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Book Review of Middlesex

Middlesex
Middlesex
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 64 more book reviews


Back cover: Middlesex tells 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.

This is a true page turner. 529 pages and I would have loved another 529. The characters are fleshed out and you grow to truly care about them all. Finding one's identity is hard enough for the average person, Calliope is far from average.