The Rosie Project: A Novel by Graeme Simsion (2013)

Pink Sweetheart Roses. Source: muffet1 via deviantart

You know when you stay up super late because you started a book, and you just have to finish it before going to bed?

It’s almost 1 a.m. local time, and I just finished this book. I’m still processing. I can’t sleep yet, so I figured I’d blog about it instead.

You know when a book is so good that as soon as you’ve read the last page, you want to flip it over and start from the beginning again? Even though you figured out the plot twist halfway through and you know how the story ends?

I have to work in the morning, so I can’t re-read this right away. But it’s still a newbie at the library, and pretty popular (and for good reason) so it’s only a seven-day loan. Which gives me ’til Saturday. I only started this book on my lunch break today, so I’ve got plenty of time to re-read it before it goes back to the library. Maybe even twice.

The Rosie Project just reminds me so much of ME, and it reminds me so much of SO MANY PEOPLE I KNOW, and it’s like it explains so many things about the human condition, and yet I’ve got more questions now than I did before. I kind of teared up at one little section towards the end, and I don’t know why, of all the scenes or sentences or phrasings, that was the section my brain went for.

More questions to answer. More thoughts to ponder. Not sure if I’ll fall asleep with my brain on like this… maybe I’ll start re-reading Rosie again right now. (Rosie is the name of one of the main characters, by the way.)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

You might have noticed by now that I seem to read more non-fiction than fiction… and then I read a book like Middlesex and wonder why that’s the case. I read the whole thing (500+ pages) straight through over the weekend. And the weather was lovely here! But no swimming for me, just reading.

The story is told by Calliope Stephanides, the grandchild of Greek immigrants, and it leads you through the stories and relationships within her family over three generations. She also leads you through her own life story and her relationships as she realizes she’s not the girl she thought she was, both figuratively (the usual coming-of-ages tropes) and literally (that is to say, genetically — which freshens up the tropes considerably!).

5-alpha reductase deficiency is the name of the condition that Callie, later Cal, is discovered to have. Upon this discovery, things start to go haywire for Callie. I really wish the story had carried on through Cal’s life, up to the present where Cal is narrating this history instead of cutting off when Cal is a teenager. I was pretty invested in this story, all the characters and how they overlapped and intertwined and cheated each other. I could have kept reading for another thousand pages.

The Greek names and history reminded me, when I was reading, of the great philosophies and plays. A book tackling sex and gender and sexuality and big philosophical questions seems an odd choice for a beachy weekend, but I like my fiction heavy, apparently.