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. ( )

Ein Buch/Thema das nicht so schnell wieder loslässt!: "Was tust du überhaupt hier, Kindchen? Du bist ja noch nicht einmal alt genug, um zu ahnen, wie hart das Leben mal wird." sagt Dr. Armason zu dem jungen Mädchen das mit aufgeschnittenen Pulsadern und kaum noch am Leben in sein Krankenhaus eingeliefert wird.

"Offensichtlich" antwortet Cecilia "waren Sie nie ein dreizehnjähriges Mädchen."

Cecilia Lisbon ist die jüngste von 5 Töchtern und 3 Wochen nach ihrer Entlassung aus dem Krankenhaus beendet Sie mit einem Sprung aus dem Fenster was sie mit dem Rasiermesser ihres Vaters begonnen hat.

Ein Jahr später folgen ihre 4 Schwestern ihr - alle im Alter von 14 bis 17 Jahren.

Die Tatsache, dass keines der Mädchen am Ende am Leben sein wird erfährt man schon im ersten Satz und das beklemmende Gefühl wann und wie es passieren wird begleitet einen von der ersten Seite an.

Doch das zentrale Thema ist nicht das WIE sondern das WARUM.

Sind die Probleme eines pubertierenden Teenagers wie z.B. strenge Eltern, ein ausreichender Grund für Selbstmord? Diese Frage kann nicht eindeutig beantwortet werden.

Im Falle von Cecilia jedenfalls nicht. Vor ihrem Selbstmord sind ihre Eltern zwar streng, aber nicht über das normale Maß einer sehr katholischen Familie in den 70er Jahren hinaus.

Erst nach diesem Schicksalsschlag verändert sich die Familie dramatisch. Sie schottet sich von der Außenwelt ab, lässt das Haus verfallen, die Mädchen werden richtiggehend eingekerkert.

Kann die Verzweiflung die einen bei dem Gedanken ergreift, niemals frei sein zu können, so groß werden, dass man sich das Leben nimmt? Vermutlich ja.

Aber am Ende sind das alles doch nur Spekulationen. Denn über den Ich-Erzähler tastet man sich zwar langsam an die Mädchen heran und erfährt viele Details über ihr "Leben in Gefangenschaft", aber über die wahren Beweggründe erfährt man nichts. Und das ist meiner Meinung nach einer der großen Pluspunkte dieses Buches.

Ein vollständiges Durchleuchten der Gedanken und Gefühle der 5 Schwestern würde ihre Leiden nur herunterspielen. Und das Letzte was dieses Buch verdient hätte wäre das Gefühl von Banalität welches sich in diesem Fall nach der Lektüre einstellen würde.

I picked this one up because I loved Eugenides's other book, Middlesex. It certainly doesn't have the scope of its successor, but it was a decent read nonetheless. The story takes place in 1970s Detroit. Though its focus is the five teenage Lisbon sisters who all commit suicide in the span of one year, the actual subjects are the teenage boys in the neighborhood who are obsessed with them. The narrative is in the unexpected first person plural, which actually works quite well in this instance. I'm having trouble summing up my thoughts; the story was interesting but didn't really go anywhere. You only get to know the characters - even the boys - on the surface, never delving more deeply into motivation or real emotion. It's a sad tale, and I enjoyed it on that level, but at the end I felt the same as at the beginning: a little puzzled, a little sad, a little apathetic. ( )

This book renewed my love for and faith in the novel. ( )

This book renewed my love for and faith in the novel. ( )

This book renewed my love for and faith in the novel. ( )

An interesting look into suburbia and the pressures of being a teenager in contemporary America. ( )

Our collective narrator lets us in on the brief year in which the suicides of the five Lisbon girls first began to dominate the gossip of their neighborhood. Jeffrey Eugenides lets us into this world where they're now at least twenty years older, looking through their collected exhibits and interviews as they've remain obsessed ever since.

This is the talent of Eugenides. We're given the story, not from inside the Lisbon house, but from outside. And from this need to understand outside, we're given a view that's very compelling. We find girls catapulted into mythological creatures from this perspective; we find a home transformed into a full character from this perspective. Even more importantly, this perspective allows a look into an incomprehensible tragedy with a permissible distance. Any closer and we would have been overwhelmed by what the Lisbon girls had experienced; any further and we would have been the news media reading cold statistics on teen suicide over videotaped footage of the Lisbon house for color. ( )

This book felt like a never-ending piece of gossip with hints of a stalking nature. Well written and descriptive; however, it felt a little unfocused and jumpy at times. While I probably wouldn't read it again, I gave it 3.5 stars because the curious nature of the book encouraged me to turn the pages. ( )

I would recommend this book to anyone to read. The film is good too. Jeffrey Eugenides seems to have really captured some of the yearnings of a group of adolescent boys. ( )

Another harrowing and beautiful one by Eugenides. ( )

Title: The Virgin Suicides
Author: Jeffery Eugenides
Genre: Fiction
# of pages: 249
Start date: 5/22/08
End date: 5/23/08

Borrowed/bought: borrowed from the library
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B+/A-

Description of the book: The story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers around the suicides of five sisters. The Lisbon girls' suicides fascinate their community as their neighbors struggle to find an explanation for the acts.

Review: First off, I watched the movie BEFORE the book. I really wanted to appreciate the book as its own separate piece of art, rather than comparing it to the movie. I really like the plural voice that the author employed for the narrators. I LOVED the rich descriptions that the author employed consistently throughout the book. All I have to say is wow! The movie seemed to focus centrally on the girls’ suicide and the rejection Lux received from Trip Fontaine. This was hard for me when I read the book because I kept wanting to go back to the movie portrayal of the suicide as the central theme. However, it was so much more than that. The book used many themes, such as conformity and capitalism, female conformity, and of course, the coming of age struggle of adolescence- just to name a few. I’m 23 and this book was almost too close for comfort about this struggle and my own dealings with depression. The book did not come to a big reveal and was not packaged in a neat bow, which frustrated me when I first read the book. Today I began to realize that this is how the book should be, as adolescence and life and death tell us, nothing is ever simple. I think one theme that is under-discussed on some of the forums I looked at was the sisters characters. Each one was different, but there was no depth to them. With the backdrop of Catholicism, its that whole whore or saint theme with women throughout biblical history. Very interesting indeed. I also thought the movie relied too heavily on Trip’s rejection of Lux as a reason for her unhappiness. I love the book and appreciate it so much more than the movie now. There’s so much more I could say but I could take up pages and pages discussing this book, LOL. ( )

Very interesting book. A little bit weird but catchy and well written. ( )

I first read The Virgin Suicides when I was twelve years old. Having grown up in a suppressive religious environment alongside three sisters of my own, Eugenides captured the stifling essence of our existence and made it tangible-- while unrealistic to some, the Libson girls' story holds a certain truth that is incredibly relatable to all those who have experienced the overpowering control that may be found within extreme religion, and also, of course, to those who have simply experienced overpowering control. Eugenides' novel is triste, wilting at the edges with a certain sadness that truly emanates depression; this sadness does not just melt away when the reader tires of it, just as the sadness does not melt away for the girls. While this depression was not exactly pleasant to read through, I found Eugenides' novel to be a masterful and worthwhile tale of caution and misdeeds, repression and obsession. The narration through the perspective of the neighborhood boys also added a contrast to the novel's subject, and a more curious and inquisitive tone underlying the more obvious feelings of the Libson girls. I also found a lot of symbolism and a variety of thought-provoking concepts in the book.

The diseased neighborhood trees, for example, seemed to represent depression; Cecilia was the one who was truly close to the trees, and yet it was her sisters who tried to save them, who became attached to the dying trees, then only to begin dying themselves. I do not necessarily consider the meaning of the novel to be 'Don't suppress your children; they'll kill themselves,' as much as something along the lines of 'Depression will put down roots wherever it grows, and have a lasting impact upon everyone around it, not just the one afflicted.' I loved this book; it made me think and it made me feel in ways that others have not always succeeded. ( )

A fantastic start and a great ending, but it seemed to die between ( )

Strange but very intriguing read about a family of sisters and what leads up to their suicides. ( )

Mixed feelings about this one. I loved the beginning of the book -- the first sentence completely draws the reader in. From there, you basically know how the novel ends, and spend the rest of the reading following the timeline of the Lisbon girls & trace the path that brought them to the end. However, if you are a reader wanting answers & waiting for some closure, you'll likely be disappointed. I found myself falling into this category. While the prose of the book is very compelling, I was waiting for a climax that ultimately fell short. And while I believe Eugenides meant for this to be more of a pondering, thought-provoking novel which truly does reflect all of the unanswered questions in a suicide, I was still left wanting more. ( )

This is a hauntingly real story of a group of sisters growing up under a pair of extremely strict religious parents, and the obsession some boys living on their street had with them. The story begins with the suicide of one of the sisters, the youngest. What follows is a series of humorous, dark, ironic, or revealing situations. I would highly recommend this book to all teenage girls and parents who want to better understand their daughters. In the end, the book tells us something we already know, that suicide is a useless escape that hurts others.

The Virgin Suicides is an anti-coming of age story of five teenaged sisters who all die by suicide. Their story is told by an unnamed, or collective, boy who lived in their neighborhood, who now presents it as a court case and a mystery of what exactly drove all of these girls to kill themselves.

The girls never really get to speak for themselves. Their parents' conservatism keeps them held within the confinement of a stringent household and away from much of society. The neighborhood boys worship the Lisbon girls as a collective; some of them can't even keep their names straight, just know that to have any one of the girls has to be wonderful. The Lisbon girls are held up as an example of tragic teen suicide, or the cause of the demise of the neighborhood, but never just girls.

Jeffrey Eugenides writes a compelling story brimming with the awkwardness and uncertainty of adolescence that rings very true. At times, therefore, this can be a challenging book, but it's a good one ( )

I liked reading this book, it's different from anything else I've read. I can't help but feel a little sad and disappointed that the girls remained a mystery forever, though that is what was so intriguing about it! ( )

I really didn't enjoy this book at all. Having absolutely loved Middlesex, I found this book to be dull, boring and flat. I felt like I was just going through the motions reading it, and I felt nothing for the girls, or their family. I just didn't get to grips with the narration of the boys telling the story. ( )

This is such an odd book. Beautifully written, and displaying the turns of the phrase which Eugenides would have honed by the time he was writing Middlesex, but it's still odd—and in a way that made me feel a little uneasy. It fixates so endlessly on the male gaze of the Lisbon girls, on the "we", on how it is important to understand what happened to them for the sake of the male narrators, that I finished it feeling rather frustrated. I think Eugenides was trying to examine that problem in a sense, but either the execution or his own thought processes fell short of success. Overall, interesting but problematic. ( )