The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (#7, Fiction)

I'm still processing how I feel about this book.  I read Middlesex and really enjoyed it, but this is certainly a departure--good or bad depending on the review you read.  Not much happens in terms of plot, but that is his thing, he's more interested in the coming of age story, which isn't necessarily my thing. 

I'm not sure what I liked about the book, but I do know what I didn't like.  I didn't like the hoity toity talk that he suggests college students engage in.  Although, Eugenides did go to Brown in the early 80s, so maybe people really did discuss philosophy and literature at parties--but I call B.S.  I didn't like the characters, but I think I actually just didn't like them, rather than didn't think he did a good job of creating them.  I suppose if I actively dislike a character, then he had to do a good enough job of developing them for me to care one way or the other.  One thing I did like was how the author used the voice of all three characters to narrate. It was interesting to read Madeline talk about herself, and as a reader you form an opinion about Leonard and Mitchell through her, and then when Mitchell talked about Madeline the reader sees all the characters differently.  A literary trick I've never thought much about, but really enjoyed. 

I give it 3 out of 5.