Rating: 
Summary: Narration of suicide and grief
Review: Why would five seemingly normal teenage girls commit suicide? After "wierd" Cecilia fails at a first suicide attempt only to accomplish the task three weeks later, the remaining girls are destined to meet the same fate.The story is told through the narration of a neighborhood boy by means of small-community gossip and observations made by him and his friends. In an almost obsessive watching of the family he tries to piece together what they must be going through. As the family slowly retreats into itself after the first suicide the girls especially become more withdrawn from the outside world, which in itself is gradually losing its suburban charm as time and surrounding urban plight takes its toll. Aside from an occasional siting or chance meeting at school the girls' everyday routines and actions become more mysterious. Until the whole drama comes to rest with the four other girls suicides all the boy and his friends have is imagination and wonder as to what is going on in the house across the street. Some reviews state that there is some humor in this book. Although strangely not that depressing, I couldn't find any humor (even dark) in this grim portrayal of suicide and grief. The "why?" isn't clearly brought about either. This is however a well written book on the withdrawing of a grieving family and the decaying neighborhood that encompasses it.
Rating: 
Summary: More Than Meets the Eye
Review: This was an interesting book. Reading it you only scratch the surface of the true meanings of the book and the lives of the Lisbon girls. Our search for meanings of symbolism has been futile yet keeps our minds returning to the book to get a grasp on the true messages the girls lives are to give the reader. The trees in the yard of the Lisbon family home bore are great deal of symbolism and represented the hollow lives of the girls under the watchful eye of their protective mother. Where as the trees were one by one dying of Dutch Elms Disease so too were the girls being infected by the realization that they were not truely alive. The girls mother and their Catholic faith were symbols for the control over girls in america at the time of the book. While each sister represented a side of the female psyche. For example,Lux the sexual rebel, and Cecilia the innocent lost to the cruelty in the world. Questions still remain after reading the book and the answers the reader was looking for were with held. We don't know why the girls really called the boys to be with them during their demise, or why Cecilia was the first to get out. The questions only add to the intrigue of the book and leave the reader questioning the confindes of the female role in the world and what it was the girls could not bare to live with or without. Overall we highly recomend this book for those who are more interested in answering question for themselves. Give it a whirl.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Written. Unconvincing.
Review: Stylistically, this book has much to recommend it. Written as it is in a lyrical, flowing prose that evokes the doom that surrounded the sisters, it engages and elevates what might have been a bone-dry, clinical analysis to a more poetic "tragedy". Having said that, I also found it to be an occassionally ponderous, embarassingly pretentious effort to discern shapes in the darkness. In this case (despite the complaints of some who criticize it on narrative grounds...e.g., the author ruined the ending), the journey is the destination. The confessional purge of its narration is the exercise of real significance. And Eugenides writes with the nimble elegance that's needed to pull it off. Trouble is, having been a teenage boy myself, I bought not one ounce of its melodious prose, reeking as it did of rapturous "New Yorker" musings.
Rating:
Summary: Very good mood book
Review: The mood that Jeffrey Eugenides captures is unique. It's melancholy, yet fresh and there is a vitality flowing through the book the likes of which I've never seen before. The novel grabs you and pulls you into this mood of flourishing in deep depression. Awesome story, would read it again.
Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Tale Not Nearly as Simple as it Seems
Review: On the surface, the book seems very simple, an American Beauty-esque tale of how modern suburbia is unfulfilling, combined with a sort of coming of age story. It is a unique story, where we never really understand the main characters, while getting to know very minor characters. The story is artistic without losing it's wicked sense of humor or it's entertainment value.
Author Jeffrey Eugenides provides far more than a simple story, however; he gives us a multi-dimentional tale with strong undercurrents and quiet symbolism. The book is about the sad fate of the Libson girls, certainly, but on the other hand Eugenides uses the girls merely as a focal point for themes (often using strong symbolism and light subtext) about the place of religion and government, about the nature of humans, about, I might even venture to say, the meaning of life. Consider, as you read, the deeper significance of the reoccuring religious icons, the mini-christ figures, the fate of the neighborhood's elms. The Virgin Suicides is as rife with symbolism and metaphor as Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", but unlike Hawthorne, manages to stay very readable. To have such heavy symbolism and not create a pretentious book is a very difficult balance, but Eugenides pulls it off with nothing short of brilliance. The writing is fluid and the prose beautiful. Eugenide turns the most mundane into the most haunting and beautful, with very Earthy black humor and a strong grasp on reality. The book is both dreamy and true to life, a paradox which perhaps is the greatest strength of the book.
Though some may find it's ending somewhat unfulfilling, (for the characters have not really grown from where they started, something that your high shcool english teacher will tell you is imperative for a book) there are libraries full of books that can offer you character growth, and few indeed can offer such appealing prose and such powerful emtotions and ideas as The Virgin Suicides offers. I'm running out of space here, but the bottom line is this: you need to read this book. It's funny, it's tragic, it's powerful, it's true to life. Very few authors can boast a better-crafted first novel. Get the book and find out for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect 70s suburban angst
Review: I grew up in Grosse Pointe, MI at the same time the Lisbon sisters would have been there. This book perfectly captures the feeling of suburban, midwestern encapsulation created by parents who have lost sight of that great big world out there. The author does an amazing job of showing teenage 'angst', but from a third person narrative that keeps the reader cleverly placed at arm's length from the story. It's a fabulous way of showing how horribly ridiculous life can be at that age. And now, as a teacher of adolescents, I would recommend this book to anyone trying to figure out why their kids/students/ relatives etc. act the way they do. REad this book and refresh your memory of how awful adolescence can be.
Rating:
Summary: VERY entertaining, but what is the point?
Review: I had a great time while I was reading this book, but it the kind of book that makes you look at yourself and ask the question, "why am I reading this, and putting myself through this?" The story conveys its emotions very well, and you feel the pain of the characters, but there is no real point to it all. Yes, some families are very disfunctional, we already know this. All things considered, don't take my word for it, the story is enjoyable enough for you to read it, and draw your own conclusions to this mysterious and different book.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey Into Suburban Mythos, But....
Review: From the very first paragraph, even from the title, we know what happens: five beautiful sisters commit suicide. The question is, why? The answers are sought, in retrospect, from the point of view of the men who were once teenage boys obsessed with these girls. Eugenides' lyrical, entrancing prose creates a fascinating world within the minds of the boys, and in the process involves the reader in a long lost, innocent suburban world that only ever existed in retrospect. However, what seems so mysterious to the boys, i.e. the reason for the girls' seeming madness and subsequent suicide, is blindingly obvious to the reader, and some of the plot twists seem completely unrealistic and even superfluous. It's a book I enjoyed reading once, but not something I'll pick up again.
Rating: 
Summary: Virgin Suicides, not good
Review: I don't know how this book made the best sellers list. I carried on reading it thinking something would happen, or maybe a brilliant ending, but nothing got me absorbed into this book. It gives the view from outsiders watching the teen age girls, which doesn't shed much light on their feelings from the inside. This is the worst book I've read for years.
Rating:
Summary: The story says more about the mother than the girls
Review: While this story focuses quite plainly on the narrator's observations of this group of 5 enchanting sisters, I believe that this story says more about the mother than the sisters themselves. For at least four years, according to the book, the girls have a somewhat confined life. For the last year before four of them committed suicide, they were practically under lock and key every day (with only a couple of notable exceptions). To me, this beautifully touching novel displays the psychological effects of a mentally disturbed and dictator-like mother who never lets her bright curious children truly explore the world around them, for fear that they'll be harmed. Sadly, we have discovered over the years that there are parents who really do do this to their children, and so while this book isn't particularly realistic in itself, the underlying subject matter could really be a true story. I didn't find any humor within this book, although many other reviewers claim to have. It's a somewhat moody, yet deeply touching, novel which, to me, demonstrates a non humorous story which forces the reader to confront the meaning of life, as with the film American Beauty. It shall remain in my small permanent collection of books forever. I believe that if you loved the film American Beauty, I could safely recommend this.
|
