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Summary: Review of Cracked.
Review: Cracked is a self help book written in the form of a novel. Dr Drew gives insight through fictitious experiences with patients. The characters in the book are very easy to relate to and very likable.
Drew gives information on the effects of trauma and the effects of drug use on the human mind. He gives reasoning as to why people start doing drugs-or indulging in other addiction-and why it's so hard to stop. But he does it in a way that isn't dull.
When I first picked up the book I was very fond of it and I couldn't put it down. I've read it several times since then and I would strongly recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you or a family member is suffering with an addiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit Disappointing....
Review: I read Middlesex earlier this year, and was blown away. The Virgin Suicides is very different from Middlesex. This short novel, while haunting at times, left me disappointed. The characters are fairly one dimensional; perhaps intentionally so. The story and the way it is written is definitely disturbing, but I missed the wonderful character development of Middlesex.
Rating:
Summary: a pretty good book.
Review: This book is a fairly haunting story of adolescence under a microscope, full of lush and beautiful language. I didn't like the movie at all, and while the book is better, they both seem to suffer from some of the same failings. To begin with, neither the book nor the movie really captured my attention. I enjoyed reading the novel while it was open, but never felt an overwhelming urge to return to it. Also, the characters lack depth. While Eugenides seems to attempt to bring the emotional and personality details of the characters into the story, it somehow falls a little flat. While I suppose it could be argued that since the book is written from the perspective of grown-up adolescent boys, the lack of depth is indicative of their perceptions at the time, I still found that it affected my ability to really identify with any of the characters, therein affecting my ability to identify with the story itself. In all, though, this is a good first book from Eugenides, and I plan on reading "Middlesex."
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Summary: Beautifully poetic story
Review: A group of neighborhood boys are obsessed with the Lisbon sisters who begin a downward spiral after the suicide of their sister, Cecilia. The girls hold some sort of feminine mystique over the boys, something about them enthralls the boys, even though the boys know that they're not perfect. They immerse themselves in the sisters lives, collecting things left behind from to live through them. It went much farther than just teenage infatuation. The story is told in the collective voice of the boys' view of the sisters and their lives up until their eventual suicides. I enjoyed this, not quite as much as Middlesex, but this was an enjoyable overall read. I watched the movie first when it first came out on DVD, and while I enjoyed it, I felt that so much had been left out, that that couldn't be all there was to the story, and it wasn't. The story was a complex weave of things stemming from an overbearing mother and passive father to sex. There isn't just one thing that can be pegged for the eventual suicides of the sisters. Everything seemed to work as a whole against them, but then again, sometimes you get the feeling that is isn't the strict household or the teenage troubles that made them decide to kill themselves. You're clued in only through the boys who really only have a limited knowledge themselves of what's going on with those girls. So, the reader is left to pick and choose what might have cause their decision. Parts of this book did seem a little unrealistic. I think it was how sometimes the prose seemed to become too dreamy to be believable, but that may have been the effect that Eugenides was striving for. Overall, the prose was beautiful, the story touching and ominous. An excellent first novel.
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Summary: Haunting and captivating
Review: The book now turned into a movie, about five sisters living in Michigan in the 70's, who lived a very isolated life. The book is narrated by one of the neighbor boys who seem to be captivated by the haunting story of the Lisbon girls. A captivating story of love, sex, and suicide, memory and imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but failed to grip me at any point
Review: I think the reason that I didn't care for this book is that I never found the family the boys obsessed over at all believable. This may be a failing in myself. But as I read, I kept feeling that the whole thing was quite unbelievable. The book was atmospheric, but in the end I had a very unplesant feeling about it all.
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Summary: Jeffery Eugenius----one of the greatest books ever written
Review: There are very few books that I believe are "the best books ever written." The Virgin Suicides is definitly one of them. The book itself is written extremely well and I could actually relate and see these characters in my mind. I love how the book is very intricate and tells every detail about their life. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in life itself. I couldnt put this book down the night I got it I read all the way to page 100. The book is extremely easy to read although it may get depressing. This is not meant to be a "Candy-Coated teen novel" but rather a book that comments on such things as religion and the reality of life. The book gives more detail and in my opipion is better than the movie but the movie does great justice to the book.
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Summary: Jeffrey the great.
Review: The book, the Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides, is an amazing and piercing first novel. The Virgin Suicides is about a family consisting of five girls, Bonnie, Mary, Therese, Lux, and Cecilia. The book begins with the last suicide by Mary one of the girls. Although she starts our tragic tale, she is actually the last to go. The first and youngest to commit suicide in the Lisbon family is actually Cecilia. She tries once by slitting her wrists while is the bathtub, and does not succeed. Cecilia's life ends when she jumps out of one of the windows of the Lisbon house, and onto a stake on the fence in the yard. After Cecila's death the girls try to get back to a normal life. Mrs. Lisbon, their Mother, doesn't give them much space to become their own people but instead to sit in the house so she knows they will always be safe. Because of their mother, the Lisbon girls will go through wild moment behind their parents back. We travel through the lives of the Lisbon girls, through the perverted and immature boys next-door. They tell us the lives of the girls with diary's, contact, spying, and whatever else they can get to, that the girls have came in contact with. This book is an amazing novel that captures the life of five suicidal teenagers, and gives you all the information from an entire town's perspective. The novel can relate to teenagers and elders alike, and is one of the more unique and delightfully twisted books, I have ever came into contact with.
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Summary: Hypnotic & haunting, delicate & deliberate
Review: This story is magical. This is a dream in which I could be any one of the main characters - the girl with the adult mind, trapped in a body of pain that existed before and after her - the secret admirers filled with longing and intrigue, the high school heartbreaker who slips right off the page after school finishes.
The writing is so simple, with a warm smile and a golden, nostalgic presence, surely the author has a secret escape tunnel in and out of a random 13 year old's mind somewhere - how else can he create this world of adolescent castles crumbling in the sky with such assurance?
I read this story in less than 24 hours because it was absolutely compelling. Not unlike the life of Ceclia - it's over too soon.
Rating: 
Summary: A dull, unrealistic read
Review: I do not understand the mountains of praise this book has received. I found it very dull, easy to put down, and quite unrealistic. Okay, it's sort of a cute idea to be told from the perspective of pubescent boys who are obsessesed with these girls, but much of it is just in bad taste. The unrealistic parts also bugged me. If children are taken out of school, someone official will investigate. School is mandatory. Particularly if there is a suicide, there would be an investigation ... even in a small town! The boys as men finally comment on the selfishness of suicide, but it is only after we have endured page after page of their own self-absorption, their own stupidity, and their own lack of initiative. The lack of attention to the mother, in particular, is also maddening. She is obviously imprisoning her children and has an impotent husband. Why is there no comment, no alarm about her mistreatment of the daughters? Suicide is not a comical subject. It could be, if done right, I suppose. But this book does not do it well, not at all. It is a book that you'll be happy to put down and not pick up again. ...If I were you, I'd find something else to read.
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