The Virgin Suicides

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful...Elegaic
Review: This book is perhaps one of the most profoundly depressing and intriguing novels i have ever read. Eugenides not only keeps the story of the Lisbon girls from falling apart, but gives it a level of desperation and loss that is heartbreaking. The smooth and flowing yet detatched factual recountings and speculations of the narrator will make you slip deeper and deeper into the story. As the neighborhood boys search in vain for some sort of answer, you will find yourself searching through their 'exhibits' looking for some sort of hint.
This tragic novel is perhaps one of the few modern classics. Though some may find the subject matter (or even just the title)appalling, this book charts the act of suicide without angst, sentimentality, or anger. Instead, it leaves you only with a requiem for the girls, perfectly crafted to walk the line between the real and the surreal. Though often darkly comedic, the obscure details (like the windsheild wipers going) only serve to give the book a sense of reality that finds its way though the soft, melancholy prose, leading to the most perfect and haunting ending i have ever read. One of my all-time favorites.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: Though disturbing and macabre the subject matter of Eugenides' debut novel, 'The Virgin Suicides' is a dreamy narrative that relays with astounding beauty, life in the mundane suburbs and the tragic event that changes the lives of its residents forever.
The story is narrated by the boys who tell of their adolescent longing for the Lisborn girls, the unattainable daughters of a strict and rigid family. Cecilia's (the youngest daughter) attempted suicide is the catalyst for the story and triggers the eventual demise of the family that is to follow.
Some may find that Eugenides lacks direction in his writing but what is written here is a deliberately meticulous study of tragedy, love and life in the guise of a wistful tale.
Eugenides' work is amazing. Read it. You wont' be disappointed.