3.5
The Monsters of Templeton
ByPublisher Description
"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel spanning two centuries: part a contemporary story of a girl's search for her father, part historical novel, and part ghost story. In the wake of a disastrous love affair with her older, married archaeology professor at Stanford, brilliant Wilhelmina Cooper arrives back at the doorstep of her hippie mother-turned-born-again-Christian's house in Templeton, NY, a storybook town her ancestors founded that sits on the shores of Lake Glimmerglass. Upon her arrival, a prehistoric monster surfaces in the lake bringing a feeding frenzy to the quiet town, and Willie learns she has a mystery father her mother kept secret Willie's entire life. The beautiful, broody Willie is told that the key to her biological father's identity lies somewhere in her family's history, so she buries herself in the research of her twisted family tree and finds more than she bargained for as a chorus of voices from the town's past -- some sinister, all fascinating -- rise up around her to tell their side of the story. In the end, dark secrets come to light, past and present day are blurred, and old mysteries are finally put to rest. The Monsters of Templeton is a fresh, virtuoso performance that has placed Lauren Groff among the best writers of today.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Monsters of Templeton Reviews
3.5
Caroline
Created 4 days agoShare
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“Brilliant. Lauren Goff is a compelling writer!”
Dr.Alyssa.Gray
Created 15 days agoShare
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“This book was well written and the character was a will developed adult (28y) female so that's a nice change. I just didn't like the way chapters were bouncing around between characters past and present, especially the longer chapters in letter or journal entry form and the twist felt really predictable.”
Hannah Allen
Created about 1 month agoShare
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Clairereadsthings
Created about 2 months agoShare
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“I’m torn on this book-on the one hand Groff has a beautiful turn of phrase (ie “it was dark when I awoke, the moon screwed crisp as a bolt in the sky”) and I generally liked her writing style, and the structure of the book, going back and forth between Willa and her ancestors POV.
All that being said, someone needed to take a red pen to pages of this book-halfway through and I’d grown weary of trying to keep up with our rather unlikeable heroine, her mother, her friend and the many branches of her family being uncovered. The titular lake monster is little to be found, lest you think this has any kind of fantasy element. I’m curious to read more of Groff’s work, but can’t say I really enjoyed this.”
Sapna
Created about 2 months agoShare
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About Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff is the author of The Monsters of Templeton, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers; Arcadia, a New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award; and Fates and Furies, a National Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Tin House, One Story, McSweeney's, and Ploughshares, and in the anthologies 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and three editions of The Best American Short Stories. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and two sons.
Other books by Lauren Groff
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