Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

from goodreads

2.5 stars

I know that we all know this already, but reading is amazing. We can learn so much. Our minds can be opened to new worlds and ideas. Fiction is especially good at this. Society is easy to explore and think about when reading a fiction story. When we see what the characters are going through you can get the sense that you are not alone or you can learn about differences or different perspectives on common problems.

Reading is never a waste of time. No matter the story we can learn something about ourselves. It could be a deep philosophical things or it could be as simple as learning you don't enjoy a particular genre. With all the different authors and genres and stories we will always be fed and nourished and hopefully all have a more broad view of the world.


Synopsis

This book chronicles the happenings of the Stephanides family, and more specifically the defect on the 5th chromosome that has gone down the line and created Callie/Cals hermaphroditism. Going from Turkey to the streets of Detroit, this is an interesting look at family, what makes us male and female and belonging.

My Thoughts

Well this book was definitely a surprise. When it was first put on the book club list I thought I was going to be reading a quaint book set in a county in England. So this was definitely not the story I was expecting.

I really enjoyed watching the evolution of this family. The grandparents tale was quite interesting. I also liked watching the evolution of Detroit. The transformation of the city during the different eras was quite interesting.

The subject was also interesting. What makes us male, what makes us female? Hermaphrodites are not often the main character of a book and I found it interesting learning about the different kinds, what they have to go through. It is not often talked about so it was nice to see it put into the forefront. It definitely helps to open a dialogue about the subject and get us thinking about it.

What I didn't like was just how boring the majority of the book was. I loved the grandparents story, I loved Cal talking about his life in Germany (this is once he is way older) and I liked the part of the story once they realized something was not quite right and they were going to doctors, and experts to figure out what was happening and Cal made a decision of what he wanted for his life. Everything else, was just boring. It seemed that the author had so many different characters and storylines that he was trying to do justice to that it just got drawn out and wasn't all that interesting (at least for me). There were a few times that I wanted to just stop reading as it was not holding my interest, but I trudged through because I knew they would be talking about Cal's condition eventually and so I kept going.

This is a book that did have an interesting premise, and that premise will stay with me for a while as it put in mind some thought provoking questions and ideas that will be fun to mull over. The rest of the book and most of the characters will not stay with me and, in that way, made it not all that great.