Virgin Suicides (Revised) | 
pickKind of like if Donna Tartt had tried to write American Pie.
The Virgin Suicides was a brilliantly written novel about a family of young women who captured the imagination of the boys in their neighbourhood.
Looking back, the boys try to piece together what led to their self destruction.
Definitely fetishises the girls and their sadness, but still a very good book that draws parallels with the rot and decay of their American way of life.
pickIt‘s not one to read when you‘re in a dark state of mind, as it might be just enough to tip you over the edge, but it‘s a fascinating one to read when you‘re comfortable doing so. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-virgin-suicides-jeffrey-eugenides/
pickI initially only picked this out because the cover was aesthetically please (yes i will always judge a book by its cover) and i ended up loving it
i really liked how throughout the whole book we knew what the ending would be but there was so much suspension to find out how it happened so i wanted to sit and read to see how it did
as someone with adhd it‘s always been hard for me to want to finish books but this was no problem
pickThis book was a depressing read. It tells the story of a family with five daughters through the eyes of neighborhood boys. Somehow it manages to capture perfectly the experience of being a teenage girl even though we never get to see the story through their point of view. In many ways this is a tough read.
The rest of July was filled with rainy days, seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer in cinema, and also drinking this horrible Chai Tea ☕️. I cycled for one hour through the rain ☔️ and got absolutely drenched, but I have 3 new books! I‘ve heard so much about Tomorrow… that I simply had to buy it. The Virgin Suicides has been on my TBR for ages. I‘m most excited about the YA novel though. Lesbians & the apocalypse!
bailedMay be an #unpopularopinion but all the nopes. This book is the definition of the male gaze-maybe the point but not feeling it. Made it neatly 40% through and I just can‘t anymore. Eugenides is a love it or not author for me and this is a not. The tragic suicides of 5 sisters and his focus is the boys‘ perspective? At least it is off my #TBR and my shelf.
pickGood old dreariness with an unhappy ending. Read over the dark cold winter
pickI didn‘t enjoy the last Eugenides novel I read but this was completely different. I understood it more as a book about the teenage boys and an introspective on the male gaze that it was about the Lisbon sisters. The writing was really evocative of a certain time and place. 8/10
it's that time of year again!
nope, not the holidays. it's time for seasonal depression and rereading my favorite book! 🙃
pickI think this book encapsulates the essence of being a teenage girl quite well. The Lisbon girls oozed womanhood and wanted freedom and couldn‘t ever explore it, nor get it. The fact that it‘s the boys narrating the whole book, I think, is just another aspect of the girls not being understood. The suicides just made sense to me. Truthfully, such a sad book. Overall, I think there is a lot much more to this book than what is presented.
pickI actually enjoyed reading this book for the most part, but some of the parts felt a little icky and uncomfortable (I‘m guessing that‘s the point, though) loved the lyrical writing and this beautiful 25th anniversary edition with gold foil roses on the cover!
pickHave you ever read a book just because it was mentioned in another book?
That's what prompted me to pick up "The Virgin Suicides."
It is the story of the Lisbon sisters as told through the neighborhood boys who are obsessed with them.
It was creatively imagined and well-written and not at all what I was expecting.
With the rereading of this book, it is now officially time for the commencement of, Sad Girl Autumn.
I think out of every book in my library, this is the one I‘ve owned the longest
pickI‘ve meant to read this for a long time & glad I got it during banned books month. This is a very weird book about the suicide of all 5 daughters in a family. What makes it weird is that it‘s told from the perspective of neighborhood male peers who have spent many yrs observing, then investigating the tragedy. Mostly unemotional, you only know the girls from other people. Some cringe parts, but I was interested through most of the story.
pick“It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”
- 4⭐️
pickThe Virgin Suicides gets such a bad rap. It‘s misogynist and male gaze-ey on purpose. It‘s self aware and is supposed to be sort of revolting. I think the movie may get this across better, but jesus christ it is so wonderful. The Lisbon girls are the essence of the “female image” and it is well worth the read. I will defend this book until the day I die.
pickthis book really revealed so much about the male gaze. really insightful and obviously sad, but the writing style was so cool. i really recommend but obviously huge trigger warning
pick9-13 Feb 2022 (audiobook)
The story of the five beautiful and suicidal Lisbon sisters told from the perspective of the neighbourhood boys who try to rescue them. Its darkness should probably not come as a surprise, given the topic. No explanation of the suicides is given: their parents were strict, but not extraordinarily so; perhaps it was genetic; or contagious. There is humour in the adolescent narrators which I enjoyed, yet it was disturbing.
so-soI'm not completely sure how I feel about this book. I watched the movie years ago, and I remember liking it. It's told from the point of view of neighbourhood boys observing the five sisters, so it has a kind of distance from the girls themselves. I guess I found myself wondering what this story would have looked like from the perspective of the sisters.
pickMy daughter watched the movie and just bought this, so I read it to be able to talk about it with her.
Waiting on Hurricane Elsa, watching the Rays get smoked, and cracking open a new book. Another backlist for me! 📚
I‘m using it for the 1970s prompt in the Decades Reading Challenge.
#bookspinbingo
Life got so busy!!! Behind on reviews, but currently reading The Virgin Suicides. Wanted to share this though, my local library is doing The Perfect Match Book Box. Once a month you pick up your box, inside a book and treats! I got seeds, garden gloves, chocolates, and coupons for two free ice cream cones plus a hand picked book from staff that I can keep up to four weeks! Thought this was such a fun idea 🥰
pickAnother book that I waited far too long to read, perhaps because I was always so unsure of what it was about.
Loved how we never quite learn who the narrator is, but regardless, he shares the story of five sisters, each committing suicide.
What drove them to this point where they felt they had no other option?
The readers don‘t learn this answer either.
Instead learn how everything unraveled after the first sister let go. 100% recommend this!
pickThis is a book that I love so much it‘s hard to put into words. It is beautiful and haunting.
so-soThis is an interesting one. Overall I think it bugged me that we didn‘t really know any of the characters because the narrator(s) shielded themselves and much of the detail of the lives of the girls appeared to be speculation. Also really bugged me that they kept referring to “exhibits” of photographs and belongings of the girls, although I‘m not sure why it bugged me so much. I did like the writing and would try another book by Eugenides. 2.5⭐️.
Next up... cover boasts that it is “a Catcher in the Rye for our time”, here‘s hoping it‘s a little better than Catcher in the Rye, which I just read and did not particularly enjoy!🤞🏼🤞🏼 Loving the shiny cover so it already has bonus points!
pick5🌟 A well written and narrated dark and atmospheric elegy that lingers in your mind. About a family with five beautiful sisters from a middle class American family that over the course of a year all five commit suicide. Eugenides vivid and symbolic world building pulled me in! I am definitely reading more of his books soon! I will say there is an element of mystique here that the author leaves you with and some readers may find unsettling.
pickI absolutely loved this! Wonderfull prose, great narrational skills, rightly a modern classic. A careful and nuanced book not about the five suicidal sisters, but the society they were born into, the community that ignored them and the peers that objectified them. A perfect example of how the white/western/wealthy and (most importantly) male gaze dominates our perception - the victim blaming at the end, pure gold! Sad, but so very true. #feminism
pickIt‘s books like this that make me wish I was in a book club 😩
It definitely appeals more to a teen audience but as I experienced the story as a teen I feel very attached. Revisiting this memories surfaced that had once been forgotten. Personally I think the film captures the book brilliantly.
#15booksin15weeks Book 6 😁
⬇️⬇️⬇️
Dr. Armonson stitched up her wrist wounds. Within five minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger.
“What are you doing here honey? You‘re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” ........
“Obviously, Doctor,” she said, “you‘ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”
Definitely an air of melancholy whilst reading this but the little heart that appeared in my coffee did make me smile 🥰
Thank you @achalla for the tag 🥰 hope your enjoying Litsy so far📚
☀️ A toss up between TVS & Maze runner,been waiting to read them both for a while now. In my teens I loved The film of the virgin suicides with Kirsten Dunst & Josh Hartnett .It was a film that stayed with me for days after.
☀️Picnics on the grass 🧺
☀️Watching the fluffy baby blue tits leave the bird box.Poor mum & dad,what a handful&soo quick😂
@ceci_reads @Nerdy_Bookworm
pickI hate that this 200 page long book only has 5 chapters (one for each sister?) It dragged on forever. However, the story and the writing are great. I can't believe this book was written so long ago and that not much has changed.
How can a chapter be almost 100 pages long? 😖
✨November Wrap-Up✨
8 books read
4 audio
1 ARC
1 1001/1000 list book
1 500 great books by women
1 in translation
0 nonfiction for nonfiction November 🙄🤣
Favorite of the month is tagged.
#wrapup #monthlywrapup #novemberwrapup
This was really good. I liked the narrative style, it worked so that as a reader I was just as fascinated and baffled by the Lisbon girls as the boys watching them. The fact that we never truly know why they did what they did makes it absolutely haunting.
pickExcellent writing with a Dream-like quality. The narrator, now an adult, reminisced about his time with a group of boys who were fascinated by the 5 Lisbon sisters. About memory, loss of innocence, coming of age, and more. #1001books
so-soOne of many books I packed for vacation, but the first I have finished. A student loaned this to me to read and we agree the language is very poetic. The story itself was a little jumbled though. I definitely understand why it would appeal to a teenage demographic though.
Finally reading this beauty
pickI resisted this story because I have a teen daughter. It‘s very well written, and a fast, intriguing read. Suicide trigger but the perspective is different because the narrator is a group of young boys infatuated with the Lisbon girls. I thank @annebogel and the #whatshouldireadnext podcast for the recommendation. Without hearing how good it was I never would have read this. Check off V for the #litsyAtoZ challenge! @BookishMarginalia
#7Days7Covers #Covercrush Day 7
Post a cover you love each day for 7 days. No explanation needed
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