Rating: 
Summary: Terribly Overrated
Review: Maybe it's me ... I was enchanted at the start with the history of the main character's family and the incestuous burning villages of the past, but as the story droned on it become hopeless, boring and depressing. The plot was stilted and lacked any sense of unity. A step down from The Virgin Suicides, in my opinon.
Rating: 
Summary: Wish it were longer!
Review: What a great book! I have to agree with what Courtney M. said about the first 100 pages or so being a little slow. If I hadn't read that comment before starting the book I may have given up. I'm so glad I didn't.Only complaint was, I wish we could have gone on just a little longer to see how Cal spends his time. The author did give you hints as to how things were going, but I wanted more. Definately read this book. Don't skip the slow parts in the beginning they make you understand the grandmother a little more. I think otherwise you would come out just hating her! This will probably be a book I re-read & I haven't done that with very many others.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Book Ever Written.
Review: When I started reading this book I got the sense that it was the best book of the year. But by the time I finished it, I realized that it was the greatest book ever written. Move over, Charlton Heston, THIS is the greatest story every told.
Rating:
Summary: Great book to read on the beach
Review: I read this book on the beach and it was a book to savor leisurely. The Greek history, the family saga, and the culmination of all of it in the life of Calliope were all wonderfully drawn. The best part was the love affair between Calliope and her schoolmate. Fantastic. A very good read.
Rating:
Summary: A Big Fat Greek Read
Review: I loved this book! Middlesex is a big long read but not a difficult one. The first half of this novel is really an immigration story about Greek grandparents coming to America in the 1920's and looking for a better life. It moves on to the central character's childhood in a racially divided Detroit of the 1960's and ends with her coming to terms with her sexual identity in the 1970's. This novel was an amazing study on divisions in class, race, culture, generation, and obviously sex. A nice multi-generational slice of Detroit Americana.
Rating: 
Summary: An original and moving sophomore effort
Review: I have not read Eugenide's first novel "The Virgin Suicides," so I can't compare the two. I enjoyed the film but felt like something was missing in the translation. However, I can comment on "Middlesex" on its own terms and with that said, I found it to be a distinctive piece of fiction, endlessly entertaining, and profoundly moving for long stretches - particularly the final third that deals with Calliope's anguished, but ultimately triumphant, adolescence. The cast of characters is colorful, the settings varied, and its sense of historical place and time quite vivid, especially in its depiction of the Detroit riots and burning of the city in the late-60s. But it's the character of Calliope (or "Cal") that really holds it all together. I found myself caring more for her than for any character I can recall in recent fiction. Her transformation - both figurative and literal - is beautifully rendered. My only criticism is of the interludes that appear intermittently set in 2002 Berlin, which depict the narrator's relationship with an Asian-American woman. These sections - never more than seven or eight pages at a time - read like fragments from a different novel or sections that had been edited out of the final text. It's a long book, but one well worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: Incest and Cocoons
Review: Eugenides jumps around from present to past and submerges the reader into the life of a man (well, sort of) who was raised as a female for the first part of his life. An incestuous relationship between brother and sister (will make you squirm) and the dreaded fifth mutated gene are to blame, and we thank Eugenides for representing the Greek culture in this book as he unravels the story. We get to backtrack to how the siblings became husband and wife, learning what it was like to enter the USA in the early 1900's, through the depression and out again. This isn't a quick read, but one that will keep you tied up cozy on the couch during this long cold winter. I saw "Virgin Suicides" on the silver screen but have yet to read it...that's my next read and I'm looking forward to future work from Eugenides.
Rating: 
Summary: Loved parts of it, but not all of it.
Review: I won't rehash the plot here, but this is a sprawling family history spanning some 80 or so years. The narrator, as a character, makes her/his first appearance rather late in the book, and that's a shame. I found the first part with the history of the grandparents rather tedious, but later parts, like a riot in Detroit or the narrator's journey away from her/his parents very interesting. Overall, the novel was uneven: You should realize that some parts of the book may really drag for you as they did for me ... There are many things to recommend about the novel: (1) the prose is often beautiful; (2) the characters are vivid, though I found some of them rather uninteresting as people; (3) the use of myth and classical allusions made parts fascinating. If family sagas aren't your thing, I don't think you'll love this ... you'll probably come away feeling as I did. I think some of the praise is over the top, and I also believe Oprah probably would've picked it at some point if she still had her book club (which, for me, was the kiss of death).
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could give it more stars
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a really really long time. I didn't particulary care for Virgin Suicides all that much and probably wouldn't have picked up this one but for the fact that my book group was reading it. Boy, am I glad I did!!! I read it, loved it and am now passing it on to all my friends. I don't typically write reviews although I always read them before I pick up a book but I just felt compelled to rave about this book because it is such quality literature!
Rating:
Summary: couldn't put it down
Review: Just loved the unfolding of the main characters family, and thier thoughts about the choices/decisions they made in life. Yes this is a work a fiction but it shows how ones choices effect them and generations to come. This was a quick read for me , i happeded to be on vaction when i picked it up, was not disapointed really enjoyed it. This is not a redo of The Virgin Suicides , but it a very beautiful book. I wish that more of the story could have focused on Cal dealing with is gender but maybe the idea was that we need to move on and live with the cards we are dealt in life. I could not stop telling my friends about this book !!!
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