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A review by 600bars
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
4.0
For the first half of this book, I thought “this is going to be the first time I hate something but still give it 5 stars”. The author is just so MEAN! She seems to hate her characters! Seriously she was beating the shit out of Lotto like he was Job.
I figured the bracket voice was to mimic stage direction, but also to be the voice of the Fates. The whole book I was stressed by my lack of Greek knowledge. I’ve read Antigone, listened to hadestown, had a shiny MYTHOLOGY book in second grade, and maybe read 2 Percy Jackson books. That’s the extent of my classics knowledge. I thought maybe the Land/Mathilde dalliance has to do w oedipus Rex but I haven’t read that so I don’t know. I wish I had read this w more knowledge of Greek stuff and Shakespeare because there was clearly stuff I wasn’t getting.
I didn’t give this five stars because the second half was unable to live up to the first. The stupid jacket cover straight up tells you that there’s going to be a Gone Girl switchup halfway thru the story, which was dumb as hell to tell me even tho I probably would have figured it out anyway.
I could not tear myself away during the first half. Kai said “This book is like cocaine for your ADHD monkous brain”. It was absurd soap opera levels of drama. There were at least 4 suicides and 3 sudden deaths. Just walloping the characters w one trauma after another which was egregious but I decided to go with it. But the problem is the suspense of finding out the truth behind the obviously mysterious Mathilde is better than the actual truth. Like nothing could have lived up to the unknowing short of being a serial killer, which would’ve been too cliche. I thought Mathilde was gonna be the ghostwriter for all the plays though I thought what Groff had her do w string pulling was better.
Groff is so concerned with weight and thinness and body size. It comes up so much. It’s easy to hate the protagonists who are long tall model perfect, with one flaw each: lottos acne and Mathildes stinky armpits.
Why did this book use the word “peen” so much.....I squirmed every time.
Being this horny seems like a curse and not desirable at all. Also their relationship was so sexually charged but they didn’t have that adventurous of a sex life tbh
It boggles my mind how people could not know their spouse like this. They did not seem to have a friendship in their marriage, and I don’t understand how a romantic relationship can work without a basis of friendship. Idk how you can last 24 years on sexual obsession alone.
Mathilde thought she was a Lotto expert, but we know she doesn’t know him as well as she thinks she does. she is so confident in his heterosexuality when the reader knows that isn’t the case.
Mathilde definitely posts on r/childfree. Such contempt for children and “breeders”!
I’m still fuzzy on Chollies chosen reveal and why he did it when he did.
The ending w Mathildes failed play/publishing poetry under a pseudonym (felt the same about this in crawdads sing) didn’t hit that hard idk maybe I just sorta checked out in the last half.
This was trying to be a highbrow version of gone girl but nothing can live up to that book in terms of hatefulness levels, and that twist genuinely made my
jaw drop. I can see why people would hate this book bc I was feeling myself hating it the whole time, but I was also ADDICTED to reading it, so I had to give it a high rating.
Anyway the first half was full throttle ridiculous and deliciously hateful. I was liking how over the top it was. I wished the second half had been just as insane but I recognize that no answer can be as satisfying as the magic of the unknown.
I figured the bracket voice was to mimic stage direction, but also to be the voice of the Fates. The whole book I was stressed by my lack of Greek knowledge. I’ve read Antigone, listened to hadestown, had a shiny MYTHOLOGY book in second grade, and maybe read 2 Percy Jackson books. That’s the extent of my classics knowledge. I thought maybe the Land/Mathilde dalliance has to do w oedipus Rex but I haven’t read that so I don’t know. I wish I had read this w more knowledge of Greek stuff and Shakespeare because there was clearly stuff I wasn’t getting.
I didn’t give this five stars because the second half was unable to live up to the first. The stupid jacket cover straight up tells you that there’s going to be a Gone Girl switchup halfway thru the story, which was dumb as hell to tell me even tho I probably would have figured it out anyway.
I could not tear myself away during the first half. Kai said “This book is like cocaine for your ADHD monkous brain”. It was absurd soap opera levels of drama. There were at least 4 suicides and 3 sudden deaths. Just walloping the characters w one trauma after another which was egregious but I decided to go with it. But the problem is the suspense of finding out the truth behind the obviously mysterious Mathilde is better than the actual truth. Like nothing could have lived up to the unknowing short of being a serial killer, which would’ve been too cliche. I thought Mathilde was gonna be the ghostwriter for all the plays though I thought what Groff had her do w string pulling was better.
Groff is so concerned with weight and thinness and body size. It comes up so much. It’s easy to hate the protagonists who are long tall model perfect, with one flaw each: lottos acne and Mathildes stinky armpits.
Why did this book use the word “peen” so much.....I squirmed every time.
Being this horny seems like a curse and not desirable at all. Also their relationship was so sexually charged but they didn’t have that adventurous of a sex life tbh
It boggles my mind how people could not know their spouse like this. They did not seem to have a friendship in their marriage, and I don’t understand how a romantic relationship can work without a basis of friendship. Idk how you can last 24 years on sexual obsession alone.
Mathilde thought she was a Lotto expert, but we know she doesn’t know him as well as she thinks she does. she is so confident in his heterosexuality when the reader knows that isn’t the case.
Mathilde definitely posts on r/childfree. Such contempt for children and “breeders”!
I’m still fuzzy on Chollies chosen reveal and why he did it when he did.
The ending w Mathildes failed play/publishing poetry under a pseudonym (felt the same about this in crawdads sing) didn’t hit that hard idk maybe I just sorta checked out in the last half.
This was trying to be a highbrow version of gone girl but nothing can live up to that book in terms of hatefulness levels, and that twist genuinely made my
jaw drop. I can see why people would hate this book bc I was feeling myself hating it the whole time, but I was also ADDICTED to reading it, so I had to give it a high rating.
Anyway the first half was full throttle ridiculous and deliciously hateful. I was liking how over the top it was. I wished the second half had been just as insane but I recognize that no answer can be as satisfying as the magic of the unknown.