ONTD Book Club discussion

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal."

So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

I read this book about 10 years ago and was both fascinated by the subject and appalled at it.

Definitely a a great book for discussion.

Sandra wrote: "I read this book about 10 years ago and was both fascinated by the subject and appalled at it.

Definitely a a great book for discussion."

I read it a long time ago, too. I didn't care much for it at all, but I was also expecting something that would captivate me the way his first book had.

I just finished The Virgin Suicides by the same author and omg, I hope this one is completely different.

Denisse wrote: "I just finished The Virgin Suicides by the same author and omg, I hope this one is completely different."

Did you not like The Virgin Suicides? I love that book and have since I first read it at 14 (zomg almost 20 years ago).

Jessica, I really didn't like it. The narrator bothered me way too much, them and their need for the Lisbon girls to be their MPDG. I know that was like the basic theme, how a whole community could just sit there and watch how the girls were abused without doing something for them but I just didn't like how the boys had them in pedestals.

Oh wait. The girls were abused? Clearly I missed a HUGE plot point.

I really liked The Virgin Suicides so I have high hopes for this one.

Maybe not sexually, but the whole living situation is basically abuse and neglect.

I'm almost finished with this book. It's very dense. Has everyone else given up or just waiting to finish?

I'm still working through it! I made the mistake of starting my free trial of Netflix this month so I'm way behind on my reading.

Natalie wrote: "I'm almost finished with this book. It's very dense. Has everyone else given up or just waiting to finish?"

Meh. I considering re-reading it, but I just couldn't be bothered. I didn't like it the first time.

I finished the book! Anyone ready to discuss?