Have you ever picked up a book because it had a pretty cover, knowing almost nothing about it before you start reading? And then, when you begin to get lost in the pages, you realize that said book is the most perfect book to read at this most perfect time in your life because it just, I don't know, speaks to you and every situation that you are currently facing? And then, it seems that every person in your life at that particular moment in time seems also to be speaking to you from the pages of this glorious book you just so happened to pick up because of the cover?

That's what I call a book soulmate. It's fate. The Monsters of Templeton and I were always meant to be BFFs.

Don't be confused, I did not read this book at a time in my life when I thought I was pregnant by my married archaeology professor and then in my confusion, put my research skills to use to find my absent father who doesn't know I exist. I didn't find this book speaking to me because I found a kindred spirit in Willie Upton, our down-on-her-luck protagonist. Not in that way, anyway.

Willie Upton is such a great narrator, and I know that Lauren Groff felt a kindred spirit with her as well, because there are very few narrators who are so real that I feel like I could look up and find her sitting next to me. Almost as soon as I began reading, I could tell this was a deeply personal novel that Lauren Groff has written, and I know by her introduction that the fictional town of Templeton is based on her own hometown of Cooperstown, New York. Though it is a work of fiction, I feel like these characters in the town are so well-rendered because they are actually shadows, or imprints of real people who live, and have lived in Cooperstown when Ms. Groff lived there. The town of Templeton, with all its rich history and description seems a counterpart to Cooperstown as well, and though I have never visited, I feel that I could go there tomorrow and know everything about it.

Groff's writing is also superb, and I found her almost lyrical voice reaching through the pages with every word I read. The present-day action starring Miss Willie Upton is interspersed with history, journal entries, and firsthand accounts of those who lived in the town during its founding, as Willie's only clue to her father's identity is wrapped up in the story of Templeton's founding fathers. Cooperstown, as many know, is the hometown of James Fenimore Cooper who is the author of The Last of the Mohicans (which is my favorite movie of all time, by the way). So an added bonus to The Monsters of Templeton were some of Cooper's characters (such as Natty Bumpo, Chingachgook, Uncas, Hawkeye, etc) from his various novels being described as real people who lived in Templeton during its founding (Templeton being derived from Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales). That gives an element of a "novel within a novel" theme to the book, one I found exciting and interesting.

These characters Lauren Groff has created are vivid, interesting, diverse, and rich. From Zeke, the lovable tow-truck driver who made me fall more in love with him with every page I read, to Peter Lieter, the effeminate (but secretly sexy) friend of Willie's who helps her on her daddy search, these characters made me yearn for them to be real people, so I could call them all my own friends. Every character is perfectly rendered, and I was sorry to have to leave them behind with the last turn of the page.

Oh yeah, another bonus is MAGICAL REALISM, which came in short supply here, but came nonetheless. There is a ghost who haunts Willie's room and keeps her company. At first, you think the ghost is something out of her own imagination, meant to keep loneliness at bay when Willie was a sad and detached child. Then you quickly realize, that the ghost is always there, watching over the house and protecting its tenant constantly, from heartbreak, from danger, from herself. I learned to love the ghost just as much as if it were a real person. Also, there is Glimmey, the gigantic lake monster who is discovered floating belly-up one morning and who turns the entire town upside down. I soon got to hear a little bit of Glimmey's story, which was woven into the narrative effortlessly. Just as the ghost protected Willie, Glimmey was always there protecting Templeton and its citizens from the outside. Even I, with my absurd and irrational fear of monsters lurking in the deep, came to find Glimmey as a beautiful and wondrous creation, not a monster at all, but a living being with a heart of gold who feels as much a part of the town as every other citizen. Willie seems to find a kindred spirit in Glimmey. She has felt her whole life like she is too different, an outsider, someone who just doesn't quite fit in her little town. She comes to the end of her journey realizing that despite her alienation and differences, she is just as much a part of Templeton as Glimmey. I think this is where I felt my kindred spirit bind with Willie's as well.

This is above all a novel about being human, making mistakes, and trying to find that one place and one person you belong to. It is a novel about coming home, and finally finding the magic that was there all along, and will always be there every time you need it. I don't think I am able to describe in words what this novel meant to me. And like I said before, I think I read it exactly at a moment in my life where it was able to speak to me the most. I naturally realize that not every person will have this reaction, but somewhere out there, I just want to thank Lauren Groff for writing this spellbinding novel, and for her graphic artist who designed such a beautiful cover that I just had to have it. This will be a novel that I will pick up and read again and again every time I need to be reminded just what the meaning of home is.