Middlesex vs The quick and the dead: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Suburban life, Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans, Fiction
Middlesex
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A unique coming of age story. While the main character in this novel is dealing with gender identity issues the main focus of this brilliantly written story is the confusion we all face as we grow into the person we…
The quick and the dead
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"Alice, Corvus, and Annabel, each a motherless child, are an unlikely circle of friends. One filled with convictions, another with loss, the third with a worldly pragmatism, they traverse an air-conditioned landscape…
Side by side
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- The quick and the dead is the quickest read — about 5 hours vs 10 for Middlesex.
- Middlesex has the widest readership — 672018 ratings behind its score.
- Middlesex runs the darker storyline; The quick and the dead stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Middlesex | The quick and the dead | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 4.0 (672018) | 4.0 (7105) |
| Hardcover | 4.1 (528) | 4.1 (9) |
| Google Books | 1.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (1259) | 3.0 (24) |
Reception
| Middlesex | The quick and the dead | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 672018 | 7105 |
| Editions | 57 | 5 |
| Citations | — | 1 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 520279 | — |
| Reading it now | 14245 | — |
| Written reviews | 29329 | — |
| Wikipedia attention | 10091 | 492 |
| Pages | 544 | 308 |
Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Middlesex or The quick and the dead?
Middlesex has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Middlesex 4.0/5, The quick and the dead 4.0/5).
Which is shorter to read: Middlesex or The quick and the dead?
The quick and the dead is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: The quick and the dead (308 pages, ≈ 5 h 42 m); Middlesex (544 pages, ≈ 10 h 04 m).
Which is harder to read: Middlesex or The quick and the dead?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Middlesex: Moderate; The quick and the dead: Moderate.