I know a lot of people either didn’t like this or felt it was underwhelming. I also think the more years we move away from Middlesex, the more we won’t talk about it (a book I love, but imagine won’t hold up years down the line). In this novel, we find ourselves at Brown in 1982 on the eve of graduation. Madeleine is hungover, expecting her parents, and regretting “something” she did last night, even if it wasn’t technically sex. At breakfast she and her […]

I’m not sure where to begin with Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, simply because there is so much to it: spanning across the story of three generations in a family, the story takes place over many years, as the protagonist, Cal, recounts how he came to be, and how his life shaped who he is now through a long history of family and discovery. We begin in 1922 in Greece, where Cal’s grandparents first begin their relationship under intense shame due to the fact that they are […]

Oh, Jeffrey Eugenides, will I ever judge a book of yours fairly after you’ve written Middlesex? This is something of a theme in my reviews in part because I’ll buy books based on the strength of the author’s name if I’ve fallen in love with one of their works, and then they end up in my “I’ll get around to it” pile. But man, I honestly feel guilty with Eugenides because Middlesex is so damn perfect nothing will ever measure up.  It’s a top five […]