Rating: 
Summary: The Greek Tragedy Revisited (may contain minor spoilers)
Review: Carefully avoiding melancholic self-pity, Cal unravels a tangled and incestuous family history for us, a history which ultimately results in the strangest personal tragedy of all: being born a girl and growing into a boy.In telling his story, Cal becomes omniscient, omnipresent narrator. He travels back in time to Greece in the early 20th Century so that he can unveil for us the family secret which would ultimately impact his own genetic makeup. He then methodically takes us forward in time to track the progress of these mutated chromosomes to his parents and, utlimately, to himself. He travels inside the minds and thoughts of family members, even delving into his father's last fantastic thoughts as his life ebbs away after a horrific car accident. Occasionally taking us forward in time to the present, Cal less clinically but just as authentically reveals his present circumstances, dodging intimacy lest his secret be discovered. There are moments in Middlesex when you may have to put the book down just to absorb what you have read. This is a testament to how real the characters are, and how surreal the events of everyday life can seem when witnessed from afar. Cal takes great pains to keep us at the audience level, witnesses but not collaborators, like the audience in the amphitheater during a Greek tragedy. Ultimately, however, this is not a story of how strange things are, but rather of how normal things become once we live with them a for while.
Rating: 
Summary: The Hybrid of Life
Review: I had initially dismissed Middlesex as a freakshow. For what other reason would someone pick up a novel about a hermaphrodite? Having been disenchanted with the more high-brow novels and their lack of entertainment value, I succumbed to Middlesex. As with the Virgin Suicide, Eugenides had me intrigued with his choice of unusual subjects and characters. The subject in question is one Ms/Mr (Cal)liope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite who is a descendant of complicated intermarriages (including grandparents who were brothers and sisters). The story envelopes more than Cal's life and stretches back to tell the story of her grandparents, their flight from certain death, and the anonymity of migrants that afforded them the freedom to pursue a forbidden romance. Cal's reason for telling the history of her/his family is to demonstrate the persistence of a deficient recessive gene that waited patiently across wars, journeys, and romances, to express itself in the body of an unknowing grandchild (Cal). The interludes such as the massacre in Smyrna and the Detroit riots were well-executed and added a much appreciated historical flavour to the novel. What is apparent in Middlesex is that this isn't merely a peek into abnormality. Cal and his/her questionable gender identity is also an embodiment of an adolescent in search of an identity, a metaphor for a migrant's displacement from their origin, and the hybridization of culture. Cal was one thing in childhood and by her teens, she discovers she is a he. Like migrants, you are born to be one nationality and then uprooted and assimilated into a new culture. And as an adolescent, the vulnerability and uncertainty of sexual awakening, and the crossroads at which you discover the adult emerging from a child's body, parallels Cal's journey. Migration, race, gender, and sexual awakening, will often ferment in us feelings of being 'freaks', an outsider, and the desperate search to find one's place in the world. Cal is not so extraordinary as he/she emboddies so much of what it is to grow up and to leave behind childhood, and/or nationality, and realise that the world does not remain static, that yourself - your mind and body - can grow and change, assimilate and embrace a new way to live, but oh, what a marvellous journey. The drawback of Middlesex is that it drags in certain places. It is also uneven in the sense that the grown-up Cal reveals very little about himself, but a great deal of the teenage Calliope. This creates an emotional gulf between the adult narrator and the reader - what is Cal like these days? What happened in the intervening years between his discovery and the commencement of his autobiography? On the other hand, I love being able to sit back with a novel and be entertained. Eugenides loves eccentric themes and peppers his novels with wry humour. You always receive the impression that here is a writer who loves what he does, and does not agonise over whether he will or will not be critically received. It is a enjoyable yet thought-provoking novel and should be highly commended for its bold and unusual exploration of identity.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining but flawed novel
Review: I found much of this book quite enjoyable, but ended up feeling that Eugenides had not quite lived up to his promise. The novel follows three generations of the Stephanides family, and it faces a general problem with such multigenerational works --it's hard to get the reader deeply involved in the lives of the grandparents, then put these characters aside and transfer one's interest to the parents, and then finally to make a third transfer of interest to the children. Eugenides succeeded in getting me interested in the grandparents (Desdemona and Lefty), their escape from Turkey, and their life in America. But the second generation, Milton and Tessie, was less compelling. Milton becomes a cliche'd Archie Bunker sort of character, and Tessie isn't well-developed at all. They are not very interesting or memorable characters, and we spend way too much time with them. Cal/Callie's story is fascinating, but it seems to end far too soon. The book ends shortly after s/he has discovered and accepted her transgendered nature at age 15. But the narrator is roughly 40, and we don't get to learn anything about the intervening 25 years. How did Cal get from being a newly discovered boy to being a diplomat in Germany? What was his life like in the intervening years? And what is it like now? There are real flashes of brilliance in this book, but ultimately I was disappointed and feel that it doesn't come together.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be scared away by the length
Review: Even though the book is over long and the cover is very ugly, "Middlesex" is still a great read. It is about the meaning of tolerance, what it means to have an identity, and the importance of having a supportive family. In case you haven't heard, the book is about Callie, a young girl who doesn't quite fit in. She is taller and thinner than everything else and doesn't possess the natural grace of other girls her age. All Callie wants is to grow into a woman so she can have children of her own. Unfortuately, Mother Nature had a different plan for her. When Callie was born, her doctor failed to realize that something about her wasn't quite right: she was born with malformed genitalia. She is actually a male hermaphrodite. Because no one bothered to find out why Callie wasn't maturing as expected, she lived into her teenage years before learning who she really was. When Callie finally learns of her actual identity, she embraces it and begins living her life as Cal. Cal will then have to find a way to relate to a family that knew him as Callie. Before you read this book, keep in mind that the author takes about one hundred pages to actually introduce Callie. He sets up an intriguing backstory explaining why what happened to Cal happened. The book also ends too quickly, leaving the reader wanting to know more about the life that Cal makes for himself. Middlesex is a great read and it really makes you care about the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Be Intimidated!
Review: This was the best book I have ever had the privilege to read. Yes, the size of the novel was daunting. But after the first chapter I was hooked...and you will be too!
Mr. Eugenides book is such a wonderful mix of history (personal, national and international) and fictional story telling. I learned from it, laughed at it and even cried. Want to know how good this book is? in one night, I became so absorbed by it, I started reading at 10pm and the next time I looked-up from the pages to check the clock it was 5am!!!
Invest the time...you will NOT regret it!
Rating:
Summary: What is the Point?
Review: I'll agree with a lot of reviewers that "Middlesex" is well-written (mostly) and I enjoyed it very much. However, what keeps gnawing at me is, "what was the point?" In my quest to find meaning to this book I even read most of the Amazon reviews hoping for a clue, but it still eludes me. So, for now, I can only see "Middlesex" as a book where a lot of interesting stuff happens. My first big problem with this book is that it focuses too much on the past generations and not enough on Cal/Calliope him(her)self. I just didn't see why so much time was given to the grandparents and parents. I think the incestuous relationship between the grandparents was in there because that was the "cause" of Cal's condition, but it seemed to me that he also said that because of all the prior inbreeding in the little village that defective gene already existed, so was the brother-sister marriage of the grandparents really the "cause"? I'm not convinced it was and so I don't see any reason to give them such a huge chunk of story. I also didn't understand the point of Cal's relationship in Berlin. Was this just to give us a glimpse of how he lives as a man? The other part I didn't understand is why after 26 years of not revealing himself, he does so with this woman. It seemed tacked on. I largely suspect that most of the historical facts and elements in this book are correct (I'm from Michigan but not Detroit so I can't say otherwise), but there are at least two inaccuracies in this novel. First, Cal says they made B-52s in automobile plants during WWII, but the B-52 was not around until the jet engine was perfected in the '50s. The person who read the book before me actually made a note of this in the book. Second, Cal talks about Al Kaline as a great first baseman and it's true that he did play 135 games at first during his major league career, but he was far better known as an outfielder for the Tigers (2,488 games in the outfield). So what? you say, A couple little slips don't matter. I don't know about you, but when I see the author making mistakes in their research, it shakes my confidence so that I have to call everything into question. The pivotal problem in my mind is that the reason Cal decides to run away from home seemed weak and contrived. He find out that he is male in terms of organs so he decides to just up and start living like a man? Instead of running away, why not confront the doctor and postpone the surgery? Why not just say, "Hey, I want some time to think about this." When Cal does run away, I really didn't like the "Showgirl"esque strip club scenes. It seemed like a shortcut to get Cal to accept being a hermaphrodite instead of really coming to grips with it on his/her own. Anyway, I have a number of complaints with this book, but it is an entertaining narrative. It does keep you reading through the end. I was just hoping for more. And if someone does figure out the overlying point of this book, don't hesitate to share it.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful novel
Review: Georgously written, this book was a pleasure from the first word to the last word. The kind of book one hopes to find but rarely does. An uncanny account of a complex family, covering three generations. This is a must read for anyone that loves getting into intimate details of the characters and really caring about them on a highly intelligent level. This is honestly one of the best books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: What A Fantastic Book!
Review: Having just finshed the last line of this exceptional, moving and compelling book I can truly say it will be placed on my list of all time favorites. When I bought this,I only knew that it was about a hermaphrodite. I had no idea this journey of a girl that discovers she's actually a boy would be so utterly fantastic. Moving between the present Cal and back nearly eighty years to his Greek immigrant grandparents who started the mutation that manifests itself in the body of the narrator, Jeffrey Eugenides writes with a creative narrative flair that unfolds in a near cinematic way.The winning voice of Calliope/Cal brought to mind John Irving's "Owen Meany", and the book left me with the same feeling of awe when I finished.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Contemporary Fiction I've Read In Years!
Review: This spellbinding novel is informative, entertaining, and has just the right touch of dark humor sprinkled throughout. I couldn't put it down, and was sad to see it end. Cal is a protagonist for the 21st century, and you will find her...him... irresistable!
Rating:
Summary: A delicate topic--terrific story
Review: A good story is always the basis for an award of 5 stars from me. This story swept me from the quiet Greek town, through the tumult of war, into the immigrant experience in Detroit. The family secret never revealed results in the narrator's unusual life journey from girlhood to manhood.
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