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A review by withlivjones
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
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