Fiction: The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff

Bought this one in an airport due at least partly to its paper-cut-out looking cover (Yo, Chicken, you would LOVE it, have you seen it????) and its Stephen King blurb.

Definitely fits into that “damaged girl comes home, solves mystery” genre (like Sharp Objects but a little less dark).

I have some misgivings: some of the characters made me a little crazy; I’m not sure the historical stuff ever really found its way IN to the story / didn’t quite coalesce; and there’s at least one character who I, and I would assume many readers feel this way, still have outstanding concerns about as the book ends.

But I liked the tone, I liked the focus on academia, the almost, but not quite, high-browed literariness of it. And I loved the contrast between the unmonstrousness of the actual monster and the metaphoricness of the Monsters of the title. Some stuff really well done. Very textured and tactile.