There’s something about Middlesex that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I was completely absorbed by it.
It has this wonderfully strange, melancholic, almost whimsical quality - like watching a family slowly unravel in the most beautiful way possible. It’s sprawling and eccentric and occasionally absurd, but underneath all of that is something deeply sad and deeply human.
What stayed with me most is how much of the novel is really about inheritance - not just what we inherit biologically, but the stories, secrets, expectations, trauma and mistakes that are handed down without our permission. The past is constantly present in this book. One generation makes a choice, another lives with its consequences, and eventually someone has to decide whether they’ll keep carrying it.
I also loved how quietly the book explores the idea of identity as something we discover rather than something that is simply given to us. Cal’s story isn’t just about becoming comfortable with his identity; it’s about questioning how much of who we are is determined by biology, family, culture, circumstance or the stories other people tell about us.
And there’s something really beautiful in the way Eugenides treats fate. The novel is obsessed with the idea that tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions can completely alter the course of a life. Yet it never feels like everything is predetermined. There’s still room for choice, reinvention and becoming someone new.
Even the title feels bigger by the end. Middlesex becomes more than a place. It feels like a metaphor for existing somewhere between categories - between past and future, male and female, old world and new, fate and choice, belonging and alienation.
And somehow, despite everything this book is exploring, it never feels like it’s shouting its meaning at you. So much of it is understated. You finish a chapter thinking you’ve simply read about this strange, complicated family, and then realise later that it was quietly saying something much bigger about what it means to inherit a life and then make it your own.
It gave me that same feeling I get from The Royal Tenenbaums: eccentric people, complicated family dynamics, a little absurdity, and this underlying sadness that you can feel even when everyone is being funny.
I didn’t just enjoy the story. I loved the atmosphere of it, the strangeness of it, and everything it left me thinking about afterwards.
Absolutely a five-star read.