Rating: 
Summary: More than the sum of its parts
Review: Wow!
Short blurbs about this novel didn't persuade me to pick it up at all; then I read a longer and more thoughtful review and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. It was well worth the wait.
The tender story of a hermaphrodite follows the history of the protagonist and his family through 80-90 years of America and The Family. The book defies single word descriptions, but it's strange, haunting and spiraling story lines continue resonating long after the reader closes the book.
It's a long book, but it never dragged, and I honestly don't think it could be more tightly edited without losing something important in the process.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Not much like The Virgin Suicides, but has the same beautiful flowing writing that wraps you up like a blanket of dreams. One of the better books I have read lately, however it is like a pint of very very very rich ice cream. You love it, but you can't consume it all at once like the quick pleasures of The Da Vinci Code or My Fractured Life. Instead, you must savor it as you read, and enjoy it a little at a time.
Rating:
Summary: About much more than biology
Review: I wasn't initially excited to read this novel, which was billed to me as "about a hermaphrodite." Indeed it is, but it is also a multi-generational epic about love, loss, family, patriotism, politics, art, and much more that takes the reader from Greece to prohibition-era Detroit to the swanky Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe in the 1970's. And the writing is so beautiful that, in some ways, it wouldn't matter who the characters were or what they did.But you do care, because the characters are painted so vividly. We learn why Cal/Callie possesses both genders, or at least we believe that it is because her grandparents are actually brother and sister. This part of the novel forms the unconventional but surprisingly beautiful love story portion of the novel. It proceeds through the romance of her parents, and Callie's childhood as a little girl, unaware of her uniqueness. The latter part of the novel is about Callie's realization that she is a hermaphrodite, and her ultimate decision to become Cal rather than Callie. This novel is an absolute delight, from start to finish. It has a human element that I found lacking in The Virgin Suicides, although I still enjoyed that novel as well. This is a coming of age story with a twist, that rivals the great novels of the twentieth century. Cal Stephenides is this generation's Holden Caufield. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A terrific novel!
Review: From the first sentence of Jeffrey Eugenides' MIDDLESEX, I was hooked by this complicated tale of a young girl who grows into a man. The story of Cal Stephanides begins generations before his birth, in a small Greek village, when his grandparents succumb to incestuous desires. Immigration to the United States keeps Desdemona and Lefty's secret intact - until their grandchild Cal reaches puberty. Told with both humor and earnestness, the story grows more engaging with every page. The brilliance of this book emerges not from the superficial story of a hermaphrodite but from the context - historical, scientific, psychological, political, geographical - of Cal's birth and subsequent rebirth. MIDDLESEX is about much more than gender confusion. Cal's mixed gender can be taken as a metaphor for the experience of first- and second-generations born of immigrants. While the context of this story provides the substance, the characters provide the vibrancy. Cal emerges as a reliable and likeable narrator. He is sensible, good-humored, and intelligent. The spectrum of his experiences provides a smooth transition between childhood and adult, enabling the reader to embrace the character as both male and female. Cal's family is affectionately portrayed, even with their failings. (Cal's brother, Chapter Eleven, annoyed me with his name, a running gag, but even he ended up a full-blooded character by the end.) Eugenides has written an expansive, compelling book. Despite its length of over 500 pages, the novel is not a slow read - unless the reader wants it to be, to make it last. Accessible, intelligent, well-paced and plotted, it should appeal to a wide range of readers. I can't recommend this novel highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Literary Symphony
Review: Reading Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides) is like listening to music. The words seem to dance off the page with a colorful and sweeping rhythm in the tradition of My Fractured Life. The experience is a symphony of the senses and fully enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent sophmore effort
Review: Eugenides is a very good story teller, to mix pathos, angst, humor and intelligence in this way is very rare. As a long time reader of Irving, Updike, Roth and the like from a different generation it is nice to see young talent carrying the torch of writing great novels that peel away the layers of our society. It brings back memories of the time when it was understood that this countries wealth was not only built on the backs of immigrants, but that they also created the forces that resulted in the rapidly evaporating middle class.
Rating: 
Summary: Another disappointment
Review: This book has all the commonplace sensational ingredients of a
Jerry Springer show -- incest, the dysfunctional family, gender
confusion. Etc. My advice is to go watch a kids sports event.
You will learn more about human nature, and have more fun, than
reading another derivative work (amazing that anyone would think
this book is "original").
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: After reading The Virgin Suicides and being impressed by Eugenides' remarkable handling of narrative (in that case to create an eerie distance between the boys of the neighbourhood and the Lisbon girls), I had to read Middlesex immediately. An epic in every sense of the word, the story begins in turn-of-the-century Greece and takes us on a journey through the histories of the Stephanides family as they travel to America, resulting in Calliope. Unlike most girls her age, Calliope must uncover a buried family secret and become Cal. Rather than create distance, Eugenides here draws you in to his characters, showing a great deal of sensitivity to his young heroine/hero. Cal is one of the most interesting narrators of recent years and, in particular, the way his/her adolescense is described and handled is writing of the best sort. What's important though is the fact that Eugenides earns this through his detailed and clearly well-researched description of the two generations preceding Cal. There are plenty of rounded characters here that you find yourself looking back to what a different approach Eugenides took with The Virgin Suicides with the dreamy shadows of the Lisbon girls. Whilst both are more than impressive, Middlesex is so epic, bringing in such a variety of important themes (not least that of what defines your identity), that it should probably be viewed as the better work. Still, both are such excellent examples of the modern novel that anyone who liked Middlesex should definitely seek Eugenides' earlier work. Whilst the end of the story has a slight tendency towards over-exaggeration and some loose ends are tied up a little too nicely, the fantastic, and the way memory creates the fantastical from the ordinary seems to be one of the author's main concerns, and his glittering depiction of exciting car chases, burning cities, burgeoning sexuality and death is among the most interesting and compelling I've read for a fair while.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: Jeffery Eugenides' Middlesex is a wonderfully invigorating thrill ride. If you enjoy reading about richly described characters who grow as the novel flows, this book is most definetley for you. The story follows the lives and relationships of the family of Calliope Stephanides, a hermaphordite. Calliope must uncover a deep family secret in order to discover the origin of her deformity. The reader of this story follows Calliope's family history, her short-lived relationships, and eventual self-discovery. The novel has several endearing characters, such as Calliope's elder brother known throughout the story as Chapter Eleven and her Father, Milton Stephanides.Chapter eleven is a free style hippie who is a direct contrast to his father, a completely straight forward military man who only plays by the rules. Not only will the reader of Middlesex walk away with an extreme sense of satisfaction, but they'll walk away with quite a bit of knowledge as well.
Eugenides uses several incidents from American history to string his story along. The Detroit Riots of the late Sixties which are described with vivid detail. From this the reader learns about American Poverty and violence in history. Eugenides' book also discusses the role of Henry Ford's Americanizing, anti-immigrant melting pot. This is an important part of the story because it details the transformation of Calliope's grandfather Lefty into a full fledged American at the cost of his Greek culture. Henry Ford would do this in reality in order to welcome immagrants into American society. However, as soon as the ceremony was over, he would always ironically find something wrong with their past individual history and would fire them and hire new immigrants. This would create a wave of English speakers who were eligible to work. Eugenides' characters are Greek, and to tell their story, he uses several parables from classical Greek Mythology to enhance his storytelling. One such example is the Greek play "The Minotaur." By explaining the unnatural relationship by which the minotaur was created, the story of Calliope's deformity is explained and becomes a metaphor for his whole life. Classic Greek mythology explains a hemaphrodite's creation by uniting the characters, Hermes, the messenger god who is also known as Mercury, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty. These two examples make Eugenides' story more believable, authentic, and his characters more like real people who don't want to lose their cultural identity.
But on the whole, identity is what Middlesex is all about. Throughout the story, the main character struggles with his cultural and sexual identity. Desdemona, Calliope's grandmother, changes her identity to that of a obedient Muslim woman in order to work and help her family. She becomes confused in this when she listens in on a speech by a manipulative Reverend Fard, who says that white people are the Satanic and that they are all going to hell. But when she meets Fard and realizes that is is just a misconstrued soul who has lost his identity, she gains hers back and discovers that her identity as a Greek is more important to her than anything else in her life.
To sum up, Middlesex impresses the reader with many strong themes. The reader learns that no matter what, no one can ever change who he/she is on the inside. Self discovery and a little humor are both used to make the reading fun and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Deserved the Pulitzer
Review: It's not often a book that won the Pulitzer captures my attention. After all, literary prizes tend to go to books that are--for lack of a better word--literary. Jeffrey Eugenides defies that tradition by giving us _Middlesex_. The story of Caliope's transition to Cal, the story of Greek immigrants, the story of family secrets hidden then revealed--it reads like a Greek tragedy tinged with comedy. Cal's journey and transformation are only part of the story. Everyone in Cal's family has had their own transformation, bringing with them the defective gene that will someday produce Caliope. The secrets that are hidden--marriages, heredity, criminal acts--all of it comes together seamlessly. Eugenides's scenes are so well drawn-out that you'd swear you were there: in the cabin, on the boat, in the diner as the flames errupt. Cal's voice tells the tale with a tinge of sarcasm, regret, and pride, developing the storyline while keeping some things for himself, only to reveal them later. _Middlesex_ is an epic work that crosses generations, explores social mores and customs, and gets to the heart of what identity really is.
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