Libby's review
The Monsters of Templeton
by Lauren Groff
Libby's review
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Libby's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2008-misses
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 around grad-student-gone-wild Willie Upton, who has slunk back to her ancestral home, Templeton, disgraced and in shame. Once at home she sets off on a geneaological quest to establish her own paternity. And, oh yeah, on the day she arrives, a giant "monster" surfaces, dead, on the lake of her hometown. Groff models Templeton on Cooperstown, NY, and appropriates many of James Fenimore Cooper's characters for her novel--so all us one-time English majors can geek out to our hearts' delight (first sign of a...more
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 around grad-student-gone-wild Willie Upton, who has slunk back to her ancestral home, Templeton, disgraced and in shame. Once at home she sets off on a geneaological quest to establish her own paternity. And, oh yeah, on the day she arrives, a giant "monster" surfaces, dead, on the lake of her hometown. Groff models Templeton on Cooperstown, NY, and appropriates many of James Fenimore Cooper's characters for her novel--so all us one-time English majors can geek out to our hearts' delight (first sign of a...more
