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I read this what feels like a lifetime ago. It was utterly forgettable. Thanks for the review, it made me laugh.
Glad to hear! Lol. This guy brought the comedy himself honestly.
Yeah I only realized after reading that it came out like really early 2000s? I think it's out of style already, I saw some TRAs calling it bio essentialist, because, y'know, everything is bio essentialist.
Dang, thanks. You took a hit for the team by reading this one!
Props to you for reading it through so we don't have to. Pulitzer prize eh.
Sea anemones?
Sea anemones. Yes. I basically did a double take reading that line, thinking No, he can't be making that comparison... But I think he was. (Pubic hair.)
I loved this book when I read it ages ago. Maybe I'd have a different take now.
I remember loving it, too. But that was before our gender crazy age. And he wrote it before our gender crazy age. I really liked the narrator's love of her city, Detroit. I really like works that express a love of place, for some reason. And the book is literally named after a place, NOT her intersex condition. Middlesex is her sub-division. And I liked the long epic of the whole Greek family. Yeah...the more I think of it...except for the gender stuff, I do really like this book.
I did like the family aspect. The one thing about it was her periodic reminders that, "Oh if this didn't happen, and x didn't happen, and y, etc...I wouldn't be here!" I understand the appeal of the thought when you first think about it, but hearing it about 20 times over was not my thing.
I really like works that express a love of place
Would you have any recs for books in a similar vein?
I don't know if Pat Conroy's books would be your thing. He strikes a lot of people as old-fashioned these days. He's a middle-aged white Southern man (well, he was when he was writing, he dropped dead of a heart attack a few years ago). He wrote The Lords of Discipline, about the Citadel. (He really did go to the Citadel, and it was kind of a controversy when he wrote about it.) Anyway, in that book he talks about falling in love with Charleston. Conroy just LOVED Charleston, like it was a person. Another example is My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese. He is Indian (ethnically) but was raised in Ethiopia, BUT the titular country actually refers to a small town in Tennessee. It's mostly the story of his work on AIDS when it was still a very new disease. Neither of these books are feminist at all, btw. They're just books I like.
Thanks for the detailed response! I definitely plan to check these out. Now that you point it out, there's something quite charming about someone loving a place like "a person." Might have to do with (for me at least) being a bit bored with romance as of late (and I don't even read romance, just hardly interested when it comes up in ANY book). Between two people, love can always veer a bit into selfishness...between a person and a place on the other hand...
Maybe it appeals to me so much because I have felt that experience--I have been madly in love with a place. Then when I had to move, it really broke my heart. Going back to visit that place is so bittersweet and powerful to me, like running into an old flame.
thanks for the anti recommendation, it sounds like an exhausting read. also the quotes you provided just scream male train of thought by male writer..
Right? Maybe he thought he could pull it off because ""Cal is a guy."" I dunno but the literary world is now paying the price for it