Available to the highest bidder. I really enjoyed this book. I'm also looking for the hardbound edition for myself. Excellent reading! Check my wishlists!

To be mailed to AngelKitty after the Thanksgiving Weekend. Happy BookCrossing!

Released on Monday, December 01, 2003 at Controlled Release to Another BookCrosser in Koshkonong, Missouri USA.

Mailed to AngelKitty today. The book is on it's way! Happy BookCrossing!

With startling immediacy and dark, deadpan humor, the collective narrator of The Virgin Suicides tells a story in a voice that speaks for an eclectic group of men who once stalked life's secrets on the lawns and sidewalks of an affluent American suburb in the seventies...men whose lives have been forever changed by their fierce, awkward obsession with the five doomed Lisbon sisters: brainy Therese, fastidious Mary, ascetic Bonnie, libertine Lux, and pale, saintly Cecilia whose spectacular demise inaugurates "the year of the suicides." Juxtaposing the most common and the most gothic, the humorous and the tragic, author Jeffrey Eugenides creates a vivid and compelling portrait of youth and lost innocence. He takes the reader back to the elm-lined streets of middle-class America, to the sights, the smells, and sensations of backyards and schoolyards filled with wonder and mystery. This is the debut novel that caused a sensation and won immediate acclain from critics and colleagues - a tender, wickedly funny tale of love and terror, sex and suicide, memory and imagination that no reader will soon forget.

This is the book that finally convinced me that a good book doesn't have to be *about* anything, if the writing style is good enough. Can't wait to see the movie!

Quote 1: We didn't understand why Celia had killed herself the first time and we understood even less when she did it twice.
Quote 2: Finally, confronted with clusters of clever girls blushing at Trip's approach, or yanking their braids to keep from smiling too much, we realized that our fathers, brothers and uncles had been lying, and that no one was ever going to love us because of our good grades.

Bookray

With such high demand for this book, I'm setting it up as a bookray. Check the journal entry to see where the book's going. (Links will take you to PM that person.) Check back often, as the order may change to accomodate shipping.

BrideofMessiah in Missouri, US
tootshelling in Arizona, US
Morgail* in Kentucky, US
sleone in California, US
Amber-h* in Georgia, US
Eithen in Florida, US---didn't respond to PMs, moved down list
kalipriestess in Florida, US
zugenia in Rhode Island, US
Infantrywife101 in New York, US
timollie5502 in New York, US
cyber-librarian in Illinois, US
needmorezoloft* in Texas, US
allbookedup in Austria (can only ship to Europe)
suphorme in France
lukutoukka in Finland (prefers within Europe)
tintti in Finland
Q-Cow in the Phillipines (requested middle of list)
Amostrinha in Portugal
terpsicore* in Portugal
xula in Spain

Bookray Rules:
**If you receive a PM for your address and you have a stack of books that will keep you from getting the book, please let that person know to skip you, and you will be next.
**When you receive the book, make a journal entry to let us know you've received it, and PM the next person for their address (that way you can send the book off ASAP after you've read it)
**If you PM the next person in line and they don't respond for 3 days, PM me to let me know. I will move that person down the list. Then, PM the next person for their addreess.
**After you've read the book, make another journal entry about it and mail it off. (At this point, you're free to delete your "I've got the book" message to clean up the journal stream.)

The Movie

Just saw the movie version of this today. It was much like I've been told Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood was (haven't read it). A pretty faithful rendering of the book, or as much as a movie can be, I suppose. Definitely a book that you want to read before watching the movie, though. I'm not entirely sure that the movie would make any sense without the book. There are scenes faithfully and exactly copied from the book, and many that were just left out, and most were unexplained. The characters go through the motions, but with very little background.

And, like Divine Secrets, there was one prop that I was very excited about getting the chance to see, but I was a little let down when I saw it in the movie. Cecilia's diary was very underplayed, and the prop staff took a shortcut with lots of stickers rather than doodles. The doodling was instead moved to credits, title sequences, and the first introduction to the girls. I don't know why it bothered me to see her diary ignored like that, but it did.

One of the other things that jumped out at me even more so than in the books: the director claimed that the only "real" character was the collective narrator. Personally, I felt like Lux (or Luxie, as she becomes in the movie) was the only real character, and that they'd tried very hard to make her the only character. The "new" or "changed" Lux doesn't emerge, she's thrown at you from the second scene. Characters who were mostly ignored were fleshed out for the movie as well, in both good ways and bad.

The most disturbing part: I guess the actual ages of the girls as portrayed in the book never really hit me. When I finally saw the Lisbon girls, and the boys (narrators), I kept thinking how young they all looked, 2-3 years younger than I had imagined. All except for Lux, who looked older than the rest (who should have been 14, but most likely was cast older to keep parents from having heart attacks when watching Lux throughout the movie). Sure, I knew some 14-year-olds like that, but actually seeing Cecilia and the exchange student who supposedly caused her death was kinda creepy to me.

Creepiest Scene: Paul Baldino hitting on Ms. Lisbon *cringes*

Got in the mail today, thanks! Will read quickly and pass on to Eithne.

Quick read. I really enjoyed this book for its terrific imagery and its haunting story. Thank God the author did not try to explain the suicides. I think we cannot know the reason for any suicide because they are so deeply personal. You want to save the girls, really you do. But the narrarators description of how people go on with their own lives, knowing there is a family in need right down the road, but not knowing how to help, or if they should interfere...it just sounds like a more realistic story. So many of our tragedies could have been prevented, but weren't for reasons just like this. I think that is what haunts us about this story.
I'll soon be renting the movie, just to see.

Release planned for Monday, February 09, 2004 at To another Bookcrossing member in By Post, By Post Controlled Releases.

To the post office Monday to continue it's journey to Eithne. Enjoy!

This has been on my wishlist for a while. Looking forward to reading it! I have just a couple in queue before it, and will get to it soon!

Yikes! I HAD forgotten this was a ray! Thanks for the reminder! *blushing as I've just noticed my initial journal entry was nearly 5 months ago!!* I hurried up and read it through today. It will be on it's way to tootshelling this week. Interesting to see that it originated with my new BXer "friend" skylerdragon! *waves*

I very much enjoyed Virgin Suicides...very thought provoking...and the closing sentence, I feel, sums it up very well, and is one of my favorite lines from the book, since it is the closing line I won't quote it here...though I may start a thread in Chit Chat or Book Talk... :)

I must say that for the most part I agree with all journal entries so far, and I'm itching to see the movie. Going to check with the library this week! I may post my thoughts about that if I have anything to add. Happy reading everyone, and again my apologies for forgetting this was a ray! :(