I judge books by their covers. Who doesn’t?
If a cover manages to effectively use the colours red and black in a vine-like appearance, I will automatically pick it up. I have no idea why, but I like these designs, and I like them a lot.
Exhibit A: Monsters of Templeton.
It meets all of the criteria, and to top it off it had an interesting story to tell. It has been on my “to-read” list for a few years now – I got distracted by other books – but finally its time had come. I am very particular when it comes to what book I read next, if it doesn’t fit my current state of mind than it won’t be a very good read; this is possibly what happened with my previous two reads. And although it didn’t quite live up to the expectations its description gave me, it redeemed itself at the end.
The Monsters of Templeton is Lauren Groff’s first novel. It spends half the time in the present and half in the past, spanning 200 years, as the main character, Willie Upton, delves into her ancestry to discover who her father is. Willie comes back to her hometown of Templeton pregnant, alone and going through a quarter-life crisis after a disastrous affair with her graduate professor, which ended with her trying to run over his wife. Her previously “flower child” mother is now a recent convert to the Christian faith, dating a minister and trying to amend for her previous sins, including lying to Willie about her father. Willie grew up believing her father was one of two men her mother slept with while living in a commune, the truth, however, is that her father lives in Templeton. Like Willie, he is a distant relative of Marmaduke Temple, the founder of Templeton, so to escape her present, Willie turns to her past to find her father and discovers on the way the many skeletons her ancestors kept hidden in the closet.
Willie was not my favourite character in the world – she played into the damsel-in-distress stereotype far too much – but I enjoyed tagging along in her quest to find her father. Through her research, a lot of interesting characters were introduced into the novel with every other chapter devoted to an entirely new family member told through their own voice. A lot of them were legitimately crazy – such as believing they could start fires with their mind – which kept it interesting. Groff tried to incorporate folk lore in her novel as a metaphor for Willie’s own self-discovery, which was played up a lot in the description of the book, but kind of fell flat in the actual novel. A large sea monster washes up on shore just as Willie comes back home, and it haunts Willie throughout her entire search, but it just kind of made random appearances and didn’t help the novel, it became more of a fun fact than anything else.
But overall, i enjoyed this book. The many different character voices made this novel unique and interesting to read.
Another classic example of my favourite book design: The Book of Lost Things.
Beautiful and one of my favourites! See here for a description.
Living Literary 