands it was just an okay read for me. The five Lisbon girls WERE interesting, but I felt like their short lives weren’t explored quite deeply enough.
.
Of course, Eugenides’ writing did make up for my lack of appreciation of the actual plot - it was beautiful as ever with some truly haunting passages! If you haven’t read any Eugenides, maybe it’s best to start with this and then move onto the glory that is Middlesex? God knows what The Marriage Plot is like, although I have heard a few people say they couldn’t finish it...