Rating: 
Summary: Middlesex
Review: I've never written a review for any of these books, but I am compelled to write one about Middlesex. I don't know all the proper literary mumbo-jumbo to throw into this, but all I can say is this is one of the most strikingly beautiful books I have ever bought OR read. The characters have become people I know and love (or love to hate). Either way, I have sniff-sniffed for over two hours to get through the end of this book, and despite that, I feel wonderful. Please, readers, look at the inside-jacket of this book. And if you decide you are mature enough to handle it, then read the book itself and share your feelings about it. I hope you'll agree that, despite the unusual topic, it is as an amazing book as I've ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Enchantingly Written
Review: This is a wonderful read for anyone who appreciates the fine art of writing: magic in its delivery and polished in its plot. If you liked "Memoirs of a Geisha", read this.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: This big book was hard to put down and its story was compelling, complex, rich and hyponotic. I was hooked from the first chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: Really, a 4.5, but Amazon's rating system doesn't allow it
Review: Detroiters -- those who have ever lived inside the city limits -- can be identified by certain characteristics: blind, irrational optimism about the city's impending resurgence; a tendency to live in the past, when Woodward Avenue bustled with the energy afforded by indusrial importance; and, a cosmic, personal relationship with particular automobiles [I, for example, always think of his gunmetal grey Buick Electra when I think of my grandfather]. Jeffrey Eugenides expertly captures the essence of Detroit and Detroiters in this novel, in addition to capturing the complexities of family, of first love, of several decades, of Greek myth and history, of immigrants' perceptions of this country, and, without making too big a deal of it, of sexual ambiguity. Well done! My only complaint: occasionally Mr. Eugenides uses a phrase that seems temporally displaced [using "African American" in the middle of a passage about the sixties, for example.] My only other complaint: he lovingly resurrects all of Detroit's show-and-tell favorites -- Belle Isle, the Penobscot Building, Coleman Young, and Sanders confections, but forgets to mention Vernor's Ginger Ale. Native Detroiters know what I'm talkin' bout!
Rating:
Summary: Superior writing
Review: From the first few pages, the reader feels as though the protagonist is going to become his (or her) best friend. He (once she) confides his sexual secret immediately and then takes the reader on a journey through his past and subsequently, the reason for his physical/sexual dilemna.
This is not a novel of perversion, but one of explanation, family devotion, ethnic description, historical perspective, and truly BREATHTAKING writing.
It will be difficult to find a book to read after finishing this astonishing novel.
Rating:
Summary: One word: Bravo!
Review: In society gender is very often thought of in terms of being male and female exclusively while hermaphrodites have existed in circus-type freakshows and often thought of as a failure of nature. However, MIDDLESEX succeeds in developing a protagonist who is a hermaphrodite *and* a human being with feelings and desires as everyone else. Callie/Cal is not a freak or a monster but simply was born with a receptive mutation of the fifth chromosome. Originating from a Greek Orthodox family, MIDDLESEX weaves together scientific explanation and old world mysticism as the story of Callie/Cal unfolds.I was completely enthralled with this beautiful and captivating novel. MIDDLESEX was difficult to put down, even for one minute, and is one of the best books I have read in some time. Each character is multi-dimensional and believable. I generally cared for them. I felt as if I were a member of the Stephanides family, or simply a fly on their wall. Even the setting of Detriot acted as a main character while the reader follows the growth of the city from the industrial times of automobile factories to the race riots of the 1960's and beyond. MIDDLESEX is definately worth reading. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Twisted
Review: Eugenides is one of the best contemporary writers I've read of late. This book was a great follow-up to The Virgin Suicides. Just when I thought he couldn't come up with a more twisted plot, he proved me wrong. I certainly know more about hermaphrodites than I ever thought I would. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: Woven Fate
Review: Though Middlesex's leading man(Cal)/lady(Callie) is a hermaphrodite, the book spends only a few of its pages exploring what it is like to view, or experience, the world from the perspective of both sexes at once. So if this is what you are looking for in the book, you will surely be disappointed. Rather, the book's principal theme is more universal: how little control we have over who we become. Eugenides narrative skillfully reveals how but for this or that event, each of his characters would not be who they are. For example, Cal/Callie would not have been born a hermaphrodite but for her paternal great-grandparents' deaths, her paternal grandfather not having any other attractive woman to marry, a massacre in Turkey, her maternal grandfather's jealousy and doubts of paternity, World War II, etc. The book uses silk cocoons as a metaphor for the tangled histories that make us all who were are, an unwinding string that goes back far beyond our expectations. Though, as one reaches the last quarter of the book, the disparate strands of silk spin together, explaining Cal/Callie's decision to run away and the intertwined fate of her father. I had read this book a couple of month's after reading Gaille's The Law Review, which grappled with this same problem of how much control we have over where we wind up. One passage from that book also rings true for Eugenides' characters in Middlesex, too: "Decision. I think decision itself is a misnomer. It implies that a choice existed for me at the final moment. More often than not, though, one becomes embroiled in adversity not from a single bad decision, but rather from a series of little decisions that were fine when they were made." Such is the fate of us all.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't hold my interest
Review: Well, I must admit I stopped reading around page 100. The writing was excellent and I liked the basic idea of the novel, but it didn't hold my attention. The plot and characters simply were not compelling enough to pull me forward through 500 pages. I think there is a certain egocentricity to authors (male) who write big books like this one. THEY are interested in everything they say, so we readers should be, too. I prefer a novel like Carol Shields "Unless." At around 200 pages, it never flagged and the author didn't stuff it with extraneous details, historical oddities or long digressions.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best novels to come out in the past decade
Review: Up there with Dave Eggers "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" Donna Tartt's "Secret History" and, of course, the "Virgin Suicides" (is it a coincidence all 3 authors released new books in the last 12 months?) I've been hesistant to read any of their new efforts, but after this phenominal, lyrical and utterly believable tale, I'm encouraged. It's a beautifuly written piece of literature, proving once and for all the talent of this writer.
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