Friday Quotes: The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---


Title: The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson

Book Beginning:

"The apocalypse began at Starbucks. Where else did you expect the end of the world to start?"

Friday 56:

"I'd saved someone's life and they were treating me like I was the shooter. I'd performed an actual miracle, but they still thought I was a freak."

Comments: I liked Hutchinson's book We Are the Ants about a boy who is either having a mental breakdown or was he really abducted by aliens who gave him the ability to save the world by pushing the red button? This book seems to be shaping up to be similar. Elena hears objects talking to her telling her to heal people. And she can. How is that possible?

Don't you just love the first line?

Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

In Arden's debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale, readers are immersed from the very first page in Russian folktales, in the loveliest and riches of ways, too. Set in medieval Russia, the story centers around an indomitable and irresistible heroine,  Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna, who has inherited her royal grandmother's understandings about magic and can see and talk to magical creatures no one else can see. She can talk to horses and household spirits, who guard the family house and barns. Vasya's mother died giving birth to her and when her father eventually remarries, her new stepmother can also see the household spirits, but this woman doesn't recognize them for their protective powers, but thinks them evil. Along that same time a new priest is assigned to serve the family. He and the stepmother join together in allegiance against these "demons" with disastrous results for the family and the community.

Vasya is one of those characters that it is impossible not to like. She is determined to do everything her way, including not falling into the conventions of the day for females to only think of themselves as future wives and mothers. Vasya is forever getting in trouble for wandering too far from the house, for climbing trees, for getting dirty. She learns to ride a horse like no man can because she took tutelage from the horse herself. She refuses to call the house spirits "demons" which enrages her stepmother.

The first part of the book is just stuffed full of Russia lore and the lifestyle of people who lived in this very cold part of the world. The second part of the book included lots of action when the twins, Death and Fear, go to war over the heart of Vasya. But even against these foes, Vasya refuses to be bossed around.

I listened to the audio version of the book, read by Kathleen Gati. I loved the whole listening experience. Gati did a magical job with the accents and the difficult to pronounce names. The listening experience was a little like being wrapped up in a fur coat sitting in front of the fire, listening to an elder (like the nurse in the story) tell me a folktale, one she expects me to remember.

I've already recommended this one to my daughter who loves fairy tales.  And now I am recommending it to you.

Past Due Book Reviews

7 / 16 books. 43% done!

Grief

Susan, as I remembered her in the 1970s

I don't often veer off and post about non-book related topics. But today I am.

A year ago I reconnected with a junior high friend via Facebook. We hadn't kept up with each other in high school or beyond but with the connecting-ness of Facebook we were back together. Or sort of. You know what I mean. Facebook connects us in a hands off sort of way since we still lived a state away from one another. We see photos, learn a bit about what foods they eat, and who they hang out with. And in my case, I only see those posts if I happen to be looking at the right moment, since I don't often scroll too far down on my feed.

Anyway, I reconnected with Susan and learned at the same time that her breast cancer had returned. She had been battling it for eight years. Over the course of the next few months I learned that she was receiving a new type of treatment. She was hopeful but tired. I could tell. Friends who still lived in our hometown organized food for the family and collected money for incidentals. I watched from afar, feeling like a voyeur.

Every time I read one of Susan's posts, I was struck by how centered she was. She seemed so loving and kind, taking joy in the simplest of things. Most of her posts didn't even mention cancer. One day she posted. "Geese overhead. Bliss." Those were the types of posts that made me realize what kind of person she was...living outside herself while doing battle within.

But when she did post about cancer, she was worrying about us, her friends. Here is a snippet from one of those posts:

One of the things I’ve learned while dealing with this damned disease is that it takes a lot of energy to keep up precious friendships and to manage emotions that aren’t always helpful. Anger, for one. Or just plain grief for all we’ve lost....I just want to say, if I’ve disappointed you, or hurt your feelings for any reason, it’s not because that behavior is OK with me...I wonder sometimes if people with terminal diseases don’t lose their shine as they fade away so that those who are left won’t miss them quite so much. Rather like surly teenagers: how soon are you going to college? 😏 Anyway- just thought I’d let you know what it’s like in here and to express my love and gratitude for your grace and kindness... 

My life got really busy mid-May through the first of July. I stopped paying close attention to a lot of things, including how Susan was doing. In fact, to my shame, I really didn't notice that I hadn't seen any posts from Susan for a while. Today I learned the reason. Susan died on May 16th.

One week before her death, on May 10th, she posted this video on her Facebook page. Click link. It is one of those wonderful videos that shows time-lapsed photography of mushrooms growing. At the end, the narrator says that we all need to pay attention to what nature is telling us before it is too late for all of us. He then went on to say that if he were to die to today he would have least tried to make a difference to help change the course we are on. Then he asked, what have you done to make a difference? Even in the midst of a battle with cancer, Susan was concerned about life beyond herself.

Two of her children posted tributes to their mother on Facebook:

 "Love can seem like an odd thing when we lose those we care for most, but we must remember that love is the chisel that turns us into the beautiful sculptures that we become throughout our lives. With that, we must never fear that love even with the knowledge that one day we’ll lose the artist that made us, otherwise we would be formless and opaque. My mother danced in every aspect of her life with grace and beauty." -S.

"In this physical life, she was the most radiant force I'd ever known. Wise and courageous, talented and passionate, loquacious and witty, gentle and ferocious, compassionate and balanced, gorgeous and mirthful, intentional and sassy; her influence on mine and so many other lives was utterly unforgettable and unendingly meaningful." -E.

Aren't they lovely, lovely tributes? If only we all lived our lives in way to be worthy of such tributes in the end. And for me? Susan will always be that crazy friend I loved to hang out with in the old days. The gal who always knew just the right thing to say. Once in French class our teacher bragged aloud to the class about Susan,  she spelled her name "Sioux" at the time, because the teacher ran into her at a store when she was with a friend. Sioux apparently did a little curtsy when she met the teacher's friend, because of course she did, and exclaimed "enchantee", which means "enchanted" in French. Susan was like that. Delighted to meet everyone. Delighted with life.

Good bye, old pal. Thanks for the love and the reminders to be best people we can be.

Review: The Book of Pearl by Timothee de Fombelle

Once upon a time there was a love so deep and committed that it stood the test of time and dislocation from one kingdom to our world. 

When Ilian, a young prince, fell in love in love with Olia, a beautiful fairy, it seemed like theirs would be a happily-ever-after relationship. But when Ilian's evil older brother, Ian the crown prince, also falls in love with Olia, trouble strikes the couple. Ian insists that a genie separate the couple. What the genie does is send both of the lovers to our world, 1936 in France. Ilian doesn't know that Olia is also in the world. Olia knows where Ilian is but cannot show herself to him or she will die.

For years Ilian isn't even sure where he is from and slowly his memory is crumbling until he finds a volume of fairy tales in his adopted family's house. From that point forward, including service during WWII, Ilian spends trying to gather evidence of his other existence so that he get back to where he belongs, to find his love again.

During this time, Ilian, known as Joshua Pearl, runs into a teen boy who sees his suitcases full of the items of evidence. The boy doesn't know what he is looking at until years later when he starts piecing together the whole story. Can he help chronicle the love story and in the process help the lovers return home before it is too late?

The Book of Pearl was written by de Fombelle, a French author and playwright. It was translated into English by Sarah Ardizzone and Sam Gordon. The author has created a fairy story worthy of the standard set forward by the Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Anderson. Like most fairy stories there was a very dark undercurrent in the tale. It is really three stories: 1. The story of Ilian's birth and eventual love affair with Olia; 2. Ilian as Joshua Pearl in our world; and 3. The teenager, now grown man, who figures out what is going on and offers to help. Because of the three stories and the shifting point-of-view, the story takes quite a bit of concentration to untangle. But IF the reader is willing to do this, the effort is well worth it.

Recommended for older teens who like fantasy and fairy tales and are willing to deal with lots of threads of the story.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

Though retired I am still making a stab at identifying the best YA literature of the year in an attempt to sniff out the next Printz Award winner. In years past as a high school librarian I would spend all summer between terms reading every YA book I could manage in my two months off work. The task got too big, so I started limiting my selections to only books that had earned at least three starred professional reviews. Some years even that task was gargantuan with over 50 to 60 titles in that category. This year, in an attempt to cut myself some slack, I decided to limit my selection to books which have earned four or more starred reviews, with some exceptions.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman has earned four professional starred reviews so it made it onto my list. I probably would have read it anyway, since it is the sequel to the very popular Scythe, which won a Printz Honor last year. Here is what those reviews had to say about Thunderhead:

"Relish this intelligent and entertaining blend of dark humor and high death tolls." (Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW)

"Interweaving heady questions of morality, responsibility, loyalty, and power, Shusterman builds to a devastatingly intense conclusion that sends the characters and larger world into terrifying new territory." (Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW)

"Shusterman wields his magic once again in this continuation... even better than the first book." (School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW)

"Shusterman widens the already impressive scope of his neat-future utopia while also keeping a deft finger on the pulse of our own turbulent times. Exceptionally clear-eyed and brutal in its execution." (Booklist, STARRED REVIEW)

Thunderhead picks up where Scythe leaves off. Rowan has gone rouge and is killing evil scythes under a pseudonym--- Scythe Lucifer. Citra is now a Junior Scythe who is making a name for herself in the Scythedom for the humane way that she carries out her gleanings. Older more experienced scythes are concerned about both of them, especially Rowan. Readers also meet the Thunderhead, or the artificial intelligence which controls everything in the world except the scythedom. His thoughts are collected between chapters in journal-type entries. The Thunderhead interacts with a new character, Greyson Tolliver, who agrees to do some undercover work for the all-knowing being. Though not exactly a comic relief, Tollison does provide relief from the story which centers around how to glean (kill) people. As the reviewer for Publisher's Weekly says, the story interweaves all kinds of moral and ethical questions about power and about what makes us human. The book ends with a plot twist no one sees coming and will lead readers to line up for the third installment of the trilogy as soon as it is off the presses.

Unfortunately for me, I was forced to read the book in two distinct time periods as my library loan came to an end before I was finished. I had to return the book having read only half of it and had to get back in the queue for another turn. It took several months before the book was available again. I wouldn't recommend this as a way to read any book but especially not one which is so action packed with so many plot twists and turns. My initial thought was this book suffered from middle-book-in-a-trilogy like Two Towers, or the movie The Empire Strikes Back. Here the story ends with good guys suffering and evil guys getting away with their deeds. That's no good so ultimately that will cause readers to wait with baited breath for the third book. I will be among those waiting anxiously.

Since this book was a long one, at 504 pages, I can use it as part of my reading challenge to read big books during the summer, hosted by Sue at Book by Book.

Past Due Book Reviews

6 / 16 books. 37% done!

Sunday Salon, August 5th

A day on Mt. Rainier with two of my favorite people.

Weather: Hot. As I look around my neighborhood and town all I see is plants which look like they want water and brown lawns. We are definitely in the dog days of summer.

Mt. Rainier: Rita, Ian, and I went to Paradise on Mt. Rainier on Tuesday. It was foggy in the valley so it was a leap of faith that we would rise above the fog to see the mountain. We did indeed. Aren't we lucky to live so close to this beautiful spot? During our hike I earned 25 flights on my FitBit (like climbing up 25 flights of stairs.) I won a badge for it. We kept the day short, and Ian was a dream kid to have along. He kept admiring the trees.

70,000+: First time since I received my first FitBit, I got over 10,000 steps a day, totaling over 70,000 steps for the week. I also beat my daughter and husband. We are all in a little family competition. Woot Woot.

Foraging the Hive. Each test tube is filled with some treasure.

New perk: My library offers checkouts for free admittance to local museums. My long-time girl friend, Margaret, and I used a pass and went to the Tacoma Museum of Glass on Wednesday this past week. The museum has a hot shop where we watched people actually making glass things, though we couldn't tell what they were. All the glass looked orange until we figured out that orange meant HOT!.  Ha. The exhibits were pretty interesting. One was called Foraging the Hive, going on a beehive concept of little compartments of honey (special stuff), small test tubes hung from the ceiling. Each tube was filled with special stuff the artists had found in the environment. See photo above. Dale Chihuly also had his glass on display. Chilhuly is a Tacoma artist, but his art is rarely on display at the Museum of Glass, at least not inside. One has to just walk outside and cross the the glass bridge to see his art.

Margaret and I on the Glass Bridge

Highland Games: Last Sunday Don and I went to the Highland Games at the King Country Fairgrounds. It was over 90 degrees but we still had fun watching the Battle of the Bagpipes, we watched a man gain a world record for the Sheaf Toss (over 36 feet), and listened to Celtic Rock where one of the instruments was a didgeridoo. It felt a little like we were on a different planet.

The video we took won't transfer. Sorry.

Books read (past two weeks):

• Paris for One and Other Stories by Jojo Moyes. Moyes wrote a book which I thought was quite good, You Before Me. This collection of stories was along the same line. "Paris for One" was a novella, a love story. The others were short, fifteen pages long on average. (Print)
• The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. Based on Russian folktales. I found this to be quite compelling. (Audio)
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. A re-read for me. I liked this as much as the first time. Click on the hyperlink for details. (Audio)

Currently reading:

• The Book of Pearl by Timothee de Fombelle. Truly a fairy story. Set in our world and a far off kingdom. Translated from French. (Print, 76%)
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. This is my Classics Club Spin book. I'm a little freaked out about this one. Click the hyperlink to see why. (Audio, 9%)

I hope you are having a lovely time this summer (or winter to my Aussie friends down under.)

And so I begin...The Name of the Rose

Last Wednesday when the Classics Club spinner stopped moving it was pointing at #9. Consulting my list, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco was the book filling that slot. OK, that is the book I will read for this spin event. Now to find out something about the book and the author.

Several years ago I read and marked up a book I found on the sale table at Borders Books (remember them?) called 501 Must-Read Books. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco was one of the books listed as a must-read. I didn't add all 501 books to my TBR list but I added Eco's first novel. I don't remember why.

Fast forward to this week,  now it was time to do a little reconnaissance on the book. Why read The Name of the Rose and what is the book about? What I discovered got me pretty worried.

First, The Name of the Rose is LONG, over 500 pages long. It is also translated from Italian, though everyone remarks that the translator, William Weaver, was very good.

Secondly, it is set in set in 14th Century Italy in at least one (maybe more) monastery and full of Latin phrases. One reviewer said that there was some Latin phrase on just about every page. I will obviously gloss over these since I don't read Latin.

Thirdly and worst of all, the author purposely made the first 100 pages especially dense and difficult to read. Oh great. What have I gotten myself into?

So why should I read it? Why does anyone read it? It is too long, it is too dense, and it uses a language no one uses anymore. That sounds like a bust all the way around. But according to Kevin DiCamillo, who wrote an article on its thirtieth year anniversary of publication, "the book is essentially a Sherlock Holmes story, set in a monastery---with a sex scene." What? Well, I wasn't expecting that. Eco himself called the book simply a "Whodunit novel. In other words, who is killing the monks?" But I can think of a lot of whodunits which are a lot easier to read. And DiCamillo says, "Who cares. I can't read Latin and know nothing about 14th century church politics."

But apparently a lot of people do care. And have cared. This book has been the most unlikeliest of bestsellers since it was first published in 1983.

And ultimately the book does not disappoint. Indeed, it dazzles. If ever there was a tour de force performance by a first-time novelist who created a literary and popular hit—make that a “craze,” given that the book spawned not only a movie, but a board- and video-game—this was it. (DiCamillo)

OK, now I am getting kind of excited.  The book dazzles!  Wow. That is a recommendation worth exploring.

So I begin. I started by purchasing the audiobook from Audible. A good choice so that someone else can read the Latin and French phrases that are scattered around the text while I zone out. I also have placed a hold on the library copy, though will have to wait a few weeks for it. That way I can look at the text and have an idea what the reader is up against. Between yesterday and today, I have listened to an hour and half of the book and the counter says I am on chapter 17 of 193. I have a long way to go. But I have begun!

All the Light We Cannot See...reviewing it again

Back in 2015 I listened to the audiobook of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It was a book club selection for one of my two clubs. I adored it from the first moment of listening. Here is what I said in that first review, written in August 7, 2015:

All the Light We Cannot See is easily one of the best books I've read in 2015. I was mesmerized by it from the first moment. I lived and breathed the book for days. If I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it. If I was reading something else, I was wishing I was reading this book instead. The last book I remember feeling this way about was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Both books have been highly decorated with awards both Pulitzer Prize and Andrew Carnegie Medal winners, and National Book Award finalists.

When my second book club selected All the Light We Cannot See for the August 2018  club meeting I decided to read/listen to the book again for two reasons: One, because it is hard to hang onto details over time and I wanted to participate in the club discussion fully, remembering details to add to the repartee; Two, because I loved the book so much the first time I wanted to experience it again. It did not disappoint me the second time around.

What is the book about? There are lots and lots of themes which coalesce nicely by books end. But in a nutshell here are the themes, as summarized by Doerr himself:

Radio, propaganda, a cursed diamond, children in Nazi Germany, puzzles, snails, the Natural History Museum in Paris, courage, fear, bombs, the magical seaside town of Saint-Malo in France, and the ways in which people, against all odds, try to be kind to one another.

In the first club discussion the question came up about the significance of the book's title. I decided with this re-read that I would focus on that question and look for instances related to "light." Here is what Anthony Doerr says about the title on his web page:

It’s a reference first and foremost to all the light we literally cannot see: that is, the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that are beyond the ability of human eyes to detect (radio waves, of course, being the most relevant). It’s also a metaphorical suggestion that there are countless invisible stories still buried within World War II — that stories of ordinary children, for example, are a kind of light we do not typically see. Ultimately, the title is intended as a suggestion that we spend too much time focused on only a small slice of the spectrum of possibility.

I noticed all the ways that Marie-Laure could see even though she was blind. And how blind many of the soldiers/officers were even though they could see. In one scene there are two German soldiers trapped under floors of rubble, who come to understand how difficult it is to navigate in a world without any light. The descriptions of the ways that Marie-Laure used her other senses to navigate in her world were really remarkable.

“To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Beneath your world of skies and faces and buildings exists a rawer and older world, a place where surface planes disintegrate and sounds ribbon in shoals through the air. Marie-Laure can sit in an attic high above the street and hear lilies rustling in marshes two miles away. "

In one of the first scenes of the book we meet two orphans, Werner and his younger sister Jutta, listening to a radio transmission they have found after fiddling around with a broken radio to get it working. They find a transmission of a French scientist talking about light, “What do we call visible light? We call it color. But… really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible,” is the lesson that beams in on the short-wave radio. And the children are able to escape through the invisible waves for a moment from the horrors of their lives.  Later on Werner finds himself repeating lines from this transmission to himself, "Open your eyes and see what you can, before they close forever." In a lot of ways this becomes Werner's mantra. Eventually we learn that Marie -Laure is related to the French scientist and another of his transmitted messages relates to her perfectly, "So how, dear children, does the brain, which lives without a speck of light, build for a us a world full of light?" 

In addition to winning the 2015 Pulitzer Prize, All the Light We Cannot See won the Audie Award that year, too, for best recorded book.  I listened to this audiobook expertly narrated by Zach Appleman by S & S Audio. I have to tell you how the whole listening experience was magical. Zach handled the French and German expertly. I got lost in this story listening to his silky voice. Here is a three minute sample for your listening enjoyment.

Now, I do want to warn potential readers that the book meanders around. Sometimes we are in Germany with Werner or his sister, other times we are in Paris or Saint-Malo on the Brittany Coast in France with Marie-Laure and her father. Sometimes it is 1942 and the next page it is 1944, and the following page back to 1942. I can usually keep track of this kind of shift, but I know some readers really don't like it when a story is told in a non-linear fashion.

If you haven't read All the Light We Cannot See, I am not sure what you are waiting for. Look for it at your local library and if you can get a hold of the audiobook, I highly recommend it. If you ever get a change to hear Anthony Doerr speak in person, I recommend that, too. He came to a bookish event in my home town and I was blown away by what an interesting person he is.

At 531 pages, I will count this book for the Big Book Summer Challenge, even though I counted it for the same challenge three years ago. Ha!

Happy Reading.

Friday Quotes: The Book of Pearl

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---

Title: The Book of Pearl by Timothee de Fombelle

Book Beginnings:

"Who would have guessed that she used to be a fairy?"

Friday 56:

"'It's something that can fill one's life. Turning around and around inside you, until you die.'"

Comment: This book is truly a fairy tale, translated from French. It is also a love story that has extended beyond time and world borders. It is a little confusing because of the two time periods and worlds but I find it charming. A fairy loses her fairy-ness for love and a prince loses his kingdom for love. I'm hoping it ends up at "And they lived happily ever after."

My review: The Book of Pearl

Writing a review for a hard-to-understand novel: The Virgin Suicides

Earlier this year I read Dear Fahrenheit 451 in which author Annie Spence gushed about her favorite books and said goodbye to books she no longer needed/wanted in her life. The book she gushed about the most and talked about rereading often was The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. I had run into the movie The Virgin Suicides several years ago when I was switching channels on TV. I watched a few minutes and thought better of it and switched off. I also had read Eugenides award winning Middlesex and loved it. So I was aware of the book, sort of, when I read that it was Annie Spence's favorite. That was on my mind when I ran into the audiobook at the local library, and I checked it out with a handful of others as possible "listens" for our long car trip to California.

I make this rambling introduction as a way of saying, I didn't know what I was getting when I checked The Virgin Suicides out.

Let's see if I can adequately summarize the book. To begin with -- and everyone knows this from the title -- there are suicides. Five suicides to be precise and all those who die are sisters. The first sister to kill herself is the youngest at age eleven, the other four following her in death a year later after everything falls apart. The story is told by a collection of neighborhood boys who get together twenty years later to try to piece together what happened and why. The narrators refer to themselves as "we" and the reader is never sure how many boys are telling the tale---four, seven, nine? Who knows? It became an obsession of mine to figure it out and I never did.

The time period is the 1970's in a Detroit, Michigan suburb, probably like the town where Eugenides grew up. The Lisbon sisters were raised by a very strict, repressive mother and a passive father. Though the girls are forced to wear baggy, unflattering clothes, the boys are infatuated with them and think the girls are lovely. Over the course of the year between the first suicide and the rest, the boys collect and save items they think have some importance in helping them understand the girls. They call these items "exhibits" as if they are presenting evidence at a trial. The boys seem to be obsessed their whole lives with WHY the girls were so obsessed to end their lives.

Though there are five suicides in this novel, I wouldn't say that suicide is the theme. The book is really about what it's like to be an adolescent, not really understanding the opposite sex, yet being obsessed with them. Some reviewers say Virgin Suicides is a coming-of-age novel, but I reject that characterization because I don't want to think that suicide is some kind of rite of passage. Other proof that COA is an inaccurate description is that the narrator(s) -- twenty years after the suicides -- still don't understand the girls. Shmoop says the novel is really an anti-coming-of-age story. Ha! Another theme that engulfs the whole Lisbon family is the tragedy of isolation.  The girls are pulled out of school, the father loses his job, they stop participating in neighborhood activities like fall leaf-raking. As the house falls into disrepair, so do the lives inside.

As depressing as the topic of suicide is, real humor comes through, mostly in the comments the boys make to one another. Many of these comments reveal their misunderstandings about the mysteries of the opposite sex: tampons, bras, and what they could see from the windows of their rooms.

One mystery to me is why no one did anything to help this family in crisis. The neighbors talked about what was happening but didn't step up. The school counselors witnessed what happened after the first suicide, yet barely lifted a finger to offer support though one was willing to smoke with Lux, the promiscuous sister, during their sessions together. It always bothers me when schools are shown in such a negative light.

So did I like the book? Good question. I wouldn't say "like" but I was very intrigued by the writing. The narrator as a group of men -- earlier boys with crushes -- like a Greek chorus, was extremely unique and clever. I could just picture these boys gathering their exhibits and pondering over them. There is no denying that Eugenides is a superior writer, but I am not sure I would ever tell anyone to read this book. I honestly am not sure I understand it. But many, many readers before me love the book, often rereading it with regularity. So I will leave you with that thought and a link to a review written by a teenager herself. I think her review gets much closer to understanding what Eugenides had to say in the Virgin Suicides than my review. Teenager reviews VS.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 1993.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. Recorded Books. 2006.

Past Due Book Reviews

5 / 16 books. 31% done!