Better known as a film than novel, Eugenides examines the impact of an excessively restrictive family on the mental health of five sisters, all of whom have committed suicide by the end of the novel. Their deaths have profound effects on the community and on the girls’ peer group, who are haunted throughout adult life by the tragedy that occurs over the course of one year.  The text, while extreme in its portrayal, is mediation on the struggles of adolescence, with the stifling of the growing girls mirrored through the somewhat cloying narrative.