Katie’s Reviews > The Monsters of Templeton > Status Update

The rambling whimsy of this is irritating me. Her attempts at ventriloquism aren’t very convincing either. Makes me realise what a brilliant achievement Cloud Atlas was. Groff’s attempt to capture the voices of characters in different centuries is poor – none of the characters have a distinctive voice; all are just an extension of the author’s annoying whimsy and over-exuberance. Thank heavens Groff gave up comedy.

I think this is just too ambitious for a first novel. It's motored by youthful exuberance rather than mental rigour and the problem for me is that every character carries this same exuberance and so is hard to tell apart. They all have the same atmosphere. As a result I'm afraid I'm beginning to find it a bit boring.

This has started rambling again. It's a very baggy novel which at times seems to lose sight of its directive.

The rather whimsical offhand tone is working better for me now!

I'm kind of glad Groff gave comedy a backseat after writing this because I'm finding the humour a bit too pleased with itself and not as funny as she clearly thinks it is. There's something of the slightly over exuberant undergraduate about this novel, especially in its difficulty of taking anything very seriously.

Typical first novel so far - exuberant, well-written without spectacular flourishes and a little bit loosely stitched.