5.) Smyrna

Book Title: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Pages: 1-62 since last week; 319 since semester

Desdemona and Lefty are two 20-something aged siblings who are escaping their Greek homeland Smyrna to America because of Turkish invasion. While they're trying to escape, they fall in love with each other and end up marrying each other in America, never revealing that they're siblings.

When I started reading this book I had no idea what I was getting into, and I could barely get over the incest factor. But I guess it makes sense because I know that this book is a coming-of-age story about a hermaphrodite, and well, how else would the main character be a hermaphrodite if it weren't for recessive genes in the family? But it's so weird because as I keep reading the story, Jeffrey Eugenides makes the incest seem so natural, and it just makes me see the other side of things--not that I'm saying I support incest.