Seven Notebooks: Poems

By Campbell McGrath

An ant to the stars
or stars to the ant—which is
more irrelevant?

Weekend Jet Skiers—
rude to call them idiots,
yes, but facts are facts.

Clamor of seabirds
as the sun falls—I look up
and ten years have passed."
—from "Dawn Notebook"

Such is the expansive terrain of Seven Notebooks: the world as it is seen, known, imagined, and dreamed; our lives as they are felt, thought, desired, and lived. Written in forms that range from haiku to prose, and in a voice that veers from incanta­tory to deadpan, these seven poetic sequences offer diverse reflections on language and poetry, time and consciousness, civilization and art—to say nothing of bureaucrats, surfboards, and blue margaritas. Taken collectively, Seven Notebooks composes a season-by-season account of a year in the life of its narrator, from spring in Chicago to summer at the Jersey Shore to winter in Miami Beach. Not a novel in verse, not a poetic journal, but a lyric chronicle, this utterly unique book reclaims territory long abandoned by American poetry, a characteristic ambition of Campbell McGrath, one of the most honored, accessible, and humanistically engaged writers of our time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061751516

Campbell McGrath

Campbell McGrath is the author of nine previous books, eight of them available from Ecco Press. He has received numerous prestigious awards for his poetry, including a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been published in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Poetry, and Ploughshares, among other prominent publications, and his poetry is represented in dozens of anthologies. He teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University, and lives with his family in Miami Beach.

Reviews for Seven Notebooks

[dukefan86 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the various levels in this story, including the main character's family history reseach.

[candacevan_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a novel that, I think, is best read after having at least visited Cooperstown, New York. The fictional town of Templeton is based on Cooperstown, and having a sense of the area, both its geography and its mood, makes the novel's evocation of the area more interesting. At the beginning of the novel, a frantic Willie Upton comes home to Templeton in defeat, her promising academic career derailed by an affair with her advisor. She is struggling to come to terms with her pregnancy just as she, and the town, are struggling to come to terms with the demise of "Glimmey," the long-rumored denizen of Lake Glimmerglass.

But is Glimmey the only "monster" of Templeton? Far from it, Glimmey is a kind-hearted, almost human creature, whereas the history of Templeton is filled with characters (all relatives of Willie's) who are monstrous in a variety of ways.

Whether we are meeting Vi, Willie's hippy-turned-fundamentalist mother, or the gentle ghost who haunts the corners of Willie's childhood bedroom, I found the many denizens of Templeton, past and present, monstrous or just very human, to be memorable. This is an absorbing and well-written novel, that I greatly enjoyed.

And one more thing: It's nice to see a woman with a life-threatening, chronic, autoimmune disease as the heroine's best friend. When one is diagnosed with such a disease, all too often, the people in one's life, like Sully, evaporate. Any chronically ill person would love to have friends like Willie and Vi.

[e5j · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved the monster in the lake. Also when I am pregnant I will call the baby The Lump. Other than that I did not love this book.

[pam8enser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was one of those books you just don't want to stop because you just care about the characters so much. I loved that it was based on Cooperstown. It's more fun when you know what it's based on. Great narrator. i highly recommend the audio.

[lisapeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed it, although it felt like she took on a bit too much for one book. It felt PLOTTY -- I could feel her outline pulsing beneath the surface of the story all through, and that in the end everything had to be sort of forced to fit so the story would work. And the thing is, I really like her writing and I thought the book had a lot of heart -- I really do believe she could get by on those alone, without all the intricate machinations.It always sounds so condescending to say something is a good first novel -- considering I haven't even written one -- but that's what this feels like. And I'll definitely read whatever she comes up with next.The monster was my very favorite character, which probably says more about me as a reader than Groff as a writer.

[librarybrandy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton has just slunk home in disgrace. Her promising life is on the skids, her graduate career just about ruined, and her beloved town of Templeton isn't faring so well, either. Willie has no sooner arrived in town when the lake monster's body drifts to the surface, a paleontological wonder from the deep, and everything begins to unravel. Vi, Willie's former-hippie-turned-Baptist mom, confesses that Willie's father was not one of the San Francisco free-love hippies with whom Vi'd been living, but was in fact someone from this tiny New York town. Willie distracts herself from her own problems with genealogical research, attempting to tease out her parentage from scanty evidence. Family history, generations of scandal, a long-standing curse, and a touch of magic realism shape this engrossing debut novel, told in several voices through letters, diaries, and other historical ephemera. The novel is not without its weaknesses; the chronology is hard to follow in places, and there is one character whose writings are dated 1935 while her date of death is listed as 1933 (this may be fixed in the final, published copy? maybe?). A curse is uttered early on (chronologically) but is never addressed again; the reader can make inferences but it is not integrated into the story. On balance, an excellent debut, emotionally charged without being melodramatic and sappy, and I look forward to seeing more of Groff's work in the future.

(Groff has a short story in 2007's Best American collection, and it's one of the emotionally stand-out pieces, a love story realistic in its sweetness and tragedy.)

[writestuff_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Up surfaced the monster, and after the monster there came the crowd. – from The Monsters of Templeton, page 34 -Willie Upton arrives back in her hometown of Templeton after a lurid affair with her archeology professor. She leaves behind her potential PhD in the Alaskan wilderness to return to her roots in upstate New York. Hoping to find comfort in a place that has always felt unchanged, Willie instead finds her former hippie mother, Vi, immersed in born-again Christianity and a town in an uproar over the dead body of a monster which as surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.I come home to Templeton because it’s the only place in the world that never changes, and I mean never, never changes, and here’s this half-dead lake. I always thought, hey, if the ice caps melt and all the cities of the world are swallowed up, Templeton will be fine. We’d be able to make do. Plant vegetables. Bunker up, sit it out, whatever. But it doesn’t seem right anymore. Does it? – from The Monsters of Templeton, page 131 -Within days, Vi reveals that Willie’s father is not an unknown hippie from the psychedelic days of San Francisco, but instead someone Willie knows well and who shares her family history. On a quest to discover her father’s identity, Willie digs deeply into the backgrounds of the people from the town’s by gone days, and reconnects with friends from her past.Lauren Groff’s complex and riveting first novel explores identity, the irresistible pull of our pasts, and the history of a small town in upstate New York. Groff based her story on her real hometown of Cooperstown, New York and borrowed liberally from James Fenimore Cooper’s massive cast of quirky characters in constructing a novel rich in folklore and historical references.Willie is a young woman struggling to find her identity in order to understand her future. As she researches her family history, the characters from her past take turns narrating their often convoluted stories and revealing their dark, well kept secrets. Groff uses actual photographs and constructs ever evolving family trees as Willie gets closer to the truth about her family.The Monsters of Templeton is really a bit of a mystery novel, an unraveling of the past to solve the question of who fathered Willie. Groff also introduces a bit of magical realism with the monster of Lake Glimmerglass and several ghosts who help guide Willie to clues about her ancestry. But what works the best in the story is the crowd of characters who all vie for their chance to reveal their secrets.Lauren Groff’s debut novel was nominated for the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers in 2008.This book is recommended for readers who enjoy character driven novels, historical fiction and a bit of a mystery.

[cecily2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Personally, I loved this. The best book I have read in a long time.

[janeajones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a summer read, I found Groff's first novel highly satisfying. It has a likeable protagonist, secrets are uncovered, and it's set in a small town in central NYS, an area with which I am quite familiar. Wilhelmina Sunshine Upton returns to her home of Templeton (based on the actual Cooperstown -- home of the baseball hall of fame) on the verge of disgrace. When her affair with her thesis advisor on an archeological expedition to Alaska was uncovered by his wife, Willie tried to run her down with a bush plane. After driving home cross-country, she arrives in Templeton at the moment the dead body of the famous monster emerges from the depths of Lake Glimmerglass. She discovers that her hippie mother, Vivienne, has found Jesus -- and the pastor of the local Baptist church. What follows is a trip into the history of Willie's ancestors who founded the town and who often prove to be the "monsters" of Templeton. Great fun.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved the fantastical elements of this -- they are subtle, but they're there and they add a lot of depth. I liked the whole monster subplot, and I really liked the letters she found that imply that one of her ancestors could set fires with her mind. It was woven in so perfectly!I really liked the first third or so of the book, but as it went on, I found myself thinking, "Okay, let's get on with it already." I thought the author had trouble sustaining the momentum of the first part of the book as it went on and the plot was "continue researching" and "continue thinking about the professor and her best friend" rather than having some action. I did generally like it, though.

[grendelschoice · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First‐time novelist creates a lovely story about the long reach of afamily tree in a small town in upstate New York. Complete with aLoch-Ness‐like lake monster and lots of gentle humor.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second novel I've read by Lauren Groff, and maybe I enjoyed it slightly less that Arcadia, but that's a good thing - Arcadia was written after this, so she's growing as a writer. Also promising is the fact that even though I might have liked this less, it's still a 4 Star. That says something about my opinion of Groff's writing.In Monsters of Templeton, Groff's protagonist heads home to recover from a messy affair. To get her mind off her problems her mother drops a bombshell on her - the story about who her father might be was a total fabrication. Her father is in fact, someone in the very town her family founded. From there, the book goes into part detective, part historical fiction and does it wonderfully. The cast of characters is great and the story moves along quickly. Even though there are a number of characters jumping and out, they're easy to keep track of - probably one of the biggest challenges.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A young woman investigates the history of her home town, uncovering all manner of monsters, human and otherwise. Curiously intertwined with the works and worlds of James Fenimore Cooper – which is rather lost on me, as I’m not familiar with him.

[jenners26 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

WHAT is this book about?Willie Upton returns to her childhood town of Templeton (standing in for Cooperstown, NY) in disgrace—pregnant with her married professor’s child after a disastrous love affair. Although she vowed never to return to Templeton, she has nowhere else to turn … and she hates that she needs her ex-hippie-turned-born-again mother Vivienne to help her cope with her mess. On the day she returns to Templeton, a prehistoric monster is found floating in Lake Glimmerglass. Townspeople have heard about the mysterious Glimmy, but actual proof that it exists throws the town into a tailspin. As Willie tries to decide what to do with “The Lump” growing inside her, her mother reveals another secret: Willie’s father is actually from Templeton—not a random man from a free-love commune as Willie has always been told. This news gives Willie a purpose to her days, and she decides to fiigure out who her father is. Her only clue? Her father was also related to the town’s founding father, Marmaduke Temple. As she researches her family history, Willie discovers long-buried secrets and Templeton’s hidden history. As her family tree expands and develops, Willie begins to come to terms with her past, present and future.WHO do we meet? Willie is a contradiction. Beautiful and smart, she seems to have it all together. But as we get to know her, we realize she is a complete mess—with little idea of what she wants out of life or how to get it. Vivienne, Willie’s mother, was the most interesting character in the book for me. Although we mostly see her through Willie’s jaundiced eyes, we come to realize she is much wiser and more caring than Willie gives her credit for. Clarissa is Willie’s best friend who is living in San Francisco. She is suffering from lupus and has been having some serious health and marital problems lately. Yet she is supportive of Willie, despite Willie’s oftentimes selfish behavior. Willie’s ancestors, the Temples, are a complex family—filled with illegitimate children, secret affairs, deceit, madness, secrets and lies. As Willie sorts through the archives in the town library, we learn about her ancestors through letters, journals and their own memories.WHEN and WHERE does the book take place?The book takes place in Templeton, New York in modern times, with frequent flashbacks to the past, starting from when the town was founded in 1785. As Groff writes in the Author’s Note, Templeton is really based on the history and people of her hometown of Cooperstown, New York (including James Fenimore Cooper). Yet as she was doing research, she found that: …the facts drifted from their moorings. They began shaping themselves into stories in my head, taking over. Dates switched, babies were born who never actually existed, historical figures grew new personalities and began to do frightening things. I slowly began to notice that I wasn’t writing about Cooperstown anymore, but rather a slantwise version of the original.WHY should you read this book?Well, I’m not really sure that you should. I found myself slogging through this book at a snail’s pace—soldiering on when I really didn’t care all that much about it. (Why I cannot just quit a book I’m not enjoying, I don’t know. I really need to learn how to do this.) The book is very ambitious—with Groff making up an entire history for Willie’s ancestors and writing from various points of view. She even goes so far as to include pictures and photographs of the characters she is writing about. Groff also includes a Temple family tree, which keeps being updated and expanded throughout the book as Willie discovers new facts about her heritage. Groff event co-opts James Fenimore Cooper’s fictional characters (Natty Bumppo, Uncas, Cora Monroe) and includes them in the story. While I admire what she is attempting to do, it didn’t work for me as a novel. I often found it tedious, and I had a difficult time keeping all the family history stuff straight in my head.Another major problem was that I found Willie really annoying. Plus, the big “secret” of Willie discovering her father’s identity totally fizzled for me. When we find out, my only reaction was “Huh. Whatever.” I’m also unsure why Groff included the whole prehistoric monster in the lake. I’m sure it is a metaphor for something or other, but it didn’t really fit in with the story all that well. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this book felt like a big mess … as if Groff threw a lot of things into a blender and came out with a big jumble of a narrative. At times, I could glimpse what she was trying to do, but, in the end, the book didn’t work for me at all. However, if you are a fan of James Fenimore Cooper or have been to Cooperstown, maybe this book would work better for you. It ended up not being my cup of tea at all.

[forsix · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I remember reading Julie’s review when she first read this novel. I know she was fond of it so I was excited she suggested I read this one as part of our List Swap Challenge. I have to admit, the beginning of this novel began in fits and starts for me. It took me a while to get into it but once I did, I got wrapped up on the story. I loved Willie from the word go.Willie is the main character in this novel, the prodigal daughter returned shamed after a tryst with her very married college professor. And if that isn’t bad enough, she’s knocked up. She has a bun in the oven she (somewhat) lovingly refers to as The Lump. The thing about Willie is that she’s heartbroken (and I love the brokenhearted) and remorseful and so lost she doesn’t know what to do with herself. To help her recover, her sweet former hippie turned Christian mom tells her that her father is a “Random Templeton Man” and Willie’s mission is to find out who it is with minimal help from dear old mom. That sets Willie off on a crazy chase into her family’s past to find out who this mystery man is.The next thing I loved about this novel is the darkness. About 7 or 8 years ago I read a book called Dating Big Bird by Laura Zigman. Although the pages where blinding white, the novel was shroud in darkness. This novel was the same. Even as I got to know Willie and her struggles, it felt like I was reading Monster of Templeton in the dark. I guess it’s appropriate to feel that way because I’m sure that’s how Willie felt. She was in the dark about who her father was and what to do about the Lump. This novel was filled with a crazy cast of characters from Willie’s crooked family tree. Their stories are told mostly in chapters dedicated to flashbacks. Of those wacky branches, my favorite had to be the correspondence between Cinnamon Averell and her best friend Charlotte Franklin Temple. I wish there was a novel dedicated to their story, especially Cinnamon. She was a spicy little gem full of moxie. Oh to sit with her for a cup of tea and hear her sordid little secrets. Overall, I really enjoyed The Monsters of Templeton. Lauren Groff is a gifted writer with the ability to write in lyrical, poetic prose and expressive descriptions. I will admit by the end of the novel, I couldn’t care less who Willie’s father was. I guess it was the point to all this but really, it didn’t matter to me. My desire to know got lost in the pages and pages of the town and Temple family history. I am glad I read it and would recommend it but I wouldn’t read this novel again. I would, however, read Ms. Groff’s other novels. She has a gift, that much is true.

[britbrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful, brilliant Willie Upton, born and raised in the idyllic New England town of Templeton, returns home to her mother with her tail between her legs. A fling with her college advisor (and subsequent jealous rage with homicidal undertones) has left her lost, depressed, and pregnant. She tasks herself with finding out the identity of her father, who her mother refuses to identify. With only one lead and the help of some of her fellow Templetonians, she delves into the research and discovers more about her mother and herself. Oh, and did I mention that there's a giant dead monster that's been fished out of local Glimmerglass Lake? A lovely family saga with science fiction undertones, I recommend this to anyone who likes their fiction with a twist of evil and just a hint of the weird.

[ben_h_8 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The idea here is interesting, but it's ambitious--and Groff is not (yet) a very good writer. The text attempts a high literary style, but is also surprisingly crude, as in this passage from early in the novel: "Her shoulders were slumped, and the zipper in the back of her skirt was open, revealing a swatch of red cotton underwear and a muffin-top of flesh above it. From my position in the kitchen door, my mother looked old. If I weren't already holding the pieces together with both squeezed hands, this sight would have broken my heart." A collection of historical and contemporary characters take over the narration for a chapter at a time, and introduce a variety of narrative styles (epistolary, stream-of-consciousness, etc.) This technique could have been fascinating, but ends up merely confusing--in part because the historical characters are poorly researched, and often saddled with ridiculous names. The patchwork text is uncomfortably paired with an assortment of laboriously explained "scrapbook" photos seemingly downloaded at random from the internet. And the basic plot on which all this mess is supposed to hang is unlikely in the extreme: the narrator's mother says, "I never told you this before, but your REAL father is someone living in town RIGHT NOW, only I won't tell you who it is. Instead I will give you these CRYPIC CLUES, and make you figure it out on your own." Oh, and there's also some kind of ghost. And the Loch Ness Monster.Not recommended.

[sugarcreekranch · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The writing is wonderful, but the story is odd. The most interesting part is the monster in the lake of a small town. But the bulk of it is a young woman's research into family and town history, to determine who her father is. I wish there had been more monsters.

[calstas_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Poorly advertised and so not what I wanted to read at the time. I didn't realized that apart from one dead monster on the first page the, "monsters" of Templeton would be typical chick-lit (I can say that w/o sounding sexist because I'm a chick) metaphorical monsters. Booooring! While the book has its merits and I'm a James Fenimore Cooper fan, I rated it low for wasting my time with false pretenses.

[smiler69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Willhemina Upton, a descendant of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of her hometown of Templeton, returns home to lick her wounds following a disastrous affair with her professor. On the day of her arrival, the dead body of the monster of Templeton, known as Glimmey is found in lake Glimmerglass, confirming rumors more than two centuries old as to it’s existence. Willie finds refuge in her ancestral family home with her mother Vi, a born again Baptist, after having been a hippie for the better part of her life. Willie, having always accepted her mother’s story about having had sex with three men at the commune she lived in at seventeen is surprised when Vi informs her that her father is a resident of Templeton and also a descendant of Marmaduke Temple, though she refuses to tell her who the man is, which prompts Willie to embark on a search through the family tree to find her father. We’re introduced to the cast of characters that are her ancestors through various written documents and also from their own voices. Little by little, as Willie keeps digging she uncovers one family secret after another along with a few other monsters.I found the story interesting and enjoyed visiting the past of this fictional town. It’s clear Groff had to do extensive research for the novel and it paid off, though I can't say I found very much to connect with in this story.

[coffeeandabookchick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, published by Hyperion in 2008, and it is a many-layered story of secrets -- both within a family and within a town. From the moment Wilhelmina "Willie" Upton returns to her hometown of Templeton, more events begin to unfurl, of which she has just recently left many to forget. What a true disaster Willie's made of everything, really. A mess by her own making and embarrassed by her mistakes and poor personal choices, Willie is now a woman in her late twenties who, although is a smart archaeology grad student, can't really seem to make a good personal decision when it comes to men. She has a devastating end to her scandalous affair with her older, and married Professor, resulting in a pregnancy, and she feels even more intense guilt as she runs away, since she feels that she has abandoned her best friend, Clarissa in San Francisco, who is suffering from a devastating illness that requires many a hospital visit and treatment. It's really much too much for Willie to take in and manage, and since she's afraid that she will be kicked out of school because of her scandalous affair, she returns with her head hung low back to her childhood home and town and especially to her mother, maybe just to escape for a while to wait until either the dust settles, or some form of clarity manages to rise in the muddle of it all. Her mother, Vi, has a Bohemian past but is now a Sunday church regular, and has always raised Willie with the story that her father could have been any one of three hippies at a commune, but she now reveals a secret she's always kept, and which she now sets upon Willie to uncover the truth, if only to distract Willie from the massive mess she's made. With the monster's corpse coming to the lake's surface, it brings a change to the town. The monster has always been myth, legend, speculation, but the monster was always believed to exist by the town (as much as a monster's existence can truly be believed, though) and no one truly knew the quiet, goodness it held. A whirl of visitors now floods into town to see, record, and report on the monster. Prior to this great event, the many visitors to the town only were tourists visiting the baseball museum, one fashioned after Groff's own home of Cooperstown. It's an amazing story, full of secrets, ghosts, a monster of a lake, intertwined with love, sadness, regret. Amazing and quirky characters fill the pages, both real people in history polished with a little bit of fiction, along with brilliant humor and dark pain gracing each moment. I found myself comfortable and lolling in the story as I would imagine I would be in a small boat on the monster's lake. I stayed up late to finish reading this. I was held hostage in the story and kept thinking, "what next?" There is such majesty of language, such smooth stringing of words even more beautiful and melodious when spoken, and I found that Lauren Groff tied up every story line, and not one thing was left out. I was able to close the book satisfied, and know that I didn't have one question left, save for my imagination walking by the lake with one of the characters, waiting for the fog to settle to see if maybe it was a trick of my eyes, or if I just saw one of the many monsters of the town. Great, fabulous, read -- I'm excited to read anything Lauren Groff has coming next!

[elvisettey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel, given its excellent execution and the way it showcases the author's considerable literary talents. The plot premise is that our central character, Willie (female), has just returned home to small town New York after a disasterous (and then some) affair with the professor directing her archaeology dig. In short order, she reveals that she believes that she is pregnant, her born-again mother retaliates by saying that Willie's father is not the random nameless hippie that she always believed him to be but, in fact someone in this very town, and a giant monster turns up dead in the lake. And that's just the first pages, mind you. As part of the quest for her father, Willie sets off on a genealogical hunt, dusting off and cross-examining whatever remains of her idiosyncratic ancestors. Groff creates different voices beautifully: we get to hear the voices of the people speak for themselves; we read their letters; we sample their novels; we peek into their journals. We also hear the voices of some of James Fenimore Cooper's characters, plus the voices of some of the residents of Willie's hometown. Groff calls up these voices, and each stands out. I never found myself wondering, 100 pages later, which ancestor made what statement, which would be a problem on might expect in a novel like this. The cast is simply too eclectic to describe (so give the book a try and read them for yourself!). Once again, let me stress that Groff keeps her Dickensian cast of characters straight, whether they live in the past or present. What they have in common is that they're all colorful, enjoyable, flawed people, true to "life" as we know it. Perhaps, though, the kindest, most sensitive of all is the lake monster, who we hear from only later (I won't say when) in the novel. Willie's search into her own past is a fascinating detective story for all of us, and it raises questions about what the past means. Groff will not philosophize at you; rather, she uses her ongoing storylines to compell the reader to think about whether the past is a solid chunk of "history" or many little details, how we know when we know enough, how the past feeds in to who we are, how it imprints who we are, etc etc. Highly recommended.

[maebsly · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had never heard of this book or the author before, but the back cover sounded interesting so I picked it up. I was surprised! It's not a profound, life changing book but it is really fun to read.I love how the story of a woman returns to her hometown and searches her family tree for secrets to the identity of her father is presented with letters, diary excerpts, etc. The "what I know so far" charts were helpful because if I put the book down for any length of time I had to reference them to keep the relatives straight. The portraits of the relatives were a fun addition. Ms. Groff is an intelligent writer with good descriptive qualities. While reading, I had a good feel for the town. Her characters are well-developed with a certain depth and I found myself caring about what happened to them, even though I was not crazy about the main character (I felt she was spoiled and somewhat immature). There are a lot of interesting personalities in this book! I liked the monster of the lake, but I'm not sure why the ghost was in the story.The only (tiny, minor) criticism I have is I wish the ancestor's letters and journal entries had a voice of their own. The more recent relatives often had the same manner of speaking as the ones from two hundred years ago (exceptions apply). But this does not really detract from the story at all. I really enjoyed this book, lots of fun! I will definitely be seeking more books by this talented writer.

[katydid4it · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't think that I was blown away by this until I realized that I kept thinking about it far after I had finished reading it. The overlapping stories of the past and the way in which they are woven into the present is done masterfully. While I didn't necessarily like most of the characters, they were multi-dimensional -both likable and full of flaws. As a librarian and trained archivist, I particularly enjoyed the scenes of Willie in the archives and constructing her family tree. Her access to personal information is a bit unbelievable though to anyone who actually has done geneaological research. If only we could all find personal notes and letters to fill in all the gaps!

[downtownlibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Willie Upton has come home to Templeton following an unfortunate romance with her professor. Her mother has found religion, and Willie is in search of her father. Will she find him? Is there a sea monster? Can a novel that is partially an homage to James Fenimore Cooper be absorbing and funny? The answer to the last question is yes; you'll have to read the book if you want the answers to the other two, and I recommend that you do!

[lindenstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Monsters of Templeton is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Groff's characters are really unique and dynamic, and the changing points of view throughout the book offer an original look at the narrative. The story, the characters, and the writing make you want to keep reading the book, and when the story is over you wish it was just getting started. The dynamic character of the city of Templeton is as integral to the story as the characters, and they all work together to create a piece of great fiction!I would definitely recommend this book to friends and family, to anyone who is interested in histories, and to anyone who loves a good read. I met Lauren Groff at a book reading recently and she is really nice; I hope that she continues to write with the same caliber of characters and stories that she gave here. The author is much like the story: down-to-earth and approachable.

[glade1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, and probably liked it more because of Ann Marie Lee's reading. I listened to it in my car and often found myself looking for excuses to go for a drive so I could see what would happen next. Groff has created a complex but connected tale of a town and its inhabitants, with touches of romance and the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Her writing style is beautiful and her characters interesting. I have already checked out her short story collection (Delicate Edible Birds) from the library and eagerly await her next novel.

[cemming_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Part curious history and part quirky parable, Groff's ode to her hometown is anything but overwrought. Her charming prose and thick, overlapping plotlines weave an engaging history of Templeton.Twentysomething Wilhelmina wanders home to regroup from a failed relationship and its resulting pregnancy, surprised and saddened to find the enormous corpse of the town's monster being craned out of the lake. Adding to her worries, Willie's mother admits to purposefully bumbling the facts of her parentage, tasking Willie with an ancestral scavenger hunt through the centuries of the historical flotsam her forebears, the town's founding family, donated to the local museum. Willie's sleuthing changes her ancestry with shocking regularity, drawing a creative, often vicious, backstory. She has only eight weeks to discover the identity of her father, someone her mother admits still lives there in town, someone she probably knows.An admirably juggled mix of narrative, letters, folklore, and gossip, alongside Willie's mounting personal concerns, warm the tale of a young woman's search for belonging, her drive to find the weight of attachment that accompanies family. Something even the monster knows about.From the monster whose pale corpse floats atop the lake to the slew of repurposed Cooper characters that pop up delightfully throughout, Groff directs a lively cast with a ringmaster's flair. As surreal and unexpected a story as your grandparents might have made up at bedtime, Groff's concoction is oddly comforting, radiating warmth and density suffused with pure imagination.

[raefichter · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think what I love most about this book was its casual magic. The fantastic beasts, human and otherwise, populating this novel are always believable. You can't help but be dragged into Willie Upton's world with its ghosts and family secrets.

[afyfe_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book, although I'm not sure if everyone would like it. It is based around a girl who comes back to her small town and learns that some things she thought to be true were not. It was a little hard to start, but if you keep reading it does become very interesting. I also thought some of the chapters about her ancestors and the history of the town were very slow and I couldn't always follow who they were talking about and how they were related to the main character. I was also hoping for more tie ins with the monster, but he really only was talked about in the beginning and the end. Although some parts were hard to get through when I finished the book I felt very satisfied and had nothing but good thoughts about it. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is up for a very different kind of book and willing to take the slow paced chapters with the fast paced ones.