The Monsters of Templeton

I came to this, the first of Lauren Groff's books, after admiring the intuition in her more recent work. Her short story collection Florida will go down as one of the best books I've read this year. The Monsters of Templeton, though, is overly ambitious with its era-spanning narration and convoluted genealogy, lacking in the depth of her other work. The scope here is too grand, with a mystery that is in itself pointless from the beginning. Though my expectations were high, I don't know that I would have been any less disappointed by this novel had I come to it unfamiliar with Groff's work. I may be unimpressed with this work, but it does demonstrate the growth in the abilities of its author. I look forward to reading her next work.

I really liked this book. The story was interesting and so were the characters. The way it was written, weaving both the old and the new stories in a detective type story was fun to read.

A good book. I love how she weaved Cooper's fictional characters Natty Bumppo and Chief Chingachgook into the story. I forget about the sadness of the Cooper characters and just remember the adventure. Groff reminds me how heartbreaking their stories are and how lonely those two (fictional) men must have been. My problems with the book were 1) The family mystery was not very compelling. But they never are. I guess after reading Possession, everything else in that vein of academic research and family background disappoints. 2) Her mother wasn't as impressive as her character kept saying she was. I just didn't get her strength or appeal. I would read more by Groff though. And can't wait to discuss it with book club!