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karol99's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Self harm, Child death, Death, Grief, Mental illness, and Suicide
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Drug use, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Fatphobia, Medical content, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexual content
lilybisliterate's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Racial slurs, Suicide attempt, Death, Domestic abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Self harm, and Suicide
soph1768's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Grief, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, and Self harm
favvn's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I keep dragging my feet on typing out a review for this book. Possibly because there's so much I could say about it that I'm at a loss for how to phrase it, much less fit it all into a review barely anyone will read (maybe someday I'll be a booktuber girlie but not any time soon lmao). I just reread it for the third time and I still don't know exactly what to say.
I could be flippant and say, "Cecilia is just like me fr fr" or that this book once helped to tank my already sunken mood so badly I found myself in therapy as a result, but that's just sensationalist and doesn't explain why I would come back to it again and again. (I will say, if you struggle with depression/depressive episodes.... maybe wait until your mood stabilizes before cracking open this book because guess who didn't and just got worse in continued self-imposed isolation 🤪 until the fog lifted and in a moment of lucidity I sought help) So, I guess let me try to put into words why I like The Virgin Suicides enough to come back to it in spite of my past history with it.
1. The Writing Style/Set Up
Eugenides reveals what's going to happen right in the title, right in the first sentence. Already, you go into this book knowing what you will encounter. He does this because he wants you to ask, like the collective narrator, "Why?" And the more you read, the less you will ask why but rather, "How could no one help?" This is the issue that haunts the narrator(s). This is why they're still obsessed with the Lisbon girls 20+ years later. Well, that and teenage hormones/first crush/"we could've dated, but never did, so all we have are scenarios we dreamt about" type combo. Add suicide at such a young age and anyone could be haunted by all of those what-ifs and maybes, that complete lack of resolution.
2. The Collective Narrator
Truly the most unreliable narrator of all time! Like playing a game of telephone, these boys/men contradict themselves, get details mixed up or wrong entirely, or focus on the most mundane of things while glossing over the important events.
Yes, there's a heaping amount of gross sexualization and misogyny as a result. Frankly, this should come as no surprise (although I'm a cynic. If men want me to change my opinion, change your behaviors first xoxo). They're recounting their teenage years--the time of crazy hormones and intense feelings--during the 70s, a time period that could be just as grossly sexist as earlier periods and was sexist as a backlash to the Women's Movement of the time. It would be unrealistic for the boys to not be perverts about the girls, although frankly, why they're dreaming of the girls whilst having sex with other women 20+ years later is a big, gross yikes. Eugenides, please explain that decision to me.
That aside, the fact that the boys sexualize the Lisbon girls works to heighten the girls' plight, in my opinion. There's a line in chapter 4 that I think about always because it's a throwaway type of line, but it's jarring because of its placement in the story. The boys are finally about to enter the Lisbon house to play out their fantasy of rescuing the girls by taking them away to wherever, but before they enter they watch Lux smoking in the living room and take stock of a halter top they had last seen her wearing 2 years before everything happened. The boys tell themselves that it's this great symbol of the girls soon-to-be had freedom, but it ends with, "That halter could've come undone with one quick yank." And this line destroys that stupid white knight fantasy the boys believe they're living because all it shows is how the Lisbon girls would be trading a cloister (albeit a rotting and leaking cloister with a questionable food supply) for a new hell of objectification at the hands of boys believing themselves to be saviors. Which, based on criticisms I've read from women about the free love movement of the late 60s/early 70s and the expectation of domestic labor from the women involved in political activist groups of that time... it all hits. Or I'm just being a complete cynical killjoy.
But of course, the best possible example of what I'm talking about comes later in chapter 4, when the boys return to the basement. The floor is flooded from rain and backed up sewage vents and nobody cleaned up from the party held the year before. The decorations, food, punch bowl, all of it is still out, rotting and collecting dust.
I could be flippant and say, "Cecilia is just like me fr fr" or that this book once helped to tank my already sunken mood so badly I found myself in therapy as a result, but that's just sensationalist and doesn't explain why I would come back to it again and again. (I will say, if you struggle with depression/depressive episodes.... maybe wait until your mood stabilizes before cracking open this book because guess who didn't and just got worse in continued self-imposed isolation 🤪 until the fog lifted and in a moment of lucidity I sought help) So, I guess let me try to put into words why I like The Virgin Suicides enough to come back to it in spite of my past history with it.
1. The Writing Style/Set Up
Eugenides reveals what's going to happen right in the title, right in the first sentence. Already, you go into this book knowing what you will encounter. He does this because he wants you to ask, like the collective narrator, "Why?" And the more you read, the less you will ask why but rather, "How could no one help?" This is the issue that haunts the narrator(s). This is why they're still obsessed with the Lisbon girls 20+ years later. Well, that and teenage hormones/first crush/"we could've dated, but never did, so all we have are scenarios we dreamt about" type combo. Add suicide at such a young age and anyone could be haunted by all of those what-ifs and maybes, that complete lack of resolution.
2. The Collective Narrator
Truly the most unreliable narrator of all time! Like playing a game of telephone, these boys/men contradict themselves, get details mixed up or wrong entirely, or focus on the most mundane of things while glossing over the important events.
Yes, there's a heaping amount of gross sexualization and misogyny as a result. Frankly, this should come as no surprise (although I'm a cynic. If men want me to change my opinion, change your behaviors first xoxo). They're recounting their teenage years--the time of crazy hormones and intense feelings--during the 70s, a time period that could be just as grossly sexist as earlier periods and was sexist as a backlash to the Women's Movement of the time. It would be unrealistic for the boys to not be perverts about the girls, although frankly, why they're dreaming of the girls whilst having sex with other women 20+ years later is a big, gross yikes. Eugenides, please explain that decision to me.
That aside, the fact that the boys sexualize the Lisbon girls works to heighten the girls' plight, in my opinion. There's a line in chapter 4 that I think about always because it's a throwaway type of line, but it's jarring because of its placement in the story. The boys are finally about to enter the Lisbon house to play out their fantasy of rescuing the girls by taking them away to wherever, but before they enter they watch Lux smoking in the living room and take stock of a halter top they had last seen her wearing 2 years before everything happened. The boys tell themselves that it's this great symbol of the girls soon-to-be had freedom, but it ends with, "That halter could've come undone with one quick yank." And this line destroys that stupid white knight fantasy the boys believe they're living because all it shows is how the Lisbon girls would be trading a cloister (albeit a rotting and leaking cloister with a questionable food supply) for a new hell of objectification at the hands of boys believing themselves to be saviors. Which, based on criticisms I've read from women about the free love movement of the late 60s/early 70s and the expectation of domestic labor from the women involved in political activist groups of that time... it all hits. Or I'm just being a complete cynical killjoy.
But of course, the best possible example of what I'm talking about comes later in chapter 4, when the boys return to the basement. The floor is flooded from rain and backed up sewage vents and nobody cleaned up from the party held the year before. The decorations, food, punch bowl, all of it is still out, rotting and collecting dust.
Buzz Romano waded out to the card table, and as we all watched, began to dance, to box-step, as his mother had taught him in the papal splendor of their living room. He held only air, but we could see her—them—all five, clasped in his arms. “These girls make me crazy. If I could just feel one of them up just once,” he said, as his shoes filled and emptied with silt. His dancing kicked up the sewage smell, and after that, stronger than ever, the smell we could never forget.
It's an entirely fitting description that his shoes should fill with disgusting sewage water while he imagines dancing with the girls as he says he wants to feel one of them up. It covers all bases: the boys' fantasy of their relationship to the girls and the reality of why the boys are so dogged in their pursuit.
3. The Parallels
I love parallels. I love when separate things mirror each other and show a united message once compared. Love it, love it, love it. And in The Virgin Suicides, Jeffery Eugenides parallels the deterioration of suburban life in the 70s with the deterioration of the environment and the deterioration of the Lisbon family.
The unifying symbol of all this deterioration and decay is, of course, the elm trees. Once a thing of natural beauty that hid how sterile and uniform the neighborhood was in the boys' youth, they are removed one by one throughout the book owing to an outbreak of Dutch Elm Disease. Without the trees, the boys are confronted by how artificial their life is, and with no more trees, the neighborhood loses an old communal tradition of each household collecting leaves to burn by the end of fall. The Lisbon's tree, in a poetic turn, is left standing last but as a bare trunk devoid of limbs, described as, "a creature clubbed mute, only its sudden voicelessness making us realize it had been speaking all along." Do I even need to say what this symbolizes?
The ending chapter describes a spill at a local chemical plant creating a thick layer of algae that results in a disgusting, swampy smell permeating the neighborhood. It recalls the descriptions of vapors coming from the Lisbon house earlier and that strange smell that would enter the neighborhood if any Lisbon opened the door. But, naturally, no one wishes to be ousted by such a silly thing as nature taking its due course, so a local family uses the theme 'Asphyxiation' for their daughter's debut party.
It's in this backdrop that racism is included in the book and, much like Eugenides' use of sexualization, it's very much for a purpose. It's mentioned in passing, of course, because the book focuses solely on white characters--black maids waiting on street corners for buses to the city, the local costume store changing its ghost mannequin to look more pointed, a restaurant removing fried chicken from its menu. And yes, there is at least one use of the n-word that I can recall. But it's all in the sake of reality because yes, the wealthy, white suburbs of Michigan would be racist in the 70s, especially with the 1967 Detroit Riot happening about 10 years prior to the book's setting and the white exodus from the cities to the suburbs going on since the 50s. Racism never limited itself to south of the Mason-Dixon line, it just took a more subtle approach. Eugenides isn't tossing in these details to be shocking or showcase latent racism on his own part. He was writing from his own experiences as a teen in 1970s Michigan. And by this point in the story, if a whole neighborhood can watch but never confront the decaying house across the street or its occupants, how is casual racism from these same characters so shocking? They're not even caring after their own neighbors! Which goes back to how hollow and meaningless the suburbs of The Virgin Suicides have become--any sense of community slowly erodes with each passing year until families outright pack up and leave for the Sun Belt. The only thing that keeps enough of them together--or possibly brings them back--is survivor's guilt at not doing enough to help the Lisbons.
Other/Miscellaneous:
I will forever laugh at the part where the boys earnestly believe girls ages 13-17 are douching every night. Big hearty chuckle.
Partly mind boggling but partly not to learn that Eugenides had zero symbolic intentions behind having Cecilia wear an old wedding dress. I love knowing he just said, "She's a weird kid so that's one of her quirks." Meanwhile so many people analyze it--rightly so!--to call back to the idea of a virgin bride and the joy of a wedding only for Cecilia and her shorn-hemmed, stained dress to turn all of that on its head. Gotta love serendipitous coincidences.
It's also funny to me that Eugenides was surprised to learn how so many girls are fans of a book so thoroughly centered in the male perspective, but he captured the hell of being a girl perfectly: on one extreme, the Lisbon girls are locked away by their mother to stay safe forever. On the other, they are lusted after by the boys and held up as a fantasy that doesn't exist according to the boys' white knight dreams. In the process, no one wants to see them for who they were--not a dream or sex fantasy or something to be protected and locked away, but human. And under living conditions like that and a society only all to happy to crush them into further dehumanizing roles, they took the one choice that was theirs to control entirely. Ya know, like the original meaning of the word virgin, not a sexually inexperienced person but a woman in control of her own life (even if that control only extends to choosing to end it).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Confinement, Sexism, Misogyny, Child abuse, Child death, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Sexual content, Racism, and Racial slurs
afroheaux's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I finished this book in one sitting. It was a wonderful and strange ride. I did read it before, about five years ago. I remember loving the style of writing, but not truly absorbing the book itself and its contents. With this read, I can see the girls so clearly and I don't understand why when I read this book earlier (and watched the movie which I also love), I didn't understand why the girls acted the way that they did. I almost found myself agreeing with the final paragraphs of the book because I couldn't put my finger on the reasoning for the events of the book. I was taking the hive teenage boy brain's opinion as my own. Now that I've studied more history, crime, and psychology, I was able to see the situation for what it was.
It's a group of men speaking as their teenage selves as they dive into what has become their life's mystery to solve: the suicides of the Lisbon sisters. Do note that this is a mid to late 1970s teenage boy's brain. There's a lot of misogyny in here as well as instances of boys doing insane shit due to their obsession with the sisters. Their "investigation" is only possible because they stalked them. Be prepared to hear racist, classist, and overall dated language. People of color are not treated as human beings in most scenes in this book, black people especially.
The absurdity and obsessive nature of these boys are also part of the appeal for me. It's so raw. The depth of the descriptions of the mundanity of it all amongst the chaos of being a teenager. They do not spare you their teenage thoughts or strange happenings. I would give it five stars, but I can only give so much to a man's account of five teenage girls. Their analysis was naive and misguided, sometimes cruel and insulting. The way they marveled over the girls but were also seemingly hopeless to save them from their fate. You watch a family of abused children and a controlling mother come apart before your eyes even though the narrators are not describing it as such. The girls are more mirages than anything else, molding into whatever piles of pillows the boys had laying next to them.
For example, when Trip has sex with Lux on the football field and she starts crying, he recalls later how he instantly was done with his obsession with her. The moment she was a human being before in him, in the flesh, the fantasy could no longer continue. I can't imagine how that must've felt for Lux. This person who was dogged in their pursuit of you, who you thought could find some solace in after years of isolation, turns away the moment you show yourself to him. Was it any wonder she wanted to lose herself in anyone who looked her way? When you think about what those girls were going through in that house, it's overwhelming to digest.
The boys say their decision was selfish, but it was the only option they saw that was good for them. They were being left to rot by a mother who didn't want to take care of them anymore. Yet at the same time refused to let them live any other way. A way that could've saved their lives. It's a heartbreaking story about what happens when parents don't let children be human.
"We just want to live. If anyone would let us. ” - Therese Lisbon
It's a group of men speaking as their teenage selves as they dive into what has become their life's mystery to solve: the suicides of the Lisbon sisters. Do note that this is a mid to late 1970s teenage boy's brain. There's a lot of misogyny in here as well as instances of boys doing insane shit due to their obsession with the sisters. Their "investigation" is only possible because they stalked them. Be prepared to hear racist, classist, and overall dated language. People of color are not treated as human beings in most scenes in this book, black people especially.
The absurdity and obsessive nature of these boys are also part of the appeal for me. It's so raw. The depth of the descriptions of the mundanity of it all amongst the chaos of being a teenager. They do not spare you their teenage thoughts or strange happenings. I would give it five stars, but I can only give so much to a man's account of five teenage girls. Their analysis was naive and misguided, sometimes cruel and insulting. The way they marveled over the girls but were also seemingly hopeless to save them from their fate. You watch a family of abused children and a controlling mother come apart before your eyes even though the narrators are not describing it as such. The girls are more mirages than anything else, molding into whatever piles of pillows the boys had laying next to them.
The boys say their decision was selfish, but it was the only option they saw that was good for them. They were being left to rot by a mother who didn't want to take care of them anymore. Yet at the same time refused to let them live any other way. A way that could've saved their lives. It's a heartbreaking story about what happens when parents don't let children be human.
"We just want to live. If anyone would let us. ” - Therese Lisbon
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Stalking, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
withlivjones's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I really wanted to enjoy this book. The premise is intriguing and the prose is very well-written, but overall this book is just about a group of grown men looking back at and obsessing over five teenage girls who were very clearly suffering, and that made it very difficult to get through.
Eugenides’ writing style is very poetic. His descriptions so vividly convey the setting of seventies suburbia, where everyone seems to know everyone else. The Lisbon house itself, and its gradual and inevitable decay that mirrors the decay of the family inside, is also very well described. The use of the first person plural pronoun “we” as the narrator is an interesting and bold choice but is excellently handled and gives a clear sense of the mob mentality of the neighbourhood boys (who later become men). While many of them are named and described as individuals, by using “we” they blend into a sort of homogenous group that parallels how they see the Lisbon sisters.
However, the vivid descriptions take up the bulk of the novel to the extent that the story moves painfully slowly, to the point where I had been waiting for the rest of the suicides to occur for so long that I was almost relieved when they did. It even could have been cut down to an excellent short story, but as it is the prose is rather difficult to get through and there are so many unnecessary tangents where the timeline confusingly switches between past when the girls’ suicides happen and present when the now fully grown men are investigating them. Furthermore, the extent that these poor girls have been put on a pedestal by these men (who barely knew them, merely watched them from afar!) over years (decades, even) of morbid obsession made me deeply uncomfortable. It seems to romanticise their mental illnesses in a rather dangerous way.
I can appreciate the fact that this book has some very well-written prose, but in the end is just wasn’t for me.
Eugenides’ writing style is very poetic. His descriptions so vividly convey the setting of seventies suburbia, where everyone seems to know everyone else. The Lisbon house itself, and its gradual and inevitable decay that mirrors the decay of the family inside, is also very well described. The use of the first person plural pronoun “we” as the narrator is an interesting and bold choice but is excellently handled and gives a clear sense of the mob mentality of the neighbourhood boys (who later become men). While many of them are named and described as individuals, by using “we” they blend into a sort of homogenous group that parallels how they see the Lisbon sisters.
However, the vivid descriptions take up the bulk of the novel to the extent that the story moves painfully slowly, to the point where I had been waiting for the rest of the suicides to occur for so long that I was almost relieved when they did. It even could have been cut down to an excellent short story, but as it is the prose is rather difficult to get through and there are so many unnecessary tangents where the timeline confusingly switches between past when the girls’ suicides happen and present when the now fully grown men are investigating them. Furthermore, the extent that these poor girls have been put on a pedestal by these men (who barely knew them, merely watched them from afar!) over years (decades, even) of morbid obsession made me deeply uncomfortable. It seems to romanticise their mental illnesses in a rather dangerous way.
I can appreciate the fact that this book has some very well-written prose, but in the end is just wasn’t for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Ableism, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexual content
Minor: Vomit
lindsaylhunter's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This book reads so beautifully. The author has such a way of immersing his readers into a world of melancholy. All things said, I refuse to believe boys actually get on this way. Maybe the whole point was to show the narrators' flaws for what they are, but some of the monologue reads as downright creepy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Self harm, Child death, Confinement, and Grief
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Rape, Ableism, Suicide attempt, Racial slurs, and Suicide
sadiaa's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
2.5
This book has a cult following so I was intrigued to read it. This book wasn't for me and I found myself dragging my feet to finish this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Mental illness, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts
zhazhadiamond's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Blood, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, and Confinement
sofipitch's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Ode to the manic pixie dream girl. A lot of the book focused on how seeing the girls as such, coveted only for their sexual appeal, made them not real, and you can't help but wonder if not being seen as themselves but some idealized made up girl is what drove them to suicide. But they can never be known since they don't have a voice. Yet I took a peak at the tag for this book on Tumblr and saw a ton of people idealizing the girl's situation, wanting to be more of a figment of the imagination than a real person which was somehow equally devestating. Is it better to be idealized than not seen at all?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Child death
Minor: Pedophilia