Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot
The Marriage Plot
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
The new novel from the bestselling author of Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides. Brown University, 1982. Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English student and incurable romantic, is writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot - authors of the great marriage plots. As Madeleine studies the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the fo...  more »
Info icon
ISBN-13: 9780007441303
ISBN-10: 0007441304
Publication Date: 4/1/2012
Pages: 416
Rating:
  ?

0 stars, based on 0 rating
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

Readnmachine avatar reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 1440 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Mechanically well-written but ultimately unsatisfying tale of a romantic triangle between an upper-class young woman fascinated by Victorian writers, an erratic biologist from the wrong side of the tracks, and a young man with a religious obsession. Ultimately, the reader can't invest in any of them and the whole story just sort of piddles off to an undetermined ending.
reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 65 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I was hoping that this book was going to be epic based on all the awards the author has won but it was a big disappointment. The author writes women like a man who has never met one. Some male authors just can't get a woman's voice correct and they shouldn't try. A long rambling read that leads you through the mind of weak, unsatisfied characters and the bad choices that they make
noisynora avatar reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 130 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I really wanted to like this book - I loved Middlesex! However, the myriad of references to literature were just too much for me and the story between the three main characters just dragged on too long for me to care. I gave up half way through.
Read All 11 Book Reviews of "The Marriage Plot"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 174 more book reviews
"The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides was an interesting book to read, but it left me with a very unsatisfied feeling and I didn't like the characters all that much, feeling that some were very immature and made bad choices. I also think the book is very elitist.

Throwing in the section on English grammar and the theory of deconstruction was of interest to me, but there were a lot of things I had to look up in order to make sure I understood them. Since my degree isn't in English, I either had to ask my daughter whose degrees are in English or look things up, but I must say that I learned a thing or two.

I was a bit disappointed with it. Others may like it very much, but it depends on your taste in literary fiction.
reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 20 more book reviews
I was disapointed in this book after liking Middlesex so much.
reviewed The Marriage Plot on + 134 more book reviews
This book was fine and ultimately readable but it felt as though the action took place within a few weeks (although it didn't) and none of the characters really gained anything. Also, for a thread that disappeared shortly after the beginning of the book and was only resurrected on the final page, titling the book "The Marriage Plot" seems a bit of a stretch. Overall I was underwhelmed, especially after enjoying Middlesex.


Genres: