The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
My rating: 5/5 cats
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…
