Kay R. (kayprime) reviewed on 11/11/2012 + 38 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This is the story of an immigrant Greek family over three generations with our narrator as the end product. It is important to understand that going into the book. I came for the spectacle of hermaphroditism only to realize that Cal is a person with a history and not a spectacle. He just so happens to have the added difficulty of intersex as part of that history.

Once I stopped expecting the book to be about a hermaphrodite, I really got a chance to enjoy the story. I appreciate that it is written almost as if it were a personal diary so that the narrator shared his story instead of just telling it. Eugenides' references to historical events and Americana was wonderful and even created a sense of nostalgia.

The author's style of writing is reminiscent of a more polished and accomplished me. (Which is me just stroking my own ego because all I'm really saying is that his writing is a bit pedestrian.) The development of the story is slow (Cal isn't even born until around page 400), and I expected to read more about the narrator's psychology and emotion behind his transition.

I wouldn't read this book again but I am grateful of the experience.

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