This was a book I was bought for Christmas from Chris, that I had never heard of before. I didn't really know what to expect from the title, but just a few pages in I was hooked, and I have devoured the novel in less than a week.
The plot is really simple - five teenage sisters in the Lisbon family (Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux and Cecelia) all commit suicide in varying ways for no apparent reason. The book is written through the eyes of a group of boys (whose names we never learn) who secretly watch the girls, developing a slight obsession that leads them to ponder aspects of the girls' lives that remain behind closed doors, as well as recounting those in the public eye:
'We got them all. And, flipping pages, hiked through dusty passes with the girls, stopping every now and then to help them take off their backpacks, placing our hands on their warm, moist shoulders and gazing off at papaya sunsets. We drank tea with them in a water pavilion, above blazing goldfish. We did whatever we wanted to, and Cecelia hadn't killed herself: she was a bride in Calcutta, with a red veil and the soles of her feet dyed with henna.'
It details beautifully the traumas of teenage life - dating, sex, parents, parties and school, but due to the harrowing undercurrent throughout, it really is a read like no other.
The language used is both scientific and figurative, precise yet dreamlike - I have never encountered a style like it:
'Maidens with golden hair dripped sea-blue tears into the book's spine. Grape-colored whales spouted blood around a newspaper item (pasted in) listing arrivals to the endangered species list. Six hatchlings cried from shattered shells near an entry made on Easter. Cecelia had filled the pages with a profusion of colors and curlicues, Candyland ladders and striped shamrocks,'.
The fact that the ending of the story (the girls' deaths) is revealed in the first sentence really shows what a capable weaver of words Eugenides is; few people would want to read a whole book if they knew the final outcome.
After eight paragraphs of waxing lyrical, I hope I have managed to persuade you to read this. I'm buying his other two books (the most recent published just last October) asap! For those of you that like to cheat, I've heard the film, which stars a young Kirsten Dunst as Lux, and Josh Hartnett as her crush Trip Fontaine, is also worth viewing.
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