Jeffrey Eugenides

First published in 1993, "The Virgin Suicides" announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters--beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys--commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, "The Virgin Suicides" is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.

The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time.

finally reading after watching the movie a thousand times, if I have to say the movie is pretty loyal to the book

Romy

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

We mention this now only to show that even college students, free to booze and fornicate, bring about their own ends in large numbers. Imagine what it was like for the Lisbon girls, shut up in their house with no blaring stereo or ready bong around.

We just want to live. If anyone would let us.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.

LIMEKI 

"Está muy claro, doctor, que usted nunca ha sido una niña de trece años."

หนูยังไม่แก่พอจะรับรู้ว่าชีวิตมันห่วยแตกยังไงด้วยซ้ำ

เห็นได้ชัดเลยล่ะ ว่าคุณไม่เคยเป็นเด็กสาววัยสิบสาม

Stas

Dr. Armonson stitched up her wrist wounds. Within five minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger. Chucking her under the chin, he said, "What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets."

And it was then Cecilia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live: "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl.

They lost their high heels on the way kissed us in the humid darkness, and then slipped away to throw up demurely in the outside bushes.

The National Bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Author of Middlesex and The Marriage Plot With a New Introduction First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.

A Novel

The Virgin Suicides (Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition)

Paige Leitner

"'At thirteen, Cecelia should be allowed to wear the sort of makeup popular among girls her age, in order to bond with them. The aping of shared customs is an indispensable step in the process of individualization.'"

juana de arco si estuviera cronicamente online

“Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she’d fly.”

"’but why do you care? it’s not a contest.’” "’yes, it is. you just can't see it because you've always been the winner.’”

Gisselle Vazquez

None of the teachers insisted on their participating, with the result that all the healing was done by those of us without wounds. 

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family’s fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.

angie

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.

 They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us. We couldn't imagine the emptiness of a creature who put a razor to her wrists and opened her veins, the emptiness and the calm.

 She smiled then, a loose, clumsy smile, genuine, unpretty. 

She took one more step and her face reappeared. For a second it didn't seem alive: it was too white, the cheeks too perfectly carved, the arched eyebrows painted on, the full lips made of wax. But then she came closer and we saw the light in her eyes we have been looking for ever since.

and his lost look of a man who realized that all this dying was going to be the only life he ever had. 

Often, in today's world, the extended child- hood American life has bestowed on its young turns out to be a wasteland, where the adolescent feels cut off from both childhood and adulthood. 

 "I don't know what you're feeling. I won't even pretend."

We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other, but sometimes, after one of us had read a long portion of the diary out loud, we had to fight back the urge to hug one another or to tell each other how pretty we were. We felt the imprisonment of a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together.

Nele Braeger 

Something sick at the heart of the country had infected the girls. Our parents thought it had to do with our music, our godlessness, or the loosening of morals regarding sex we hadn't even had. Mr. Hedlie mentioned that fin-de-siècle Vienna witnessed a similar outbreak of suicides on the part of the young, and put the whole thing down to the misfortune of living in a dying empire. It had to do with the way the mail wasn't delivered on time, and how potholes never got fixed, or the thievery at City Hall, or the race riots, or the 801 fires set around the city on Devil's night. The Lisbon girls became a symbol of what was wrong with the country, the pain it inflicted on even its most innocent citizens, and in order to make things better a parents' group donated a bench in the girls' memory to our school.

Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides is a haunting and beautifully written novel that explores the mysteries of adolescence, isolation, and memory. First published in 1993, it tells the tragic story of five sisters whose lives—and deaths—become an obsession for the neighborhood boys who narrate the tale. The book is equal parts coming-of-age story, suburban satire, and elegy, told with lyrical prose and quiet heartbreak.

The novel takes place in a quiet American suburb during the 1970s and follows the five Lisbon sisters: Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese. They live under the strict, religious control of their parents, whose overprotectiveness gradually isolates the girls from the world.

When the youngest sister, Cecilia, takes her own life early in the book, the tragedy sends shockwaves through the community. The remaining sisters become objects of fascination for a group of neighborhood boys who watch them from afar, trying to understand their sadness and secrets. As the Lisbons’ isolation deepens, the boys’ curiosity turns into obsession—culminating in the sisters’ collective and mysterious suicides.

The story isn’t about solving a mystery, but about the impossibility of truly understanding someone else’s pain.

Keisi

Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides is a haunting and beautifully written novel that explores the mysteries of adolescence, isolation, and memory. First published in 1993, it tells the tragic story of five sisters whose lives—and deaths—become an obsession for the neighborhood boys who narrate the tale. The book is equal parts coming-of-age story, suburban satire, and elegy, told with lyrical prose and quiet heartbreak.

The novel takes place in a quiet American suburb during the 1970s and follows the five Lisbon sisters: Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese. They live under the strict, religious control of their parents, whose overprotectiveness gradually isolates the girls from the world.

When the youngest sister, Cecilia, takes her own life early in the book, the tragedy sends shockwaves through the community. The remaining sisters become objects of fascination for a group of neighborhood boys who watch them from afar, trying to understand their sadness and secrets. As the Lisbons’ isolation deepens, the boys’ curiosity turns into obsession—culminating in the sisters’ collective and mysterious suicides.

The story isn’t about solving a mystery, but about the impossibility of truly understanding someone else’s pain.

The Lisbon Sisters are presented as ethereal, almost mythic figures. We never get inside their minds; instead, we see them through the memories of the boys who adored them. This distance makes them haunting and symbolic—representing innocence, repression, and the fragility of youth.

Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon, their strict and emotionally repressed parents, embody the suffocating moral standards of their suburban world.

The Narrators, a collective “we” of neighbourhood boys, are both sympathetic and voyeuristic. Their nostalgic voice captures the ache of adolescence and the futility of trying to make sense of tragedy years later.

Set in a quiet, middle-class suburb, the setting plays a crucial role in the novel. The manicured lawns, pastel houses, and polite small-town atmosphere create a stark contrast to the deep loneliness and despair beneath the surface. The decaying Lisbon house, once bright and tidy, becomes a physical symbol of grief and decline.

Eugenides captures the nostalgic tone of 1970s America perfectly, with references to pop culture, school dances, and summer boredom that ground the story in its time.

What makes The Virgin Suicides truly remarkable is its narrative voice. Told from the collective point of view of the boys years after the events, the novel reads like a shared memory—hazy, poetic, and filled with longing. The language is rich and dreamlike, blurring the line between truth and myth.

The book also stands out for its sensitive handling of dark themes. Eugenides doesn’t sensationalize suicide; instead, he focuses on the emptiness and confusion it leaves behind. The tone is melancholic rather than shocking, making the story feel eerily timeless.

I found The Virgin Suicides both beautiful and heartbreaking. It’s not a fast-paced book—it’s reflective and poetic, meant to be felt more than analyzed. I loved how Eugenides captured the nostalgia of youth, the limits of understanding, and the quiet tragedy of lives unlived. However, some readers might find the detached narration frustrating because it never fully explains “why” the sisters did what they did. But that mystery is precisely the point—it mirrors how real-life grief often feels.

This novel is best suited for mature teens and adults who enjoy literary fiction with emotional and psychological depth. It’s ideal for readers who appreciate lyrical writing and thought-provoking themes rather than action. Fans of writers like Sylvia Plath, Donna Tartt (The Secret History), or Ian McEwan will likely connect with this book.

It is really the ultimate right to choose. Girls dying is always a spectacle. Men. Everyone clap at the beauty!

martian1138

Ugh. Good book. Nice pace.

It is really the ultimate right to choose. Girls dying is always a spectacle. Men. Everyone clap at the beauty!



the Lisbon sisters didn’t want to die, they just wanted to get out of the house. 

tragic & sad but so beautiful. one of my favorite book-to-film adaptations as well 🪽

Bulan

the Lisbon sisters didn’t want to die, they just wanted to get out of the house. 

tragic & sad but so beautiful. one of my favorite book-to-film adaptations as well 🪽

“The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.”

It was a strange read, I didn't know what to think half the time. The thing that frustrated me more about this book is that the Lisbon girls are never acknowledged as individuals in the whole book. Not by their parents, not by the press, not by the narrators. They are always referred to as sisters, as the Lisbon girls. The few mentions we get of them as individuals go no further than how beautiful and ethereal they are. As a reader, you never get to know the girls. You just have an idolised image of them, the same image the narrator has.

As for the narration, I found it a bit difficult to read; it was in a very slow pace (although I admit that this adds to the impact of the story) and I got lost in the many characters.

Honestly, having finished it, I have the strange feeling that I want to read it again, I think my experience would be different and I would pick up more things.

“The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.”

It was a strange read, I didn't know what to think half the time. The thing that frustrated me more about this book is that the Lisbon girls are never acknowledged as individuals in the whole book. Not by their parents, not by the press, not by the narrators. They are always referred to as sisters, as the Lisbon girls. The few mentions we get of them as individuals go no further than how beautiful and ethereal they are. As a reader, you never get to know the girls. You just have an idolised image of them, the same image the narrator has.

As for the narration, I found it a bit difficult to read; it was in a very slow pace (although I admit that this adds to the impact of the story) and I got lost in the many characters.

Honestly, having finished it, I have the strange feeling that I want to read it again, I think my experience would be different and I would pick up more things.

quite frankly i don’t understand the hype, it’s really confusing just for it to be such a boring read, i think i might watch the film and try again at reading, and hopefully i’ll like it more if i know what’s going on .

i did the 50 page rule, but wanted to see why everyone loves it sm so i went to pg100 but still didn’t like or understand so i am quitting (for now)

nell reeves 

quite frankly i don’t understand the hype, it’s really confusing just for it to be such a boring read, i think i might watch the film and try again at reading, and hopefully i’ll like it more if i know what’s going on .

i did the 50 page rule, but wanted to see why everyone loves it sm so i went to pg100 but still didn’t like or understand so i am quitting (for now)

I finished reading the Virgin Suicides a few days ago - and what a book it was. The way the boys look at women as if they are divine, far for human - it's a cruel look into the world of girlhood, where boys don't have any responsabilities but girls are expected to care for them and act angelical as they do so.

The part where Lux is left alone truly set the book apart for me: the way the guy (forgot his name) gets ''sick of her'' because she acts like a human, like a girl, is simply sick and so, so painful to read. They worship those girls, they're some sort of myth and the style of writing (in the pov of those boys) truly shows that: their story is mystified, as are their suicides - even to the very bitter end, the Lisbon sisters are just that, sisters; they're not Lux, Mary, Bonnie, Therese. They're the sisters, a form of myth, of divine, far away from life itself.

dyonisos.

I finished reading the Virgin Suicides a few days ago - and what a book it was. The way the boys look at women as if they are divine, far for human - it's a cruel look into the world of girlhood, where boys don't have any responsabilities but girls are expected to care for them and act angelical as they do so.

The part where Lux is left alone truly set the book apart for me: the way the guy (forgot his name) gets ''sick of her'' because she acts like a human, like a girl, is simply sick and so, so painful to read. They worship those girls, they're some sort of myth and the style of writing (in the pov of those boys) truly shows that: their story is mystified, as are their suicides - even to the very bitter end, the Lisbon sisters are just that, sisters; they're not Lux, Mary, Bonnie, Therese. They're the sisters, a form of myth, of divine, far away from life itself.

I can’t believe that the lisbon sisters took their lifes on my birthday 

🌘

well-written with an interesting style and an intriguing story. i feel like i simultaneously did and didn't understand what happened and the lisbons felt larger than life but also fully hollow, which i suppose is the point of the book. the outside perspective really worked for the story being told here and i thought the idea of a collective of items, documents, interviews, etc. all pertaining to a specific event/year of events that fundamentally altered a town was well executed. the narration was voyeuristic in a confounding way; i was largely disgusted by the second-hand account, but also could feel the fascination the narrator(s) had for the lisbon girls

It was compelling at the start but lost its pacing a little and I found myself getting bored during the middle, but it picked up towards the end and I enjoyed the last few pages.

kittie

This book has wrecked me. Do not read this if you're not in a good mental state because this book will absolutely crush your spirit. 

While I originally chose this book for it's links to my dissertation research, I'm very glad I read it for other reasons, as well. It will open your eyes to the cruelty of humans and the importance on relying on community. It will show you how bleak the world can become without leaning on and communicating with others. As I was reading, the gender disparities cannot be ignored, but oddly enough, that's not what stood out most prominently with this novel. This book is real and grim and really difficult to read at times. But, with all that said, it was fantastic. I'm not sure if I could point out a time when a book last made me feel this unnerved. 

If you're in a healthy mental state, give this book a read (it is a contemporary classic for a reason). Just be aware going in that it is not a light hearted novel. 

This book has wrecked me. Do not read this if you're not in a good mental state because this book will absolutely crush your spirit. 

While I originally chose this book for it's links to my dissertation research, I'm very glad I read it for other reasons, as well. It will open your eyes to the cruelty of humans and the importance on relying on community. It will show you how bleak the world can become without leaning on and communicating with others. As I was reading, the gender disparities cannot be ignored, but oddly enough, that's not what stood out most prominently with this novel. This book is real and grim and really difficult to read at times. But, with all that said, it was fantastic. I'm not sure if I could point out a time when a book last made me feel this unnerved. 

If you're in a healthy mental state, give this book a read (it is a contemporary classic for a reason). Just be aware going in that it is not a light hearted novel. 

“In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.”

Oh what I would give to read this book from the point of view of the sisters.

Jillian Roberts

“In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.”

Oh what I would give to read this book from the point of view of the sisters.

to be a woman is to perform or whatever that quote was

Uomini si chiederanno cosa voglia dire essere una ragazza e non troveranno risposta…..

Cédric Yorke

Maureen

“The Lisbon girls, on the other hand were ‘like something behind glass. Like an exhibit.’”

***

Elusive bodies constitute male desire. This is my key takeaway from the novel. We never learn who the Lisbon sisters truly are because information about them is delivered in fragments through the narratives of the neighborhood boys-turned-men. Essentially, the novel epitomizes the male gaze: the Lisbon sisters are reduced to objects of sight. Because of how much traction their family gained due to their unorthodox lifestyle, the girls’ ‘virgin’ suicides were treated as mere casualties in the end—prone to oversimplification not only by the boys but the suburban community as a whole.

The virgin suicides

Amina

I first read this book 11 years ago—it was 2013, I was 13 and on tumblr and that’s enough info for you to know what kind of person I was like back then. and so ofc back then I too was like the narrators and fetishized tf out of the lisbon girls. it’s only now realizing as an adult that the whole point is how these men were just the original incels lmfaooo. this book is fucking phenomenal.

so many reviews here are filled with people still speculating the suicides and it just proves that they can’t think outside of the narrators. it’s really not hard to understand why the girls did it—their lives fucking sucked. what made it unbearable to them is that nobody ever understood them, not just the boys but their entire community. they were constantly just interpreted as some abstract, mysterious creatures, when really, they were just girls.

glória

it’s literally impossible to be a woman 

Eugenia 

armoni mayes

** spoiler alert **
           I did think this book would be a five star read but it just didn’t meet that bar tbh. but i did find the book interesting because it gave us the perception of how the town saw the five lisbon girls, so we will never really know what they experienced in the time that cecila committed suicide and their own. i think we can only conjure up in our minds what they went through, considering we would later find out that their parents never cleaned up the party they threw for cecilia. the torment of not being able to leave the house on top of it falling apart/not being clean must’ve taken a massive toll on them along with their younger sisters death. i can only speculate that this along with other issues in their personal lives led to their suicides. i don’t want to sit here and point fingers at the parents but they definitely did not support their daughters in the way they probably should have after cecilia’s death, even though it must’ve been hard for them too.

isabelle

I loved how it was told from the male gaze. It meant that the story was haunting and we know very little about the Lisbon sisters.

Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst, this is the story of the five Lisbon sisters – beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the entire neighbourhood.

Marz 

The title of the virgin suicides made me curious hence I decided to read it. 

While I enjoyed various aspects of the book such as the portrayal of the male gaze through the boys that narrate the story or the impact of growing up in a religious house as a young girl, I ultimately did not enjoy reading this book. 

The writing was slow paced, it felt like nothing at all was happening, even events which should have an impact just felt flat to me. The book constantly goes on tangents speaking about random things in unessacary detail. 

Also while I understand this book came out in the nineties the ableism and racism in this book is so off putting. The description of a character named Joe in chapter one was so horrid I nearly stopped reading then. I only continued because online readers insisted it was just one weird passage. 


In summary the virgin suicides reads like your weird cousin telling you a story from years ago.

Oliver Magnanimous

the blurry hasty pace of me speeding thru this book matched the hazy fog-like pace and ambience of the book. to be immortalised in the eyes of immature men as something divine when we’re just humans is the way men overcompensate for their lack of emotional growth when they were teens as well. 

The Virgin Suicides

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