Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Not knowing much about this book before I picked it up (only that the cover was cool, it won an award, and was about a hermaphrodite), I'm pleased to say that I loved everything about it. The narrator Calliope felt like a real person to me. It was as if I was reading a memoir most of the time. The one thing to remind me that this was not a work of non-fiction, was the fact that Calliope narrates three generations of her/his family. First his grandparents (they immigrate from Greece and carry a dark and taboo secret), then his parents (they are the typical middle class Americans living in Detroit), and finally his/her own upbringing, which we learn about until the age of 14.

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This book was long, at a whopping 525 pages (long for me, at least). And even though the first 2/3 of the book were dedicated not to Calliope, but to his relatives before him, I could hardly put the book down. Eugenides fleshes out his characters so well, I wanted to continue reading about their individual stories even after they were done. I also loved the employment of historical fiction to this novel, as Eugenides puts his characters through the Turkish Invasion, the Detroit Riots, and the hippie phenomenon of the sixties. I felt that I learned a lot about America's history just by reading about Calliope's fictional family's history.

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The last third of the book, Calliope's story, is the most entralling. He/she is raised as a girl without feeling different or uncomfortable in her own skin until she hits the age of puberty and does not develop breasts or begin to menstruate. She develops an obsessive crush on "The Object" at school who is a girl left unnamed "in order to protect her identity". Calliope's feelings and experiences are almost unimaginable to ourselves, but entirely believable given her/his circumstance. I especially loved reading about the medical details of Calliope's condition, which were so interesting and different than I ever would have thought.

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After a number of confusing experiences, Calliope decides she is more a boy than a girl, and becomes Cal. Don't worry, this is not a spoiler, as the narrator himself tells the readers in the very first paragraph. And anyhow, it's not the big details that make this story, but the millions of little details that lead up to each event.

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Eugenides impressed me with his overall ability to write. Each sentence was written so precisely that it flowed perfectely into the next sentence or paragraph. The dialogue was real and amusing, and the first person narration came out brilliantly. Writing a book in the first person with multiple heads to get inside is a VERY difficult thing to pull off, and Eugenides accomplished this seamlessly.

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"Middlesex" deserves all the praise it has received and more. It's absolutely the best piece of modern literature I've read in a very long time.

What Happens Here by Tara Altebrando

Altebrando's debut YA novel The Pursuit of Happiness came out a few years ago, which I loved. Part of me thought I may have had stumbled upon the next Sarah Dessen. After reading this second novel and feeling equally satisfied, I'm now positive Altebrando is going to be the next big thing.

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Despite what its commerically decorated cover seems to imply, What Happens Here is not just about the crazy shenanigans of two best friends living in Las Vegas. It's about the closeness of friendship and how something unexpected and terrible can tear it apart. It's about dreams and how life sometimes makes them impossible to achieve. It's about falling in love and growing up. It's about moving on learning to heal.

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This book is about Chloe who has grown up with her best friend Lindsay her entire life. She and Lindsay are next door neighbors just outside of Vegas, and have big dreams to someday travel the world. Inseperatable and as close as best friends get, they talk about everything together. While Chloe has regretfully "gone to Vegas" already (that's their code for having lost their virginity), Lindsay is thinking about "getting it over with." Chloe tries to explain how Lindsay will regret it if she does, but in the end has no say over the matter. Leaving Lindsay angry and left behind, Chloe vacations in Europe for two weeks with her parents with limited home contact. There she she meets a boy and has the time of her life. Then, something terrible happens, changing Chloe and Lindsay's friendship forever.

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Some of the reviews I've read of this book give away the "shocker" of the story, so be careful while searching for more information. I don't want to give away what happens, so I'll only say so much here.

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Basically, I loved this book. Part of it took place in Europe, which was awesome. I felt like I was there in each city as Chloe hopped from one country to the next. The descriptions were vivid and non-typical, which made Chloe's experiences feel that much more authentic. Sometimes I even felt jealous of her from a teenager's point of view. For example: When Chloe meets a cute boy on her tour and ends up kissing him atop the Eiffel Tower. Can you imagine doing anything more romantic at sixteen? I can't! And the book is all written in first person, so you're inside Chloe's head the whole way through.

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I just really loved this book. If you're fond of Sarah Dessen's writing or YA literature in general, check out Tara Altebrando. She deserves more readers!

Oblivion Road by Alex McAulay

Having read Alex's two previous thrillers, I am somewhat disappointed with this one. Unlike his other novels, "Oblivion Road" lacks character development -- something I need in my reading materials to keep me happy.

This book reads just as a scary movie: it relies on plot and suspense to keep the audience entertained without much else. The beginning of the book jumps head first into action as a group of friends get into a car accident on their way home from a skiing trip. With one of the teenagers terribly wounded and the others in not-so-great condition, Courtney and her friends are forced to go off into the snowy oblivion to search for help. To make matters worse, an escape convict named Leonard is running lose in the woods. He's already murdered his family and eaten his own sister -- pretty morbid stuff. And trust me, true to a good horror flick, this book gets gross. Don't say I didn't warn you when you find out what I'm talking about. McAulay is great with descriptions. It's just the characters themselves I'm less than crazy about.

While Courtney, the main character, is nice, I feel like I hardly know her. And I don't understand why she is best friends with self-centered Reyna, who is the stock character of a bitchy controlling friend needing to be put in her place. Then there's Jeremy, the guy stuck on the corner of a love triangle, who slowly goes insane. I think I would have enjoyed a few flashbacks here and there -"Lost" style - to get a better idea of the characters. That way I may have been more invested in the value of their lives, rather than feeling apathetic over whether or not they all died.

Lack of character development aside, I was impressed with McAulay's ability to thrill and chill. I was compelled to keep reading after every page, and got scared at night when engrossed in the truly horrifying passages. It's a quick read that is sure to entertain, as long as you're into the thriller/suspense genre. I recommend it between literary classics or as a plane ride companion. Just think of it as a scary movie, and you can't be dissapointed.