The Virgin Suicides

Rating:
Summary: Strangely good
Review: The Virgin Suicides at first struck me as odd, but then I realized it was because you weren't meant to understand exactly what the sisters were going through. In that way you take the absolute position of the collective narrator, having no knowledge of the facts that they didn't have. I suggest reading this book because you get to feel as the narrator feels, only having hints of who the Lisbon girls were. I subtracted one star because you only got a picture of who Cecelia and Lux were; Bonnie, Mary and Therese were left without real substance.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most intriguing novels ever constructed
Review: Originally I was only interested in "The Virgin Suicides" because he happened to be writing about my alma mater high school in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. It was great fun to read his dead-on satire of the environment we both experienced only a few years apart, and he even parodies some of the teachers (two of which are still there!) But the story engrossed me more than I anticipated -- along with 1984, 2001, The Other, and Lord of the Flies, this lands squarely among my favorite novels of all time. I could read it once a month for years and learn something new each and every time.

Rating:
Summary: Lyrical, painfully truthful
Review: The book concerns the Lisbon sisters, primarily, but the subplot involves the male perception of women. For example, Lux's promiscious activities with boys from the working class areas, boys unaware of her history, and uncaring. Boys who will only describe her physical characteristics, such as her vagina. It is a painful book. That is it.

Rating:
Summary: Those aching teenage years...
Review: This is a gorgeous book. I found myself shaking my head in agreement to what I was reading long before I realized it. If you've ever know someone who you have never been able to get out of your system, this book is for you. Or if you still remember all of you emotional teenage hang-ups, this book is for you. Since the book is a collective narration, you feel as if "we" includes yourself and everyone else. This is one of my new favorites and if you're looking for it but can't find it in a regular bookstore, try a college bookstore ,its on some syllabi these days. It is well worth tracking down, you will not regret reading this book!! Bad news though, I hear that there will be a movie based on this book sometime late next year but I suggest reading the book!!

Rating:
Summary: Please, Mr. Eugenides, give us more!!!!
Review: I wish this guy would write a hundred more books. It's fabulous, really, one of my top-ten. Is there a better contemporary writer than Jeffrey Eugenides? Anyone who has anything bad to say about Virgin Suicides is a ding-bat. Pretty please, Mr. Eugenides, pretty please write another book.

Rating:
Summary: can you spell B-O-R-I-N-G?!!!
Review: After reading several reviews about this book, I decided to purchase it. I have never experienced anything so boring in my life. The endless pages of descriptions, and paragraphs that lasted just as long made me want to throw this book across the room. Although I found the storyline interesting, I could not get past the author's boring style.

Rating:
Summary: Lyrical, haunting
Review: Author Eugenides has crafted a tale of obsession and desire through the naive eyes of neighborhood teenage boys. Pieced together clues, small observances and misinterpretations draw the reader into a maze of perceptions that deftly twist and tease, creating an urgent need to know, to understand, to sink into the strange and dark conciousness of life behind the idealized walls of surburbia. Lyrically written, in a unique rhythm of "moments" and detail, his prose haunts the soul with its richly dark imagery. Obviously, I loved it!

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Humorous. Creepy Nostalgia.
Review: The Virgin Suicides is a book about little deaths: Innocence, childhood, first loves, and everything else we seem to lose through adolescence. Mr.Eugenides evokes laughter,sadness, and general bittersweet emotions through the observations of an obsessive/stalker-like teenage boy and the object(s) of his affections, the Lisbon Girls. A must read for people who enjoy creepy nostalgia!

Rating:
Summary: Fine fiction for a first novel
Review: "The Virgin Suicides" is a good quick read. It tells the story of five sisters and slowly we see the family of these sisters disintergrate. The youngest commits suicide and the family starts a descent into hell. The descent is chronicled by neighborhood boys who have grown up with an unreal fascination towards the Lisbon sisters. The style which Eugenides uses to convey the curiousity of these boys is remarkable in we never see anyone singled out as the narrator. We see the story as it unfolds told to us as if we were sitting in a backyard barbecue and reliving an old neighborhood scene. The information gathered and deciphered by this neighborhood over time. A good read with imagery and black humor thrown in to the mix.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Miss the Societal Metaphors
Review: My book club just finished discussing this book, and thank goodness for shared insight. I *knew* there was more to this book than the beautiful, haunting prose, but it took a group of us to puzzle out the deeper ironies and metaphors. Eugenides is telling a larger tale of societal suicide; he obliquely yet decisively attacks what many Americans hold "sacred": the suburban American dream, the automobile industry, religion, education, and the nuclear family. The book's time is intentionally difficult to nail down because includes components of the past five decades. It's "everyone's" history of adolescence, in a sense. The collective, anonymous narrator is all of us, looking in a detached manner at our own neighbors whom we claim to know and care about, yet ultimately are disconnected from because we fail to recognize that they are ourselves. A fascinating read on many levels.