The Virgin Suicides starts with a suicide case. We are told that Mary is the last of the Lisbon girls to take her own life. From the description of how the paramedics act on the scene, we know that they have been to the Lisbon house on many occasions prior to this, when the other Lisbon daughters committed their own acts of prematurely ending their lives.

Rewind the tape, and we are now taken back to when the first suicide happened. Cecilia, the youngest daughter, tries to kill herself by slitting both her wrists while in the bathtub. Her attempt is unsuccessful, and she is brought to the hospital where she is promptly brought back to life.

Why did she commit suicide? And why, even after being saved and brought for counselling, did she try again? (She succeeded this time.)

But the core of the story revolves around the lives of the remaining sisters and their parents. In a family so strict and bound by unbending rules set by their mother, how did the girls survive this family tragedy, their loss of their youngest sister?

The whole story is told in such a way that when I was reading it, I felt like I was watching a dramatic documentary. The narrators are themselves boys who witnessed this tragedy unfold, and were then obsessed about the remaining Lisbon girls. Now, when they are older and probably middle-aged, and after having 'researched' bits and pieces of the suicides, they tell us the story. ( )

This book came out ages ago and I've finally got around to reading it. I really loved Middlesex by the same author, so I had pretty high expectations.

The story didn't disappoint, but it was a quicker, shallower read than I had expected. The premise is the suicides of five sisters in the span of a year. That's not a spoiler, it's pretty much on the blurbs and explained in the first chapter. What it deals with is the relics of their life and what significance they carried and attempts to find a connection between their external lives with their disturbed (obviously?) interiors. Learning the personalities of each girl is interesting, and more fascinating is the pull these sisters exerted on every young man around.

Two things bugged me about the book, and I'm thinking maybe that's what Eugenides had in mind. First, he doesn't explain much about why the parents behaved the way they did, and how that could have influenced the girls. Maybe by not delving into that he's challenging the thought of 'nurture' being to blame when children are dysfunctional? It seemed the most obvious direction to head in examining why it all happened, but he doesn't go there directly. By not mentioning their influence, and then not offering any other explanation, is he trying to place all the blame on the indirectly?

The other unexplained (I'm sure on purpose!) aspect was who made up the "we" that serves as the narrator of the story. It's clearly a pack of boys who are fascinated by the whole tragedy, but who was their voice or was it a compilation of all of them? ( )

Jeffrey Eugenides has a unique ability to bring out the comical in the most mundane events, especially in the way children think about the world. In the case of the Virgin Suicides, his topic is a poignant one, and yet he manages to excellently weave his usual humorous take on suburban America and childhood into the story without making it a comic novel. All of the characters are interesting, well-developed and likable in the literary sense. The Virgin Suicides is a great read, but is just an overture, preparation for, the masterpiece of his next novel, Middlesex. ( )

Five sisters who kill themselves, as told by the neighbor boys who paid attention when no one else did.

I can't say I was satisfied by this--the novel is narrated by people who have no conclusive insights into the motives/inner lives of the titular "virgins," so the story is very open-ended and speculative--but I did enjoy reading it. Sections are very moving, and I found myself relating to the characters beyond the morbid curiosity that I'd begun reading with. I'd recommend it, as long as you're not looking for a cheerful, holiday-appropriate read. ( )

I'm not going to give you my traditional plot summary in this review - I believe the title pretty much says it all. The story centers around five teenage girls - sisters: Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux and Cecilia Lisbon. Set in 1970's era Michigan, The Virgin Suicides is narrated through the eyes of the boys orbiting around the Lisbon girls' lives. And that as they say, is that. To give more details would take away from the magic contained within.

Let me first say that despite the disturbing subject matter, I found The Virgin Suicides to be well-written and tragically beautiful. Jeffrey Eugenides' writing gives this obviously dark story the gentle and enchanting feel of a fairy tale. The Virgin Suicides is simply haunting, perhaps due to the obsessive point of view and speculations of the neighborhood boys.

Jeffrey Eugenides is a superb example of everything a writer should be - brilliant with his prose, compelling with his setting, and engaged in his plot. The finished product is a remarkably readable, atmospheric tale, bending at times towards the Gothic. A touching and realistic story, artistically written, The Virgin Suicides is an interesting and unsettling story that should not be missed. ( )