Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

First line: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

Let me guess, your adolescence was awkward/bad/terrible/erase-this-part-of-my-life-it-never-even-happened. Sure it was messy but it'll never quite be on par with Cal(lie) Stephanides's. Unless you're a third-generation Greek immigrant who grew up in Detroit, Michigan. In the 80s. And you're intersex. And you only figure it out after an accident with a tractor. If you didn't go through any of those, you had it easy you ungrateful twit.

not as bad as a tractor

The novel begins with the protagonist telling us about his birth, but he goes way back to the start of it all in Bursa, Asia Minor, in the 1920s, with his grandparents. Buckle up, this book is one hell of a ride. If said ride was on a galapagos tortoise trying to get out of a giant bucket, filled with glitter glue.Yeah, this book takes a while to get through because of the immense amount of detail Jeffrey puts into it. When you write a book nine years in the making, you too would try to make the experience as immersive as possible. The protagonist talks about events way beyond his own birth, which led up to it so... as I was saying about that tortoise?

Drawing from his own cultural well, readers will learn quite a bit about Grecian culture, with a focus on the mythology (think minotaur), and how difficult the assimilation process is for refugees. And hey if you'd ever been interested in burlesques, you're in luck.

After his grandparents make it to America, the next stage of the novel follows Cal's parents and how they met, their childhoods, their whirlwind romance, the deteriorating marriage and all that comes in between before we step into the middlesex world of Cal. Born and identifying as female, Calliope becomes Cal when puberty decides to make everything weird. Imagine being raised as a girl, and then thinking maybe you were lesbian, or bisexual, and then along comes this tractor and suddenly you're not all girl and--remember what I said about being grateful?

Middlesex explores in great detail, the life of an intersexed individual in a time where people were really just starting to get to know their genitals and the diseases they were smothering onto each other. So, definitely, pants down, a great time to be alive. Flashbacks to the lives of his grandparents and parents serve to give substance to the current issues Cal faces as he grows into accepting his masculine gender identity. It's a beautiful but painful journey to go on, watching the vestiges of Cal's childhood confusions molt into an adulthood of learning to belong in his own skin. Eugenides constructs the modern day identity of his protagonist by taking into account the domino effect of an entire family history the protagonist himself only fully comprehends at the very end.

It can get draggy because it's incredibly descriptive, but certain readers would very much appreciate the imagery. The author thoroughly explains how the genetics, family history, and the experiences of straddling the sexual spectrum influence Cal's development into accepting his psychosexual identity.

Genetics. Interesting stuff.

It is an arduous journey because sexuality isn't easy to decipher anyway, so kudos to Eugenides for pouring so much effort into documenting the weird and wonderful lives of people with ambiguous genitalia and the challenges of accepting one's gender identity. The verbosity of this novel is arguable a physical manifestation of a 'coming-of-age' period, in four Pulitzer prize-winning parts.

tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Nah. 
Are there sexy times in it?: Yep, with a bit of incest in the mix. Did I just get your attention? 
Are there dead people in it?: Here and there
Is it lengthy?: This one might take a week to cover.

Reread?: No. Read it once and go slow. It's way too long to breeze through. 

Judge the book by its cover: Beautiful. Symbolic. Mythical.
Rating: 4.2/5 meows

Pun: This novel doesn't get straight to the point. 

Cain by José Saramago

First line: "When the Lord, also known as god, realized that adam and eve, although perfect in every outward aspect, could not utter a word or make even the most primitive of sounds, he must have felt annoyed with himself, for there was no one else in the garden of eden whom he could blame for this grave oversight, after all, the other animals, who were, like the two humans, the product of divine command, already had a voice of their own, be it a bellow, a roar, a croak, a chirp, a whistle or a cackle."

Translated into English by Margaret Jull Costa

Mr. Saramago hates the Old Testament. He wrote a novel about how much he hated it before he died.
He hates it so much he decided to reinterpret some scenarios realistically*, which made for some whimsical explanations behind why some biblical stories ended the way they did. If you're a Christian who's very merrily Christian = can't take a fucking joke, don't read this book.

Oh who am I kidding, just read it. An atheist wrote about God so expect fireworks.

Last I heard, he was cool with Jesus though

Our protagonist is that third guy on earth (according to Christian theology) to majorly fuck up--like father like son--and the first guy ever to murder his brother. All of which is cool, because let's face it, nobody has heard Cain's side of the story the way this author tells it. Every Christian ever has felt bad for Abel because he was murdered in good ol' cold-blooded jelly but with Cain in the limelight and pandering to common sense, it's hard not to like the kin-slayer.

*An example of a realistic reimagining of a biblical narrative would be this: Cain explains to the Almighty how it's the Almighty's act of playing favorites/hating on crops that caused him to commit manslaughter. To which God says: "Hmm. Very True." There's your teaser you lazy fart. 

I enjoyed how Saramago portrayed this supposed embodiment of evil. In the bible itself Cain's role is a minute yet prominent one, but in the novel we follow his journey through time, watching his wrath for God grow, and for good reason. The best part is that Cain, along with the other characters have been humanised by Saramago's efforts to depict the human condition: we are repulsive, narcissistic creatures, and we fuck up, but in rare wonderful moments, are capable of much sacrifice and good.

Great thing about Novel Cain, as opposed to Bible Cain, is that he isn't just doomed to wander the earth with a curse mark on his forehead, never to be seen or heard of again. He goes around foiling God's plans because God has some pretty questionable planning in the old testament if you ask me.

Didn't socialise for a millennium. Makes sense.

I would recommend brushing up on your bible knowledge to understand the novel, because it is satirical in nature. We'll see some household names like Abraham, Lilith, Noah and the like all fleshed out.

Cain is a parody of biblical proportions (pun absolutely intended), but with the class of a Nobel prize winner.

tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Yeah, but none too interesting
Are there sexy times in it?: Oh yes you perv, you count your blessings there are
Are there dead people in it?: Yes because God
Is it lengthy?: Short and sweet

Reread?: Aw yeah!

Judge the book by its cover: Suitable
Rating: 4/5 meows

Pun: Oh my God I just Cain't even