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The Only Dreamy/Nightmarish Novel I Loved To Read, And Then Hated
In eighteen years of reading, I’ve never read a book like this.
I’m all for unlikeable, faulty characters but only when I can understand their motivations.
Lauren Groff is one of my favourite literary authors. I have already reviewed another work of hers, Delicate Little Birds. Since I loved that one so much, I decided to pick up her 400-page marriage saga — Fates and Furies. It was shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2015.
The story is split in the middle, and then repeated. Basically, the events are the same, just told twice from different narratives. The first half (Fates) is the husband’s point of view of his two-decade marriage, and the other half (Furies) is the wife’s.
As a writer, I know that’s a daunting perspective but that’s what had me intrigued in the first place. If you are interested in such writing styles, I recommend Lionel Shriver’s Orange Prize Winner, The Post Birthday World, and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
Fair Warning: Fates and Furies gets compared to Gone Girl all the time. I do not agree to that idea.
