"Obviously, Doctor," she said, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl." The Virgin Suicides Written by Jeffrey Eugenides Us. The story isn't told in first, second, or third person. The storyteller is "us". Specifically "us" is a group of neighborhood boys observing the neighborhood girls, the Libson girls. It sounds typical; boys are interested in the girls. However, reading this book, you(whoever you are) will also be interested in the Libson girls. The five Libson girls have always been a topic of conversation. There is just something about them, but the real talk started when Cecelia slit her wrists.
"The Libson girls were thirteen (Cecilia), and fourteen (Lux), and fifteen (Bonnie), and sixteen (Mary), and Seventeen (Therese)." After Cecilia was found floating in the bathtub with ribbons of blood escaping from her wrists the doctors were able to save her. Everyone was appalled, but they claimed they knew all along that Cecilia was an odd ball. But, she wasn't. She was just a thirteen-year-old girl. The family was recovering from the scare when they threw a party for Cecilia. They invited all the neighbors including "us". The party was alright until Cecelia threw herself out the window. She died instantly when the fence impaled her. This all happens early in the book, and as the first page foreshadowed, the girls will soon join Cecilia. Now, through the eyes of the neighborhood boys the reader watches the remaining Libson girls. We watch the girls as they grieve. We watch them go to homecoming. We wait, then watch them kill themselves a year after Cecilia slits her wrists with their fathers razor blade. As the reader waits for Mary to put her head in the oven, Therese to overdose on sleeping pills, Lux to die by carbon monoxide, and for Bonnie to hang from the rafters, we see into their lives. They didn't seem suicidal. In fact when "we" spoke with them they seemed almost normal. Join "us" and read this book. See the Libson house across the street. Hear the rumors. See Lux take unknown boys up to the roof. Look through Cecilia's diary. See what happened.
