Name: The Virgin Suicides
Rating: 3.736170212765958 (611 reviews)
ISBN: 9780747560593

Jeffrey Eugenides

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.

The Virgin Suicides

Marija

"The Lisbon girls made suicide familiar."

Alejandro Silva

I wish I could understand this book the way Sofia Coppola did… I did understand Sofia, I didn’t understand Jeffrey. 

virgin suicides

I really liked it and found it to be so interesting seeing these girls being treated as angels and a collective fantasy. Those boys were so blinded with  infatuation that they ignored those girls pleas just to not break their deluded perspective. The other girls death were almost routine and completely expected eith Cecilia being the only anomaly and her suicide being extravagant. 10/10 

Cecilla

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!



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 

🌘

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)

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. 

Paige Leitner

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.

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.

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.

glória

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.

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.

The Virgin Suicides

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