Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is one of those books that it felt like everyone except me had read. You know, the one that all the commuters seem to be reading and that you see in charity shops by the bucketful.  I was therefore quite pleased when this got suggested as a book club read.  I hadn't even realised it was by the author of The Virgin Suicides which I had read and loved a year or so ago.

The great thing about this book was the number of ways in which I enjoyed it. It had the sweeping family saga (three generations!), the undiscovered secret and romance. With all of that in one story it is no wonder it has been enjoyed by so many people. The writing style is easy, straight-forward and familiar and while not comic in the traditional sense, there are certainly amusing incidents.

For such a chunky book, this was an incredibly quick read.  Although there was no real mystery in the novel, I felt I had grown to know the narrator so well that I wanted to find out how everything ended up, like listening to a friend telling you their family history, warts and all.  It's a really delightful book, despite, or perhaps because of, its unusual subject matter.