Patron Review: Day Two

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

I enjoyed this book very much, but I am afraid it might only appeal to a fairly specific demographic. It takes place in the early 1980s at a selective college. The three central characters are very bright students facing graduation. The main character is a literature major and there are some fairly obscure references to postmodern lit crit. If you know the stuff, Eugenides' take on it is pretty funny, but if you aren't familiar with it you might be put off. One of the other main characters has bipolar disorder, and if you have any experience with that I think you will appreciate Eugenides' sympathetic representation of it. The book also has a lot of detail, which I mostly really liked but every once in a while I would forget where he was going with it. The main story line is a love triangle, which of course is not unique, but I was very much drawn in and I found it hard to put down. I cannot resist the temptation to point out this book is not _Middlesex_, so if you have read that and are hoping for something as wonderful, you will be disappointed. However, if you can take it for what it is, you may enjoy it. I probably would not recommend it to anyone who is not at least a little familiar with postmodernism and the 1980s.

Jennifer B