Book Review: The Monsters of Templeton

Book: The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Book Designed by Michelle Ishay
Book Illustrated by Beth White

Edition: Hardcover

Description:

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, this spellbinding novel is at its core a tale of how one town holds the secrets of a family.

In the wake of a wildly disastrous affair with her married archeology professor, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in Templeton, New York, where her hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mom, Vi, still lives. Willie expects to be able to hide in the place that has been home to her family for generations, but the monster's death changes the fabric of the quiet, picture-perfect town her ancestors founded. Even further, Willie learns that the story her mother had always told her about her father has all been a lie: he wasn't the random man from a free-love commune that Vi had led her to imagine, but someone else entirely. Someone from this very town.

As Willie puts her archaeological skills to work digging for the truth about her lineage, she discovers that the secrets of her family run deep. Through letters, editorials, and journal entries, the dead rise up to tell their sides of the story as dark mysteries come to light, past and present blur, old stories are finally put to rest, and the shocking truth about more than one monster is revealed.



Rating: 1 star

Review:

I was really excited to read The Monsters of Templeton the description made it seem like it was going to be really interesting. However, it was a struggle to read it. This is a book where the author has a good grasp on writing but wrote an extremely disappointing boring long-winded story. It centers around Willie Upton, a grad student who was in Alaska on an archaeological expedition returned to her hometown in Templeton, NY following a disastrous affair with her married professor, Dr. Primus Dwyer.

She returns home in hopes of trying to sort out her life now that it was a mess but her once carefree hippie turned religious mother Vivian "Vi" doesn't provide much sympathy. Willie might be smart but she makes a lot of bad decisions. As a way to get Willie out of her downward spiral, Vi told her a long held secret about Willie's father. All her life, Willie thought her birth was the product of her mother's free love hippie past but it turns out her father was someone who lives in Templeton. Vi didn't give the name of the man but gave Willie a clue that would take her on a research journey through her ancestors and Templeton's past.

This should have been an interesting historical mystery with Willie doing plenty of research trying to track down clues from the past to help locate her father in the present. However, this slow moving story which was told in two weaving narratives of the past and the present was very boring.

I was so disappointed with this story for so many reasons and the first was the revolving points of view throughout the book and all the boring characters. There was not one character in this story that held my attention or had me wanting to know more about them.

Second was that Willie's ancestor Marmaduke Templeton, who was the town founder and a slave owner was supposedly seduced by his slave Hetty who became pregnant. This is such a false and racist narrative because slaves were treated as property and were treated terribly from being abused to raped and killed. With so many female slaves having children by the slave master the lie of the seductive slave was used to make the slaves look like the temptress instead of the rape victims that they were. Another character, Noname, a First Nation mute girl was also treated in a similar way in this story.

Third was the random inclusion of the death of the lake monster "Glimmey" as well as various slightly magical aspects of the story. I didn't see the point of even including the monster, which was sort of described like the Loch Ness Monster, especially since it played no real part in the story. This was a huge discovery and you would think that Willie who is pursuing her studies in Archaeology didn't think to do any research about the monster while also trying to uncover clues about her father. It was annoying that the monster was treated as a non-issue or after-thought.

This was not a good story and there were so many unnecessary things included that it felt like the author was trying too hard to turn it into a compelling page turner. However, it turned out to be poorly crafted, lacking focus and was slow moving.