Sign in with Facebook
karen's Reviews > The Monsters of Templeton
The Monsters of Templeton
by Lauren Groff (Goodreads Author)
by Lauren Groff (Goodreads Author)
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 time. because they are all talking about their romance novelists and their chick-lit and cozy mysteries and COME ON!! these are future librarians!! one of the biggest no-nos in librarian school is to respect the patron and not look down on their reading choices, but it doesn't say anything about not judging your peers. so i do. and i felt like an asshole when they asked what i was reading, and i mumbled "oh the third part in this really complicated norwegian trilogy about television and what makes up the catalog of a life, told without a linear narrative, and no, it's good - it's like proust". blank faces.
but this book i really loved, and i was reading the reviews of it today here on goodreads.com, and so many people hated it for its lack of characterization or weak narrative but i honestly didn't notice anything like that in this. i noticed it big time in under the dome, but i thought this book was really fun, and had something interesting to say, which i did not think w/r/t mr. king. sorry, dude. i am very basic - i want a story told to me. do it whatever way you need to - be as roundabout as kjaerstad or proust, be as straightforward as steinbeck, but tell me a story and make it unique.
and i thought this story was great. it's about a woman unexpectedly pregnant by a man not her own, who returns to her hometown to figure out what to do about it, and then becomes preoccupied with her own family history (i.e. - who's her daddy??). did i mention her town has a lake monster? well, it does. and that is awesome.
i thought, when i was reading it, that it was a wonderful book, particularly a wonderful woman's-book, that covers motherhood, yes, but also the mother-daughter dynamic, sexual complications, nostalgia and rage. all good lady-feelings. dunno, i liked it, but i also like some zombie books - make your choices.
so officially not a snob, but still will never read harry potter...
but this book i really loved, and i was reading the reviews of it today here on goodreads.com, and so many people hated it for its lack of characterization or weak narrative but i honestly didn't notice anything like that in this. i noticed it big time in under the dome, but i thought this book was really fun, and had something interesting to say, which i did not think w/r/t mr. king. sorry, dude. i am very basic - i want a story told to me. do it whatever way you need to - be as roundabout as kjaerstad or proust, be as straightforward as steinbeck, but tell me a story and make it unique.
and i thought this story was great. it's about a woman unexpectedly pregnant by a man not her own, who returns to her hometown to figure out what to do about it, and then becomes preoccupied with her own family history (i.e. - who's her daddy??). did i mention her town has a lake monster? well, it does. and that is awesome.
i thought, when i was reading it, that it was a wonderful book, particularly a wonderful woman's-book, that covers motherhood, yes, but also the mother-daughter dynamic, sexual complications, nostalgia and rage. all good lady-feelings. dunno, i liked it, but i also like some zombie books - make your choices.
so officially not a snob, but still will never read harry potter...
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Monsters of Templeton.
Sign In »
Comments (showing 1-50 of 69) (69 new)
that's not a bad assessment, but it is better than maury or ya-ya. i happen to like lake placid, though...
I liked your description of the blank stares you get when trying to explain what Kjærstad is about to a certain kind of reader :) Did you see Choupette's review of The Seducer, where she (I thought, at least) identified Veronika with that kind of reaction?
Really no Harry Potter, ever? Not even a little bit? Not even if you had to read something aloud to kids? Really?
I liked this book too. It was one of the first ones I read as a Union Square BNer. And it's good to know my tastes in book covers and books coincide with yours. :D But yours are better than mine but I'm getting there. At least I'll never read Nicholas Sparks. eeeeeyuck.
1) i don't remember - i will go read that review...now.2) i don't know anyone who would permit me to read to children, but i don't see it happening. it's more stubbornness on my part, as far as reading it for myself. arms folded.
3) yayyyy bn memories! i cannot remember my first "union square" book. probably because they were still being written on cave walls at the time...
oh, definitely. i wish i had had goodreads.com as a younger reader - it would have opened my eyes to so many books outside my small library and mall-bookstore. gotta make up for lost time now!
dunno - used to be because i am a grown-up, and was very much "those books are for babies", and i worked a few harry potter parties and saw the glazed-eyed obsessed fans and it was kind of terrifying, but then once i had to take that children's lit class, it turns out that a lot of contemporary children's lit is actually well-written and fun blah blah blah... now i am just being stubborn. there are so few who have not read them...i like being unexposed.
Chandra wrote: "Fantastic review! I think the experience you describe of being a goodreads dummy/real life book snob is something that MANY goodreaders feel! *Raises hand enthusiastically* And it's one of the r..."thank you!!
glazed-eyed obsessed fans and it was kind of terrifyingLOL.
And, it's okay. I can't blame you for not jumping on the best-selling phenomenon bandwagon. Have you seen Twilight fanatics? Self-dubbed Twinatics are worse. Much, much worse.
no, we haven't had any twilight parties at work, so i have only seen regular people looking for the book. are there costumes involved?
MyFleshSingsOut wrote: "What, you think you're better than me just cuz you pronounce Proust like "proost" instead of like "prowst"? Pffft. This book sounds like The Maury Povich Show meets Lake Placid meets Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And I sound like David.
"
I thought you were his protege!!!!
Frenchy, I read cozy mysteries so watch it. grrrrrr. Alzoh, book snobbery is fine, just don't push your taste onto your future librarites <--- user of library. You can always suggest if someone wants something deeper, but knowing you, you'll give them a forty-two minute discussion on why they should try proooost, then get fired for not shelving books, or whatever.
Good review! I might have to read this book. MFSO. Good to see you back in the fray.
librarians don't even shelve books - pages do. no one will ever yell at me because i will be very useful, and i would never push proust onto anyone - it's too big a commitment.but tell me about cozies - do you read the scrapbooking mysteries?? i need to understand them. how do they incorporate the crafts into the murders? (i am serious here, i really want to know)
"scrapbooking mysteries??" OMFG! Is this a real thing?
it is very real.there are knitting mysteries, scrapboking ones, cooking ones, i think there is a woodworking series....
Is that what "cozy mysteries" are? I've heard that term forever, but never actually had a clue as to what it was. I've heard of those cooking mysteries, though. Aren't they those Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder and Cherry Cheesecake Murder ones? (I don't even know if I have the title names right.)
cozy mysteries, in my understanding (we are covering them next week in reader's advisory class, so my current knowledge is just from working in a bookstore) are feel-good mysteries that more sedate older women can read without being offended. like father dowling in book form. but a subsection of cozy mysteries are craft mysteries...the cooking ones are by joanne fluke, diane mott davidson, tamar myers... ummm that's all i can remember from here at my home...
This all begs the question(s): are there Good Housekeeping mysteries? How about edgy, 20-new-ways-to-make-your-man-writhe Cosmopolitan-style thrillers? Published by Maybelline, written by the Cosmo staff? Which further begs the question(s): are there Maxim and GQ based mysteries? How about a bromance novel series by SpikeTV?
i don't think it is insulting, i just don't have any interest in them. i think there is a market for mysteries that are more whimsical than bloody. just because my grandma is a freak for serial killers and splatter - i know other people's grannies like things less gory. chick lit is mostly useless, but you know there are people for whom that marks the limits of their intellectual capacities. and that's just a reality. and those people tend to make a lot more money than i do.
My grandma likes cheap smut with naughty covers picturing tan Tarzans in leather thong pouches. The woman must be reluctant and swooning at the same time. A repulsion/attraction thing. She's Catholic.
i will keep my eyes out for her... so many options...
I feel like there's got to have already been some evolutionary explanation given about why so many women gravitate towards literary garbage like romance novels and so many men gravitate towards cinematic garbage like porn. I'll find out and report back...
Try Terri Thayer for your first cozy mystery. I've read two of her books and they were both what I thought they would be, and not -they did include a few nice little tidbits on where to make out with police officers in San Jose, CA. So I gave them some extra stars for that. I met the author when she attended a booksigning in my neighborhood. An avid quilter friend had asked me to have Terri sign a book for her. When I asked Terri for the signature for my friend she smiled and said she wished my friend wasn't trying to kill off one of her characters prematurely out of hate on an online forum! So I guess the moral of the story is that these books create strong reactions within their audience! ?
karen wrote: "cozy mysteries, in my understanding (we are covering them next week in reader's advisory class, so my current knowledge is just from working in a bookstore) are feel-good mysteries that more sedate..."
The one I read had quilters killing one another with rotary cutters!
There are 2612 posts in the GR Cozy Mysteries forum on the topic of "What Cozy Mystery are you reading now" I am guessing that level of activity is high enough to indicate a reader's hunger for such a subgenre market but why? have mass market mysteries gone too far out on a limb? Do the murders in traditional mass market fare turn off female readers who want the structure of a good murder mystery but can do without paging thru the sexual deviance, torture, abuse, etc scenes that seem so much a part of the ebb and flo of the plot or characters' psychology in mass market murder mysteries today? I always told people Columbo was a great way to introduce kids to the darker side of human nature because in general the violence, blackmail, bribery, murder,infidelity and fraud that move those episodes along all takes place off screen. It is the "G"st rated bad shit coming down way to admit that human nature is not all good . . . maybe the cozies offer a literary equivalent without the cigar and the dog?
Well, karen, you sound like just my type of person. What happens to me is that my vocabulary is so wide that when I use it around my friends, they stare at me with blank faces that say,"What the hell are you talking about? No habla Ingl** You catch my drift. In my book club, I am the one that wants to delve into the plot deeply but most of them like their butts in the sand. What can I say expect that I know how you feel. It's tough, but don't hang your head.. your'e refreshing.
I'm have this book up for our January read. I'm glad to hear that you liked it a lot. Yeah!
ooh - i hope you love it, too!
I'm going to the library this afternoon to pick up a copy. I haven't read any books on zombies. Do you know a good one to start with? I'm beginner so go easy on me. Nice zombies.LOL!
sure, yeah - what kind of zombies are you looking for? traditional? action? philosophical? humorous? literary? etc etc
Humorous, philosophical basically. Many thanks, karen
i can answer this for you, or you can try my fancy RA group which uses things much larger than my brain. wanna try?
sure.. let's go there!
so here is a link - all you have to do is post your request in the "so ask already" thread and wait for the suggestions to start rolling in!!http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/4...
karen wrote: "i don't think it is insulting, i just don't have any interest in them. i think there is a market for mysteries that are more whimsical than bloody. just because my grandma is a freak for serial kil..."My grandma likes large print Amish Mysteries :-( and Beverly Lewis books. Whenever I check them out for her I make sure anyone who might see them knows they aren't for me. Even though I know we're not supposed to judge, I still have a hard time keeping a straight face when she asks me (for the five-thousandth time) if I've read these, because they're SO GOOD!
yeah - i doubt i am the target audience for them....
i, too, refuse to read Harry Potter, although I've reread BN's Page Perfect editions of Secret Garden, etc, although nobody was flogging me with a cat o'nine tail or shackling me to a musty cellar wall. I also thought Monsters of Templeton is a great read
Karen told me to buy this book in NY and I was glad I did, although I remember liking it less from the halfway point to the end, and can't remember why. I'm wishing now I'd written a review.
Jen wrote: "My grandma likes cheap smut with naughty covers picturing tan Tarzans in leather thong pouches. The woman must be reluctant and swooning at the same time. A repulsion/attraction thing. She's Catholic."best comment ever.
i highly suggest 'Arcadia' by Groff as well. this might have already been said in the previous comments, but there are fucking 44 of them, and i have yaks that need killin'.
pssshh, i already read that one. AND her short story collection. LOOK AT ALL THE READING I CAN DO!
you're like a reading machine. like...i guess like a scanner?
or a lonely, lonely girl....
the best kind....
karen wrote: "or a lonely, lonely girl...."*solemn fistbump*
but still will never read harry potteryeah, snob. Harry rocks
I am just now listening to this book and it occurred to me that if this was one of your monsterotica (like how they've become yours?) books, the LAKE MONSTER WOULD BE HER DADDY!!! But I'm only not even the first full disc in and the Vi is just now telling her daughter, "Oh, you'll never guess who it is, not in a million years" and the lake monster DID have a lonely face when it was brought to shore, so...maybe...
Ok. I'm done. I liked my idea of who her daddy was better than who her actual daddy was.Another poorly-constructed sentence from me! Yay!
This book sounds like The Maury Povich Show meets Lake Placid meets Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And I sound like David.