Middlesex

It's bad enough being a prepubescent teenager, but can you imagine learning at the age of 14 that you're a hermaphrodite? Such is the story at the center of Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Although, to be fair, the story is much more than that. It's about the history of a Greek family and their assimilation into the U.S. culture. It's about Detroit and it's about the changing mores of a country. It's a rather long story and at times, I wished Eugenides would have just gotten on with the story, but it did hold my attention until the very last page -- page 527. Even though it was quite implausible at times, at other times it read like a memoir. Poor Eugenides, people must look at him sideways nowadays and wonder if he's actually a hermaphrodite. Sometimes, you can be too good of a writer.