received from volunteering at "Friends of [redacted] Public Library"

A page-turner about marriage? Why, yes!
This book is the nuptial union of an unstoppable force with an immovable object. Very few likeable characters (but that's just my personal distaste for unreliable characters, really). Deceit, comeuppance, and probably some analogy to mythical heroes that went above my head, are all themes in this masterpiece that evades categorization. Well done!

One of three lovely books which arrived in the mail today from Echode..just in time for Christmas!! Thank you so much! Your review only adds to my curiosity to read this novel!

on the bench near the entrances

Review: Fates and Furies (Lauren Groff) I enjoy writing up a review of sorts for books I have really liked or loved, but not so much if I didn't. Unfortunately, this is one of those that just didn't sit well with me. I recognize the author has great writing gifts. I was taken in by the blurbs on the book (well, that is what they are designed for, after all!) and the endorsements by people (such as Ron Charles to whose book newsletters I follow on the Washington Post) and some journals. The structure is interesting, and many characters intriguing if baffling. What put me off most was the relentless saturation of sex throughout, burying characters whose inner lives certainly would have been more engaging. There are several truly broken characters whom we discover layer by layer, and the two sections serve to allow us a different perspective on the same events. I was left with a sense of bereavement in what feels like such a grim and downtrodden trajectory of lives. The main male character, Lotto, is constantly being referred to as innocent, as always shining into others' perceptions, but there is much to both feel sad about his life as there is to feel he gets off scot-free from any real responsibility for his choices. Mathilde, his love and his wife, has a terrible history and many secrets which are revealed in the second section... but again, she devolves into an unlikable revenge-oriented grieving adult. Even though there are genuine surprises in the final chapters which cause us as readers to constantly re-evaluate our perceptions, it was too little too late for me. I was, in the end, disappointed.