MiddleSex

I finished Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, about a week ago. I mentioned before that I was reading it and how much I was enjoying it. It’s taken me about a week and still all I can seem to say is ……Wow! Really, this is a book you just need to read. There is so much to the book, so many facets, so many themes, that I am having a difficult time putting my thoughts on the book into words. 

   

The story is about Calliope who is an hermaphrodite, but grows up not knowing. She “is a girl” for 14 years until she finds exactly what it is that she/he is. She narrates the story in memoir form, yet gives insight to what other characters were thinking and feeling even before she was born. It tells her story, but also the story of her parents, and their parents. It takes place a cross the globe, but mainly in Detroit and Turkey. Everything is beautifully woven together, and it’s one of the books that just becomes part of you. 

  

I have always been interested in the stories of those born ambiguously gendered. So this book was fascinating to me, but there is so much more to the story than that alone. I really can’t say enough good about this book, and highly recommend it. I give it 5 stars.