An Open Letter to an Author

Dear Mr. Eugenides,

 My name is Heidy and I am a high school junior. I was asked to choose a novel of my choice (with the approval of my English teacher) for a book club project and I chose your book Middlesex. I chose this book because the title itself is interesting and then also because my friends who have read your book already recommended it, and here I am already through with it. Let me just say... wow. You know how to write a great novel. This specific book had so much going on, i sometimes had to re-read the entire chapter just to understand what had just happened to Lucky or Tessie. The themes in the book really seem to affiliate to the different generations set up in this novel.
 To be honest, I never would've imagined how horrible humans in our society are. I knew that people were rude and immature but the characters in this book against what isn't natural really know how to show their feelings through hatred and disgust in their physical aggression and aggressive verbal communication. I cried imagining those men beating up Cal.

"No sooner had the other one done so than he let go of me as though i were contaminated. He stood up, enraged. By silent agreement, they began to kick me. As they did, they uttered curses. The one who had pinned me drove his toe into my side. I grabbed his leg and hung on.

 'Let go of me, you fucking freak!'

The other one was kicking me in the head. He did it three or four times before I blacked out."

  I knew that I was a sensitive person, but just imagining the torture Cal went through just in those few sentences really connected with me emotionally. I won't go into detail, but my past wasn't the very best. As a matter of fact, I honestly believe that if I still lived in the same house with that man at the age I am now, I would've ran away just like Cal and unlike Cal, I wouldn't return. Luckily, my past is my past and I will never be able to go back to it and my present is worthier.

 Other than horrendous images, there were also some rather enraging moments I had with this book.
"I hope you learn a lesson from this. mixing with the wrong crowd can sink you. You seem like a nice guy, Mr. Stephanides. You really do. We wish you the best of luck in the future."

This quote is the story of my life right now. I hang out with the "wrong crowd" and have had many adults that are concerned ask me and anonymously tell me "to find better friends." I've found those "better friends", and they stabbed me in the back. Here Jimmy Zizmo is the bad influence on Lefty's life. My group are bad influences on me, yet just like Jimmy, they stood next to me and helped me get back on my feet. Those better friends just left me to the side. So, yeah this quote enrages me because if Lefty never had met Jimmy, Lefty never would have even gotten to where he almost was, like myself.   

This book of yours is truly inspiring. I mean in the sense of believing in what you believe in and continuing strong. Standing up for your rights. Our beliefs. I'm glad I read this book.

Sincerely,
Heidy Quintana

Work of Fiction- Part 2

1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Total Pages: 529
Pages read so far: 529

6. This book is set up in chronological order, spanning 80 years of a stained, near- mythic Greek American family history, as 41 year-old hermaphrodite who was raised as Calliope, explaines a fateful incestuous union in a small town in the early 1920s suburbs of Detroit and a confusing love story to modern-day Berlin.

9. This novel is once of the most complex novels I have ever read. There is just so much going on that I sometimes had to re-read the chapter to understand what was going on. For exapmly, the fact that it changes scenes from Cal's life in Berlin then back to Desdemonia and Lucky in the 1920s. I for one had trouble with identifying what was being said. I liked this book, actually. It not only gave backgound information on the history like in page 71 the author embedded a story about a Princess name Si Ling-chi from China whom discovered silk and thus started the Silk trade, but it also had an interesting plot and structure. I never would've guessed the events that would occur after one scene. Like I didn't see Callie getting hit by a tractor from running away from the Object's brother whom she just kicked his ass for calling her and the Object lesbians after getting caught fingering each other. WOAH! But, man this book certainly is a thumbs up.

5."I hope you learn a lesson from this. mixing with the wrong crowd can sink you. You seem like a nice guy, Mr. Stephanides. You really do. We wish you the best of luck in the future."

This quote is the story of my life right now. I hang out with the "wrong crowd" and have had many adults that are concerned ask me and anonymously tell me "to find better friends." I've found those "better friends", and they stabbed me in the back. Here Jimmy Zizmo is the bad influence on Lefty's life. My group are bad influences on me, yet just like Jimmy, they stood next to me and helped me get back on my feet. Those better friends just left me to the side. So, yeah this quote enrages me because if Lefty never had met Jimmy, Lefty never would have even gotten to where he almost was.   

Work of Fiction- Part 1

1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Total Pages: 529
Pages read so far: 106

2: Main Character: Calliope Stephanides. Now known as Callie is a hermaphrodite which makes her known as Cal. Cal unravels a guilty family secret that's three generations long to explain her condition. She will end up revealing the end of how she is the way she is and will explain her life in the present tense.

3. I like how Cal starts off with a little bit of her character and then starts how it was that she was made, then to the generation by generation sequences afterward. It's in chronological order which doesn't make things hard to keep up. I don't like however, the fact that its traced so far back in time. I mean, I understand that you have to go all the way to the beginning to actually show where things started out in, but the time periods are just too far back. The time does explain how each character is the way they are, but still. It's still a good book.

5. "'We fell in love,' Lefty said. He'd never announce it to a stranger before, and it made him feel happy and frightened all at once."

This quote, I don't know, made  me feel excitement. As far as I've read in the book, the fact that Lefty is allowing his and Desdemona's relationship be alive and real to the world just gave me joy and hope for their relationship. They are cousins married together, but in America now, Detroit to be specific, they can start a life together that will make them happy, but then again things like their relationship has its tolls.