Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

The opening line of "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides is "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan in August of 1974." This intriguing conundrum is explained promptly as we are then informed of the narrator's ancient genetic mutation, in conjunction with a brief smattering of the contradictions in the speaker's life that led up to and immediately followed this astounding discovery. And that's just on the first pages of this novel. But I can assure you that the remaining 500+ pages are no less ...  Read the complete review

After reading "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides, I was desperate to read his other book, "Middlesex". My mum had recommended the book to me a couple of years ago, and I recall picking it up, reading a few chapters, getting bored, and putting it down. I decided however, to give it another go, and was pleasently suprised to find that the book that had bored me a couple of years back, ended up being one of the best, most thought provoking books I have ever read. Author/background. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jeffrey Eugenides was born in Detroit, in the US, in 1960. His Greek and Irish heritage form the ...  Read the complete review

You know what it's like at airports, those couple of hours in departures, shuffling aimlessly from shop to shop, hoping to magically pass the time. I always end up parting with cash in the bookstore, because somehow it's justified when you're off on holiday. This time I dithered over the lovely stacks of books, and ended up with 'Ignorance' by Kundera, 'Platform' by Houellbecq, and 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides. Middlesex, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer, follows three generations of the Stephanides family, from the grandparents driven out of Asia Minor Greece to the grandchildren in Modern day America, and principally ...  Read the complete review

I had to pop on and do a review of this book as I absolutley love it, is is possibly one of my favourites. I belong to a book group who had done this book just before I joined and they highly recommended it to me - what a great recommend!! The protagonist makes you feel such empathy with him and by the end you really feel that you know and understand him. the book tackes all sorts of issues which could have the potential to blow up in the face of the author, bu the way that Eugenedes does it is simply beautiful. I have no hesitation in recommending this book, in fact I have recommended it to many people and all of them from my mum to my ...  Read the complete review