Eleutherios and Desdemona's story, which was completely unrelatable and without context for me during my first read, was so compelling to me this time around.

Maybe I'm biased, being the child of an immigrant myself, but I do believe this. I think that Middlesex is an immigrant story at its heart, and this is my favorite thing about the novel. And while I personally wasn't able to visualize his beloved Detroit, my imagination flourished in his descriptions of the places I am more familiar with. I appreciate the blunt honesty of Eugenides's writing and his willingness to describe even the uncomfortable moments of life using his graceful, sensual prose.

This is not entirely a bad thing from my point of view, though. It was at times a bit uncomfortable for me, to be perfectly honest.

I was a teenager when I read this book for the first time and must have found it all relatable, but reading it again forced me to remember all of the tumultuous emotions, insecurities, infatuations, and humiliations I had to endure at that age. This last bit is purely my own personal preference: I don't very much enjoy media about awkward teenagers, and this was largely what the second half of the book was made of. (One may simply attribute this to my own poor reading comprehension.) And unfortunately, the many heartfelt descriptions of the city of Detroit were mostly lost on me because I have never been there. For the most part, I loved his writing (Obviously, otherwise I would not have enjoyed the novel at all.) but there were several instances where I had some difficulty interpreting his metaphorical use of language, especially during descriptions, and found it necessary to look up a photo of what was being described. Jeffrey Eugenides's prose is also a bit too flowery for my usual taste.

A couple of these moments were a bit jarring for me as a reader. There are several historical events interjected within the story, and the characters' involvement with them did not always feel natural or cohesive with the rest of the plot. The blending of the generational family saga and (fictional) memoir within one book reminds me somewhat of John Steinbeck's East of Eden, as does its similarly slow-paced and rambling style (which I love) however, there are just a few areas where the novel fell short for me. For some reason I wasn't sure if it would hold up as well for me today, but I have to say I enjoyed it almost equally as much. I had read this book once before nearly ten years ago and absolutely loved it.

Middlesex eugenides review