The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Virgin Suicides
Book Review: A Bit Disappointing....
Summary: 3 Stars
I read Middlesex earlier this year, and was blown away. The Virgin Suicides is very different from Middlesex. This short novel, while haunting at times, left me disappointed. The characters are fairly one dimensional; perhaps intentionally so. The story and the way it is written is definitely disturbing, but I missed the wonderful character development of Middlesex.Book Review: A Fine Combination of Shadows and Sidewise Glances
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to describe the effect this novel can have on a reader, as so much of the book is supposition and conjecture. We never learn as much as we could about the narrators or the Lisbon girls, but that is the essential heart of the story. How much do you know about your neighbors? Your classmates? Less a novel about five girls who commit suicide, this is a story of how people can become disconnected, and how a neighborhood can decay. Running through these themes is the saga of coming of age, both for the Lisbon girls and for the teenage boys who takes us through the sweet decay of the story. A work of uncommon depth and grace, this novel is essential reading from the heart of America.Book Review: A Good but Twisted Book.
Summary: 3 Stars
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The Virgin Suicides is about five sisters living in a very strict catholic home. Cecilia 13, Lux 14, Bonnie 15, Mary 16, and Therese 17. It starts out with Cecilia trying to commit suicide by slashing her wrist in a bath of hot water. She was saved. She attempted suicide soon after being saved again and succeeded by jumping out of the window and landing on a spike fence. After Cecilia's suicide the mother of the girls, Mrs. Lisbon, was acting stricter then she was. Each girl has her own personality, Lux being very sexually curious and all the other sisters very quiet and well mannered in their own way. The mother of the girls made all their clothes. She made them so each seam of their dresses was too big so no curves would show. The biggest rule was no boys! That all changed when Trip Fontaine came into the picture. He was kind of the popular good-looking boy of their high school. He found his way into their lives and ended up making a deal with Mr. Lisbon, their father to take the girls to homecoming under strict rules. The rules were they all had to stay together, they had to be home by 10pm, and the father would chaperone the dance. He asked a few of his friends to take Lux's sisters. He took Lux. Lux broke everyone of the rules. She came home two hours late and ran off with Trip during the dance. After the night of homecoming, Mrs. Lisbon took the girls out of school. They were not allowed to leave the house. Eventually the girls found a way to escape there sheltered lives......
Author Bio
Jeffrey Eugenides wrote the Virgin Suicides. Jeffrey was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 8, 1960. He is currently living in Berlin, Germany. He has a B.A in English from Brown University (1983) and he has a M.A. in creative writing/English from Stanford University (1986). He has gotten many awards some of them are the Whiting Writer's Award, 1993; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1994; Pulitzer Prize for Middlesex, 2003
Book Review: A Great Find
Summary: 5 Stars
The Virgin Suicides is a great book. Once I started to read it I couldn't put it down. This is a beautiful and moving story about how suicide affects a family and a small town. WHile this book is not cheerful, it does have its funny moments and I would recommend that everyone read it.Book Review: A Haunting Debut
Summary: 5 Stars
Never before or since has there been written such a profound and hauntingly beautiful debut. Eugenides has crafted an intense novel exploring the lives of five sisters through the eyes of a group of friends, all of whom have been transfixed for years, even after the girls' suicides. The singular narrative voice for the boys/men is an interesting device, unique and surprisingly satisfying. While many have expressed opinion, usually negative, regarding the authors' lack of detailed motivation for the girls' suicides, the open-endedness is perfect, as any offering of such details would have appeared as simply providing an unnecessary closure. Thatvery lack of explanation lends the novel a lingering sense of melancholy, one that stays with the reader days after having taken in the last pages. Engrossing, fulfilling and appropriately chilling, one can only hope the forthcomng film adaption captures the novel's gothic sensibility and overwhelming impact.