review: the monsters of templeton by lauren groff

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If today’s soap opera scribes were crafting tales like this, the shows might not have cancellation possibilities looming. This is soapy goodness.

I found it a little hard to get into this book initially--there’s a lot of jumping to different storylines and I didn’t yet have a connection with any of the characters. I’m glad I stuck with it because I did become invested in the plot as I kept reading. I really do think writers for soap operas could learn from this book because it’s a paternity mystery done right. Although I had my suspicions about who Willie’s father was (and I was proven correct at the end), there was none of the infuriating “just reveal the father already” that soap viewers frequently experience. There’s a nice build to the discovery of which ancestor had the affair that makes Willie a Templeton three times over.
4/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Hyperion.