A review by arrowheartemoji
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

these characters would make me weep if the author wasn’t so insufferable. there are beautiful passages in this book, but it is clear that it is written by someone only capable of viewing the coming-of-age young man’s psyche as capable of true understanding of the world and worldly existence. I’ve not read anything else by this author so I don’t know if he writes women better anywhere else, but in this book, as much as he tries his hand at commentary on feminism, he falls very very flat. the blurb about the book makes it sound like madeleine is the main character with the two boys as the other points of this triangle, and while there’s not an issue with multiple povs, this book reads much more like a Mitchell-as-main-character novel than anything else. Madeleine’s entire narrative feels like it exists only to serve these men, and I don’t mean in a bechdel test way, I mean there are multiple passages in which I forget I’m even in madeleine’s pov because she feels so distant from everything that’s being written about. 
Finally, I listened to the audiobook so I would just like to add that the narrator’s accent work is cringe at best and incredibly racist at worst. Ew. 
a few final thoughts: some of the bits on religion, while dripping with eurocentrism, get close to profound. the passages about yeast genetics made me nostalgic for my old lab team. lots of people seem to hate Leonard but if you have mental or chronic illness, I think you will be more empathetic, or he will just make you very sad, like he did me. ok the end mwah <3 xoxo
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