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Feb 18, 2008

Chuckell added it

Does this ever happen to you? When I read something, I generally hear the words pretty much spoken inside my head as I read them. Mostly . . . though sometimes, when I'm reading a truly great book, I start to feel that what I'm hearing inside my skull is more akin to music, almost, like some sort of lovely concerto version of the words on the page.

But then, sometimes, with not-so-great books, what I start to hear after I've been reading for a while is more of an irksome whine or a g More...

18 comments like (46 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2010

karen rated it:

yay!! my suspicions have been confirmed - i am officially not a book snob! i oscillate between thinking i might be a little bit of one, and that any forays i may make into teen fiction or silly bodice rippers that involve byron in some way are just accidents; flaws... on goodreads.com, i feel mostly like the dummy of the bunch, which is a totally comfortable and understandable place for me to be. but then at work, and in my readers advisory class, i feel like the biggest book elitist of all tim More...

41 comments like (50 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Libby rated it:

Oops, I forgot to add this to "Currently Reading" while I was reading it. That is my fatal Goodreads flaw.

Anyway, I breezed through this book in a couple of days; it is a very quick, smooth read, heavy on plotting, which keeps the pages turning. However, I think its self-seriousness undermines its credibility, oddly. In the end, I found the book awfully pretentious. The pretense in question? Pretending to be "serious literature."

The novel revolves aro More...

5 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2007

Peggy rated it:

God, sometimes I love my job! I commute two hours to and from work every day, and given current traffic conditions in the Austin area, you can go ahead and add at least another half hour to my drive home. I'll sometimes stop and grab a burger for dinner, going through the drive-through and then sitting in the parking lot to eat. I always have a book in the car, so this gives me a little uninterrupted reading time while I finish my burger.

Most times, this takes 20-30 minutes. But ever More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

oriana rated it:

IDK if i would have ever picked this up, but Karen is a very persuasive bookdate. Here's hoping it gets me out of my bad-book streak!

***

Oh! Gah! I am so behind on book reviews. Here is a quicky one: This book is really lovely. Sensual, lush language; well-developed, totally relatable characters; a plot that is exciting and challenging. As always, the fact that I am a quick and uncareful reader prevented me from really following all the historical personages and twisty int More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Jamie rated it:

I won't lie. I'm reluctant to give this book four stars...but, you see, I have to, because I DID get up early to read it and I did stay up until two a.m. on a weeknight. Heck, if I'm being honest, while I did not stay home specifically FOR finishing this book, it made what would have been a pretty crap day enjoyable.
But still, I'm hesitant to recommend it. I have this suspicion most of my friends wouldn't get through it. It was, at different points, many things: novice, tricky to follo More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

Eileen rated it:

This book has gotten plenty of glowing reviews, most undeserved. Yes, the history-based chapters are vivid and often riveting--I was especially left wanting more of the epistolary psychological thriller involving friends-turned-enemies Cinammon Averell and Charlotte Franklin Temple. Indeed, it might have been wiser for Groff to write a fully historical novel, as her contemporary characters and the contrived, wouldn't-this-make-a-quirky-independent-movie subplots (a conveniently-placed hysterical More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Nov 12, 2011

Eva rated it:

Maybe it helps to read mediocre books so you truly appreciate a good book when it crosses your path. 1 star=unreadable, 2 stars=sorry to have wasted the time but did actually finish it, 3 stars is a notch above that and hey, that's not bad for a first-time author.

My complaints include: a plot that is driven by an only mildly compelling question, tons of subplots that have nothing to do with the main question and are boring distractions, poorly written fictional historical documents.. More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2008

Maggie rated it:

Wilhelmina ("Willie") Upton - a promising graduate student at Standford University - has fled back to her small, historic hometown of Templeton, New York "steeped in disgrace." The affair with her married grad school mentor has been found out, and, now pregnant with his illegitimate child, she hopes to find solace in her mother, Vivian ("Vi") Upton - a woman whose footsteps Willie has unwittingly fallen into. Herself a child of the free-loving 1960s, Vi had always t More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Sean rated it:

I had fairly high hopes for this being a fun, quality read. Nuh-uh. It has more than a slight whiff of 'chick lit fluff' about it unfortunately. While her descriptions have visual flair, the overall tone of this novel is cutesy and contrived. The multiple narrative perspectives seem forced, with several just feeling like tacked-on filler (ex: the running group. hello/why?) The main character is ultimately confronted (gently, of course!) as being the self-absorbed, spoiled brat/snob that she cl More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 26, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

You wouldn't know it unless she told you, but this is Lauren Groff's wacky love letter to Cooperstown, NY, where she grew up. If you really want to enjoy this book, it's best to relax and just accept it all in a spirit of playfulness. It's a wild and goofy collage full of secrets and pretend secrets and mostly benign "monsters" and ghosts.

Willie Upton returns home to Templeton after a doomed relationship goes awry. After she settles in, her mother Vivienne tells her that More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 01, 2008

Trin rated it:

Willie Upton returns in disgrace to her hometown of Templeton, New York (a very thinly disguised Cooperstown) and starts trying to unravel a family mystery that, seeing as Willie is a descendant of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of the town, is intimately intertwined with the history of the entire community.

I really thought I was going to like this book. History and mystery and research! Weird, magical realism touches like the discovery of a monster in the lake! Multiple points of vie More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." A great opening line for an interesting book, a love letter to a town in New York that curiously resembles Cooperstown.

The story begins as Willie (Wilhemina) Upton returns home with her tail between her legs and a fetus in her belly. She is running from a disasterous affair with her graduate school professor and dissertation advisor (one that starts o More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Mary rated it:

Ugh...This was a struggle to get through and I really tried to give Groff a chance. I like family sagas and historical fiction but for me I have to be rewarded with characters (at least one or two) that bond me with the process of keeping track of family trees, scandals and secrets that almost always go with the territory. The "Monsters of Templeton" is definitely not a "Gone with the Wind" or "The Thorn Birds" variety of family saga. You might want to throw in a More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2008

Rita rated it:

I started this book twice and just couldn't get into it either time. The first time was ON vacation and I figured there was just so much going on in my real life that I couldn't be sucked into the plot of this book.

The second time was right after I finished reading The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which isn't really fair because anything would pale in comparison to that.

But, while Oscar Wao was a book about tragic characters chained to their ancestral past, which branched More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2010

Jason rated it:

Lauren Groff whisks us away - quite brilliantly I might add - to Templeton, New York on the heels of a scandalous affair. Wille Upton, the main character, has recently undergone a series of shameful events which ultimately lead to her pilgrimage home. Upon her arrival the reader is swept gracefully into a small, historic town whose attributes and secrets are long and numerous. As the fabric of her family's life unfolds, the true history of her ancestral past is revealed. Through her family's ric More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2008

Benjamin rated it:

My first impressions of this book were very mixed. Initially, I enjoyed the narrative, but I found the dialogue very amateur. That is, every time a character spoke, it just sounded somewhat ... I don't know, written? Quickly enough, however, even the narrative seemed relatively ho-hum. It's clear that the writer is trying to sound like a good writer, and sadly the effort is too often apparent, which gives the book a forced feel. Adding to the somewhat immature tone of the book is the main c More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2008

Holbrook rated it:

A lot of fun if a bit amateurly written. I'm beginning to realize you can hide a lot of novice prose by putting the story in the first person. Is it the author or the character making lame philosophical statements? Blame the character, spare the author. I felt that way about Special Topics In Calamaty Physics too.
Monsters had a nice historical research/uncovering secrets thing going on which I always enjoy (think Possession but not as good, of course).
Anyway, congratulations More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2009

Ben rated it:

The idea here is interesting, but it's ambitious--and Groff is not (yet) a very good writer. The text attempts a high literary style, but is also surprisingly crude, as in this passage from early in the novel: "Her shoulders were slumped, and the zipper in the back of her skirt was open, revealing a swatch of red cotton underwear and a muffin-top of flesh above it. From my position in the kitchen door, my mother looked old. If I weren't already holding the pieces together with both squeeze More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2009

L rated it:

I had great fun with this book and I'm not really sure why. There is a bit of a mystery here . . . who really did impregnate Willie's mother? . . . but that's not the point.

There is also a real, traditional "sea" monster in the lake, though the role this creature plays in the novel is hard to pinpoint, more symbolic than factual, if you will. There are murder, mayhem, and scum-bags aplenty, as well. What's not to like?

But at heart this is mainstream fiction, a More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish this. The dialog hurts.

Update: I finished it. Learn a lesson from me. Do not make seeing how much more a book can possibly irritate you be your motivation for finishing it. It is not healthy.

See any of the other wonderful one and two star reviews of this book to get an idea of the many ways it which it is bad. What I haven't seen anyone mention is the issue with the name calling. I refer here not only to the fact tha More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Betsy rated it:

I really wanted to like this book... but I ended up feeling like I was trudging through mud to get to the end. In the beginning perhaps I had a glimmer of interest in what happened to the characters, but by the limping end I cared not one bit. I gave it two stars because I did manage to finish it and enjoy a chapter or two.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Ben rated it:

First I read this book with curiosity and, I confess, not a little scepticism. Then I read this book with pleasure and even, perhaps, morbid anticipation. Finally, as I turned the last few pages and the book spoke to me of endings and new beginnings, I read this book with appreciation and wonder.

The Monsters of Templeton begins in a distracted, almost haphazard fashion, introducing the tangential plot of the lake monster's death even as we meet the protagonist, Wilhelmina "Wil More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Laren rated it:

This was an unusual book (at least for my reading habits). An archeological student has an affair with her professor, gets pregnant, tries to kill the professor's wife with a car, and then returns home to Templeton to hide on the same day that the legendary monster from the lake washes up on shore, deceased. Her mother then tells her that her birth father is actually someone in Templeton, not an unknown person in a commune far away as she had always thought. So she embarks on the project of r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2008

Knowhowib rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2008

Kendra rated it:

Somehow, Lauren Groff managed to make this book both very complex and very enjoyable. Groff, a native of Cooperstown, NY, borrowed a handful of characters from James Fenimore Cooper and used Templeton, his fictionalized Cooperstown, as the backdrop for her story. The main character is Willie Upton, who returns to her hometown of Templeton after an affair with one of her professors ends very badly. Upon returning, two events have a major impact on Willie: 1) The corpse of a monster surfaces i More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2011

Theresa rated it:

I started this audiobook in September 2008, but when I finished the third CD in the set, my CD player stopped working. I received a new deck for Christmas, but had forgotten about the book by then. Not until recently did I remember it and I dug out the remaining CDs (the 3rd CD is still in the deck which is gathering dust in my garage).

This is a book that I am fortunate to have picked up on audiobook instead of paperback. I don't think I would have made it to the end of the book if I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 09, 2008

Brandy rated it:

Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton has just slunk home in disgrace. Her promising life is on the skids, her graduate career just about ruined, and her beloved town of Templeton isn't faring so well, either. Willie has no sooner arrived in town when the lake monster's body drifts to the surface, a paleontological wonder from the deep, and everything begins to unravel. Vi, Willie's former-hippie-turned-Baptist mom, confesses that Willie's father was not one of the San Francisco free-love hippies with wh More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2007

Melissa rated it:

advanced reading copy
i got this book through an advanced reading club - i think through barnes & noble. overall, the story is excellent. however, the author utilizes several methods and points of view to reveal the story to the reader. in one vein, it is what really "makes" the story. however, when it doesn't work - it makes you want to put the thing down and move on to something else.

the plethora of family tree references, while i understand they motivate the s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 11, 2007

Kelly rated it:

Yes, I have rather brilliantly read this several months before its February 2008 release date. Well, not really that brilliantly, some email advance readers club invite from Barnes & Noble appeared in my inbox so I signed up.

I wasn't expecting to be overly impressed with this book -- I had no idea what it was about, but it was free, so I had to read it. It's basically a hyped-up mythology of Cooperstown, of baseball and James Fenimore fame. I don't know much about JFC other than a fe More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)