This book was a HUGE disappointment. I mean, holy purple prose, Batman! I really loved Lauren Groff’s writing in Arcadia - it was beautiful and touching, with gorgeous metaphors. But Fates and Furies is pretentious and overwritten. It tries so hard to be a literary masterpiece that you end up with asides like this one: Her mother had smelled of cold and scales, her father of stone dust and dog. She imagined her husband’s mother, whom she had never met, had a whiff of rotting apples, although h...

1.5 stars - I didn't like it.This could be the first addition to a new genre, literary erotica(lite). If that makes you excited or more interested to read it, don't set yourself up for disappointment. The moral of the review is that if you write about sex for almost 300 pages (75% of the book) and still end up with a monotonous, tedious, unprovocative novel, then something has going disastrously wrong.The author "tells" you that the couple have this epic, out of this world love for one another,

No amount of beautiful language can gild this piece of shit.

Wow! I started reading Fates and Furies a few times and my interest quickly waned because the writing felt impenetrable. But this time I forced myself to read beyond the first few pages, and after sticking it out for a while I got completely sucked in -- by the writing, the concept, the atmosphere and the story. Groff's writing is unusual, both in style and in pacing. Her sentences feel messy and there's an arrhythmic staccato to the way in which the story moves forward. But once I fell in step

Gone Girl with slightly nicer people...but it's Gone Girl only at its most elemental. it's the story of the marriage of two beautiful people; a marriage whose sparkling perfection and longevity is the envy of all. but no one knows what happens in a marriage behind closed doors. sometimes, not even its participants. this is the story of the moving parts that keep a marriage going; the sacrifices and the machinations under the smooth facade. it's about how much work it takes to make it look effort...

Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre"Marriage is made of lies; kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you'd crush them to paste. She never lied, just never said."The difficulty in reviewing this novel is avoiding disclosure of too much of the plot or structure. That, and the fact that I have found that many of my Goodreads friends in whom I place a good deal of trust on taste in books bungled the ball on this novel. I still have l...

Amazingly brilliant. Language to die for. Fascinating characters. Clever format. But why did it take me three weeks to read?This is a complex love story, full of secrets and regrets and passion. Part 1, Fates, is the husband’s story. Part 2, Furies, is the wife’s. It is absolutely brilliant.Yeah, so why DID it take me so long to read this? Take a peek at my Complaint Board:Complaint BoardWho ARE these guys in the twist? At the end, I got to a brilliant twist! I knew it was brilliant, but wait….....

The only award I'd bestow on this is the most unconvincing portrait of a literary genius ever written. Lancelot Satterwhite (his father's name is Gawain though we're missing Merlin) is the character in question. As his name would suggest he's a buffoonish knight in expensive armour. He makes two life-changing transformations - firstly, he changes from a womaniser into a model husband overnight; then he changes from a third rate actor into a first rate playwright literally overnight. The suspensi...

''There was an enormous crack in the world.'' What constitutes a successful union between two people who love each other? The ability to have the courage to mend the cracks that appear in an alarming speed as the years go by. Now, in the marriage of Lotto and Mathilde, the cracks are there from the beginning. Especially in Lotto and all they have to do is to ignore them and move on. But Groff's novel is completely devoid of cracks or any other fault for that matter. In fact, it is plain and s

Book-1Shelby-0 I hate this book. There I said it. I keep trying to read it and then I look down and it says I still have soooo much time left in this book. I'm never going to finish.The only character that I'm somewhat interested in is Chollie. The rest of them are just pretentious hipster assholes.I'm a dnf'er. And I'm proud.Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review I'm probably totally missing out by not making myself finish this book. (I'm still not gonna do it) but my friend Leanne

I'm approaching my 1/3rd rule with this book (if a book hasn't grabbed me by 1/3rd of the way in it's not worth continuing with it) and the urge to hurl it out the window is proving irresistible. It's not often I say I hate a book, but I absolutely hate this, and yes, I realise I'm sticking my neck out, and I'll more than likely be in the minority, but c'est la vie. I cannot join the herd and say I like something when I don'tThis is a long, drawn out story about Lotto (short for Lancelot) and hi...

The trouble I have with contemporary literary fiction is that I’m still primed to expect it to be more than it is. Like most newer books I’ve read lately, this is an engaging series of improbable events happening to gorgeous people, which elucidates no serious truths about the world around me. There’s nothing wrong with that and I enjoyed reading it, but I feel a lingering pressure to feel more.

Two word review: pretentious garbage.My apologies to the author, Lauren Groff, for being so harsh, but this novel is terrible.Is Fates and Furies the worst novel I’ve read in 2015? We still have almost 3 full months remaining, but I have no doubt it will at least be in the top 3 worst reads of the year. I hated this novel. I only finished reading (hate-reading, actually) so I could have an outlet for my anger and disappointment: namely, writing a review of this novel.Reading the description that...

The characters in this novel are despicable, spiteful and plain unlikeable. However, that being said, Fates & Furies was a phenomenal read.This is the love story of Lotto and Mathilde. The Fates: The building up of a 20 year marriage. The Furies: The delayering of it. From perfection to perfectly flawed characters stripped of their stories living in their own play. The final act: A death reveals a truth. This is a backwards, upside down spiral of a story that will require the reader to piece it

The only reason why I gave this book 2 stars was because of the beautiful writing. However the stereotypical main characters, pretentious sentences that don't really mean anything, dry storyline, and forgettable characters almost left me in a reading slump. I was really disappointed with this one because I expected so much more from it (National Book Award and Pulitzer nominations) but once again I was a victim of book hype.

3.5 Stars I have a mixed feelings toward this novel. On the positive note... I was interested in the story about the married couple. I think this book is an excellent commentary on marriage.... what makes it work... and what makes it fail. The author captures each character's individuality.... while at the same time invites us to experience the intimacy of this marriage. I like much on this story-- yet.. I'm aware I was often 'detached'. This was not a book for me- that kept me turning pages wit...

“It occurred to her then that life was conical in shape, the past broadening beyond the sharp point of the lived moment. The more life you had, the more the base expanded, so that the wounds and treasons that were nearly imperceptible when they happened stretched like tiny dots on a balloon slowly blown up. A speck on the slender child grows into a gross deformity in the adult, inescapable, ragged at the edges.”I think that quote sums this book up pretty well. It's a book about perspective—and p...

The miracle of this ravishing novel is that it takes such well-worn subjects as marriage and the career of a writer and makes them utterly fresh and compelling because of Groff’s dazzling prose and the ingeniously revisionist structure of the book. The underlying premise here is that it’s much more difficult for a wife to sustain a happy marriage than it is for a husband. A generalisation of course. But a generalisation that was probably 90% true until this century and is probably still about 60...

Between his skin and hers, there was the smallest of spaces, barely enough for air, for this slick of sweat now chilling. Even still, a third person, their marriage, had slid in. This book is beautifully-written. I can't deny that and I won't try, which is why it gets an extra star. Fates and Furies is everyday poetry for those looking to turn the mundane into a meditation on the beauty of words and the power of metaphor. But when it comes to plot, characters and emotion, it leaves something

Even from her impossibly high starting point, Lauren Groff just keeps getting better and better. Her debut novel, “The Monsters of Templeton” (2008); her stirring story collection, “Delicate Edible Birds”; and my favorite book of 2012, “Arcadia ” — all demonstrated her exquisite style and tough, heart-breaking compassion. But her new novel, “Fates and Furies,” is a clear-the-ground triumph. Spanning decades, oceans and the whole economic scale from indigence to opulence, this novel holds within