The plot shifts forward and backward in time but holds there reader’s attention–I never got that disappointed, resigned, “Oh shoot, we have to leave so-and-so to start reading about somebody else,” feeling. The characters are various, mostly lovable, and detailed. Of course, the main subject of Middlesex, hermaphroditism, is much more intriguing to me than sea-going vessels.Įugenides’s book reminds me of Tom Robbins’s book Jitterbug Perfume in several ways. The book is extremely well-researched but never bores with too much detail (I remember one beach read, I think Tom Clancy or one of those, that went on and on about ships without plot or characters in sight for pages not my idea of vacation reading). The dialogue is some of the best I’ve ever read. Every character is interesting, well-rounded and human. I’d forgotten what a brilliant writer Jeffrey Eugenides is, how gentle, how inventive, how honest, fearless and fun. I found myself sending my boyfriend home a half hour earlier than usual each night so that I could have time to read. I didn’t expect to fly through Middlesex so quickly (one week) not just because of my Netflix-shortened attention span but also my eyes have been giving me such trouble, what with the floaters, dryness, ill-fitting contact lenses and increasing nearsightedness. I needed a good read, but it’s a pretty thick book at 529 pages and the last, much less daunting book I tried to read sat on my nightstand unfinished for a month. One did lightly strike a chord–gender identity–because I’ve recently completed an experimental class on body image and sexualization of females. Nothing about the Library of Congress list of themes particularly appealed to me: hermaphroditism, teenagers, Greek Americans, Detroit. I’d read it at least twice before and remembered loving it but didn’t recall too many specifics it had been a long time. For some reason I was hesitant to pick up this book again.
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