A review by anoldharmonica
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

dark emotional 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

5.0

This is not an easy read, but it is so beautifully written that I had to give it five stars. Often I would find myself rewinding 30 seconds just so I could hear a sentence or a turn of phrase again. I will probably buy a hard copy soon so that I can reread whenever I can. This book deals with some really heavy themes, suicide of course, but it’s also an incisive critique of the male gaze. Everything we learn about the Lisbon sisters is filtered through the perspective of the narrators, an unnamed Greek chorus of boys who grew up across the street from the Lisbons. These boys claim to be in love with the sisters, but also admit to not being able to tell them apart. They spy on the sisters and fantasize about rescuing them, but never fully come to understand that the Lisbon sisters are five individual, fully formed people, not symbols or fantasies. In the end they can’t understand how they weren’t able to rescue the Lisbon sisters, still unable to grasp that the sisters’ deaths and lives <I>weren’t about them</I>.
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