Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant panorama, original and very important
Review: This is the sort of book that only comes along once a decade or more. A brilliant, sweeping portrait of a nation, a life, a history, a world, and what it means to be alive, to belong and to be a part of everything. It is beyond definition, as it's definition is itself. As soon as I read his debut The Virgin Suicides (another excellent novel) i immediately started on this one, which i already owned. I found the words swimming by, the pages turning as if blown by the breeze, the real present dissolving into the world of the brilliant, brilliant story Eugenides mesmerisingly tells. This novel covers so many issues, tells us so much in its reading: it deals with war, racism, depression, notions of nationality, notions of the American dream, notions of who we really are, notions of love, mystery and so very much else. As a Great American novel, it is probably the best I have read, by a long long way. It is warm, amusing, touching, but also sad in places, incredibly moving and enchanting. To be honest, my head is so full of thoughts and praise for this book that i can't really expurgate them to words coherently or logically, although i am not confident that Jeffrey Eugenides is probably the most important writer working today. He shows incredible talent here to tell his story. In the brilliant of his narrative voice, the astuteness with which he draws his characters, (particularly our charming narrator, Cal) and the brilliance of his subtle, fluid plotting. The events of the century, as the characters move from Smyrna to Detroit, flow past as the characters experiences form something vaguely encompassing a huge work of universal life. This book, really, could be about any one of us. The experiences of the characters are our own, though shaped and moulded in some different way. This brilliant panoramic read is a wonderful novel, a complete reinvention of the great American Novel. Jeffrey Eugenides is a remarkable writer, and this is just genius. As a review, this fails entirely to convey what I think about this book.
Rating:
Summary: Nature or Nurture
Review: Ah puberty, hell wouldn't have it! Yet we all have had to ride that roller coaster, that most confusing time when our bodies feel invaded by aliens, and for Calliope Stephanides, it was truely a nightmare. For the first fourteen years of her life, Calliope is raised as a female. Despite fourteen years of dresses, frillies and going to an all-girls school, Calliope's fifth chromosone has other ideas. Male tendencies, upper lip hair, wider shoulders and added height begin to sneak up on her. Calliope knows there is something different about her but doesn't discover what it is until she sees a gender-identity doctor in New York. Calliope is overwhelmed with shock and fear. At the tender age of fourteen she must make the unimaginable choice to live her life as a man or a woman. The question is does she really have a choice, or does nature take precedence over nurture. Read this wonderful Greek tradgedy and triumph to find out. Allow Calliope to take you on a journey through her eyes and her heart. Find out how the past builds on the past and can have such a profound impact on future generations; how one recessive gene, one altered chromosone can alter lives. This is a beautiful story, beautifully told and should compel compassion from even the most conservative cold heart.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: I'm not a great literary critic. In fact, I don't think I've ever even tried to review a book before. So, I don't feel up to the task of priasing this novel in flowery prose. In fact, attempting to do so seems silly. It is just a wonderful, remarkable and memorable book. It is the kind of book that I keep liking more and more in retrospect. I keep remembering different passages and saying to myself, "was that also in Middlesex?" Sometimes it seems like I read 5 different books, but no they're all part of this one wild, funny, interesting, mysterious, sad, heart-wrenching story. "I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me." Trite, but true.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Be Afraid to Read This Great Book!
Review: While this story does deal with the hermaphrodite issue - it isn't a purely sexual escapade into the bizarre. It's a tragic comedy about a family - an entire family - from beginning to end. I finished the book thinking that I wished I could check back with them a little later and see how things are going. I think one of Jeffrey Eugenides best traits as an author is his ability to put his characters in the most bizarre of circumstances without making them seem like freaks. As a reader, you can understand how each character made the choices they did - even Lefty and Desdemona. His characters are human... likeable and real. The stories all seem so realistic that I wonder how much is fiction and how much stemmed from history. This is a wonderfully written, truly memorable book. Please don't hesitate to pick it up! Also recommended: The Shipping News by Proulx, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: The Wine Dark Buick
Review: MIDDLESEX is the social novel par excellence, a multigenerational family epic, a comic Bildungsroman, a picaresque novel, and ultimately a profound meditation on the nature of identity, and specifically Greek identity. Perhaps the most compelling parts of the novel are the descriptions of the Stephanides' family's struggle in Detroit to realize the American Dream in the midst of the violent social ferment of the 60s, and prior to the that, in the vast industrializing juggernaut of the automobile industry in Detroit. So rich in its conception, so right in it choices, so dead-on in its characterizations, and so accurate in its observations, MIDDLESEX tells us more about the 60s and 70s than any sociologist or cultural critic could ever hope to.
Rating: 
Summary: utter trash
Review: Cloying, smarmy, not nearly as well-written as it thinks it is - nothing but tabloid titillation wrapped up in high-art pretension. Embarrassingly bad. Go read Manuel Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nikolas Katzankis, or just admit you want to read trash and pick up some Anne Rice. This in-between garbage that takes itself so seriously will give you a bad mental state for several days. I feel guilty for even finishing this book, I disliked it so much.
Rating:
Summary: The "sins" of the parents create this marvelous tale...
Review: The author is a rich storyteller who develops his characters in a personal and loving way. What might have been considered "freakish" becomes scientifically logical. True empathy evolves for this family who attempts to meet life with integrity in spite of their secrets. Highly recommend!
Rating:
Summary: What Normal Is
Review: Probably like lots of other people, I always heard of this novel as being "that book about a hermaphrodite," and to my surprise found out that it is so much more, and that the sexuality of the character of Cal is not even the point of the story. Although some of the sections of this novel seem contrived (i.e., the "coincindental" reappearance of some of the characters, Middlesex is delightful, touching, wise and truthful. Like Cal, it is much more than the sum of its parts, and the reader will come away with mixed emotions, but all of them will be from having experienced literature that strives to do what all good literature does: hold a mirror up to the way we live and love.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe there's hope for American literature.
Review: At a time when publishers are driven by bottom lines and commercial interests in the industry have spawned unprecedented and even shameless literary mediocrity, i.e. Stephen King and the National Book Award (God help us!), the Pulitzer Committee got it right this time in Middlesex. Eumenides is the real thing: this epic novel is immensely inventive, witty, engaging and written with a literary originality that provided one of the most satisying reads in many months. Middlesex explores new ground and there is an undeniable profoundity when Cal says that s/he is "what's next." This novel is a memorable character-driven tale in which every figure is uniquely scuplted with three-dimensional qualities that breathe life into them. The dialogue is true to life and the story line gets high marks for its ambitious, risk-taking and off-the-charts creativity. This novel will be remembered years from now for the daring literary high ground that Eumenides has claimed by virtue of the talent evident in his insightful and distinctive literary voice. Maybe there's hope for contemporary American literature, after all.
Rating:
Summary: I guess I have to repeat myself
Review: This book is garbage. Don't praise it like a monkey just because it won the Pulitzer. You know you don't enjoy this book, so stop lying to yourself. Eugenides doesn't need anymore empty adulation. He already has enough brainless sycophants to last him a lifetime. You don't owe this guy anything, nor should you respect the Pulitzer Prize on baseless grounds. Come on, you know you hate this novel, just admit it, you have nothing to lose. Acceptance, after all, is the first step towards liberation.
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