I quite enjoyed reading this book. It's set up like an autobiography/memoir/family history with an omniscient narrator. The story follows the Stephanides family through 8 decades as their unique story unfolds and intersects with historical events (the burning of Smyrna, the founding of the Nation of Islam, the burning of Detroit). When I put it this way, it reminds me of Don DeLillo's Underworld, but to me, Middlesex was much more personal, more enotional than Underworld. The characters are as complex as the story; nothing in this book is as it seems on the surface. Themes keep reappearing in different contexts, revealing more and more about the characters and situations. Middlesex is a study in duality--male and female, black and white, life and death, hope and despair--and the often murky distinctions in between. 
 Several years ago I watched a documentary about people born between genders and since then have often wondered how both the cultural and biological genders we're assigned influence each of us. Middlesex really helped me to see this in a different, more personal light. I have a feeling this book is going to stick with me long after I return it to the library.