Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Le vergini suicide by Cristina Sella, Jeffrey Eugenides

24 reviews

withlivjones's review against another edition

challenging dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I really wanted to enjoy this book. The premise is intriguing and the prose is very well-written, but overall this book is just about a group of grown men looking back at and obsessing over five teenage girls who were very clearly suffering, and that made it very difficult to get through. 

Eugenides’ writing style is very poetic. His descriptions so vividly convey the setting of seventies suburbia, where everyone seems to know everyone else. The Lisbon house itself, and its gradual and inevitable decay that mirrors the decay of the family inside, is also very well described. The use of the first person plural pronoun “we” as the narrator is an interesting and bold choice but is excellently handled and gives a clear sense of the mob mentality of the neighbourhood boys (who later become men). While many of them are named and described as individuals, by using “we” they blend into a sort of homogenous group that parallels how they see the Lisbon sisters. 

However, the vivid descriptions take up the bulk of the novel to the extent that the story moves painfully slowly, to the point where I had been waiting for the rest of the suicides to occur for so long that I was almost relieved when they did. It even could have been cut down to an excellent short story, but as it is the prose is rather difficult to get through and there are so many unnecessary tangents where the timeline confusingly switches between past when the girls’ suicides happen and present when the now fully grown men are investigating them. Furthermore, the extent that these poor girls have been put on a pedestal by these men (who barely knew them, merely watched them from afar!) over years (decades, even) of morbid obsession made me deeply uncomfortable. It seems to romanticise their mental illnesses in a rather dangerous way. 

I can appreciate the fact that this book has some very well-written prose, but in the end is just wasn’t for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, and Pregnancy

Minor: Vomit

pastelbanana1's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Pregnancy and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism and Racial slurs

lindseyhall44's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“We realized that the world [our parents] rendered for us was not the one they really believed in.“
The Virgin Suicides is a book set amidst the backdrop of mundane suburban life, where a community is forever changed by the suicides of five sisters. Told in first person plural (the male gaze), readers are pulled into the mystery and obsession which will haunt the boys for years to come.
I never expected to enjoy this book so much, much less find it a new favorite. But the compelling writing and dark undertones made it difficult to put down. The story of the Lisbon girls (told through every perspective except their own) is one which I will never forget.
I would definitely recommend (though take time to consider when this was written and the aspects which have not aged well, and please check trigger warnings before reading)!
*I would also recommend watching the movie after, it’s iconic and generation defining!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Physical abuse

icarusandthesun's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

horrible book - extremely boring, no real plot, long unimportant descriptions and uninteresting details. i'm very angry and very disappointed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Medical content, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

nenya's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I read this book as the start of manic hot girl summer (and also to celebrate the end of my reading slump) and while I read this relatively fast, I must say I expected it to be far more triggering and manic than it ended up being. And I‘m not gonna lie, I kind of wish it would have been, because I enjoy being creeped out by books - but this was pretty chill actually. I had expected the suicides to be skin crawlingly gore-y but instead they were two pages of slightly disturbing but heavily announced death. What I must say was really interesting though, was the narrative being told in first person plural and, in addition to that, unreliably - something I haven’t encountered before and really enjoyed, but even here, I feel like there was a lot more room for mystery and manipulation of the reader. However, it is most definitely not a bad book - I‘m just not sure whether I‘d like to re-read it one day.
(Oh also: there is the mention of the N-word which really threw me off, as well as casual racism and other problematic themes that were normalized in the novel and not addressed or seen as problematic by the narrators)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

hmorawska's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Self harm, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Blood and Medical content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, and Pregnancy

jenny_librarian's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

This is a book about the patriarchal tendency of dehumanizing women. Which should be enough to tell you why I didn’t like it at all.

The writing itself is good, but that’s about the only redeeming quality to this book. The rest is just men being… well, men. I get what the author wanted to achieve with this, but why it needed to be written in this way is beyond me.

I keep hoping the next “classic” I read is going to be better, and I keep being disappointed because those “classics” were written by allocishet white men in a time women were seen as little more than property.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Confinement, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Medical content, Stalking, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, and Pregnancy

jaiari12's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, and Alcohol

Minor: Pregnancy

bookshelfofamelie's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Suicide attempt

Minor: Pregnancy

fronkiekong's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

watched the movie back in high school and it is a shame i hadn't gotten around to actually reading this until now!!!! the writing is so beautiful and evocative of this honey sickly delirium rotting the neighbourhood from the inside out — much to unpack and peel back. i want to return to this sometime to look more at the developing labour and class issues that kept flitting by in the periphery.
and again, probably not the best place to say this, but i wish i had a sister.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Suicide, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Pregnancy

Minor: Domestic abuse