The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides

Well what a depressing book this was!

It's quite obvious by the title what it's about, but I couldn't have been more shocked by the way this family of girls chose to end their lives. I know that being a teenager is awful, awkward, unpredictable and very dramatic, I can't image this actually happening in real life. It's set in the 70s, which is when my parents and their siblings grew up, so I really tried to consider them while reading this.

When Cecelia Lisbon, the apparent "crazy one" of the 5 sisters, attempts suicide and then later succeeds, her 4 sisters slowly move to the crazy side. The girls' mother shelters them to the point that the girls rarely even step outside the house. She makes their clothes - all matching patterns but different colors and she forces Lux to burn all of her records. They go to school, for awhile at least, and it appears that everything, such as taking the trash outside, gets done in the middle of the night. The girls get a following with the neighborhood boys, who are fascinated with the family even more so after Cecelia committs suicide.

The boys (who tell the story with information they've gotten from the girls' mom and from observations they made while obsessed with the family) are on cloud nine when the girls' parents finally allow them out of the house, and the boys take the girls to a school dance. It is there they realize that the girls actually are somewhat normal - although only in appearance.

The title of the book? From page 176:

From this "research," she came up with the find she was most proud of: a song by the band Cruel Crux, entitled "Virgin Suicide." The chorus follows, though neither Ms. Perl nor we have been able to determine if the album was among those Mrs. Lisbon forced Lux to burn:

Virgin suicide
What was that she cried?
No use in stayin'
One this holocaust ride
She gave me her cherry
She's my virgin suicide

Shortly before the Lisbon girls committed suicide, they started sending nightly signals to the boys. Also around this time, the boys started finding pictures of the Virgin Mary - pictures the girls placed in the middle of the night. It became apparent what the girls were going to do, and when they invited the boys over to their house in the middle of the night, I cringed. It was obvious to the girls that it was the opportune time since their parents would be sleeping. I don't understand why they needed the boys to be the first to find them though. The girls lured the boys into the house and one by one took their lives in different ways (sitting in the car in the garage, sticking a head in the oven). Those poor boys is all I could think!

At the very end of the book, the boys are recapping the girls' lives, trying to solve the puzzle with the help of a doctor.

"All wisdom ends in paradox," said Mr. Buell, just before we left him on our last interview, and we felt he was telling us to forget about the girls, to leave them in the hands of God. We knew that Cecilia had killed herself because she was the misfit, because the beyond called to her, and we knew that her sisters, once abandoned, felt her calling from that place too.

..."It was a combination of many factors," Dr. Hornicker said in his last report, written for no medical reason but just because he couldn't get the girls out of his head. "With most people," he said, "suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty." (pgs. 246-248)

Once again, I will just say that I realize adolescence is hard, but man- it's not worth dying for! I think adulthood is harder. Must less awkward, but harder still. I understand Eugenides was writing to show how hard the life of teens can be, and he succeeded. I did really like the book (but it sounds awful saying that!)