Thanks Tilly! Looking forward to reading the next one once I've ploughed thru the rest of Middlesex see you next month.

Here we are: May Book of the Month selection is up and ready for your vote - quite a lot of American writers on this list too.

I am about to go back and read the bits I skimmed - thanks all for a great night and hope to see you next time (May's chat will be Tues 2 June)

I can just about manage the Mumsnet book of the month - other than that don't really have a to-read list! But really enjoying the book club and someone else choosing a book that I otherwise wouldn't read - and have so far enjoyed them all so well done Tilly and thanks all for voting and taking part.

Dh home and dinner ready so will sign off - but thanks again for tonight and see you next month

Yes, I would have been quite happy to read a bit more - I was quite engrossed in the characters, although I do wish I cared about them a bit more.

Anyway, I did enjoy reading it and definitely enjoyed chatting about it tonight. Thanks, ladies!! x

Yes me too, sounds unusual. Good to hear it's short, that suits me as most of the time I fall asleep over my book. Not the book's fault, just too tired in the evenings.

Another half way through person here - I tried SO hard and didnt make it - the tenderness of the relationships I loved and actually the descriptive narratives too (although without them I may have finished it by now!) I am looking forward to the rest, must persevere...although May could be interesting and may get caught up in something else, thanks Tilly

I'm going to put the Virgin Suicides on my to-read list.

The Virgin Suicides is absolutely ace. Quite, quite different to this book (although I did enjoy this too) - it is relatively short, very economical, perfectly formed. It is as if everything is done in miniature, and it is so unusually narrated (the narrator is a group of boys who become obsessed by the sisters who are committing suicide - they are like an Ancient Greek chorus). It is a very bizarre, melancholy sort of story and yet doesn't come across as sad or freaky. I would definitely give it a try. It is a one-off, there is nothing like it.

I think Eugenides is still extremely talented and clever, even with the bagginess of the book and the rushed ending (which I agree, doesn't ring true and leaves you cheated). I was wondering if the editor tried to cut parts down and he refused, or if they didn't try.

Sorry haven't read Virgin Suicides, but it was quite a successful film directed by Sofia Coppola - haven't seen it tho - try not to do dead children...

Anyone else want to know how someone who dropped out of school at 14 ended up in the job he was in? I would have been happy to read another 100 pages (having come this far) to bring cal's story up to date, as it were.