Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff ~ Fiction Book Review

I loved this book in the beginning. I found the prose artful and engaging, abstract in that it tended more toward train of thought than adhering to the rules of proper grammar, which I really liked. (It wasn’t Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway train of thought – more like when you jot down ideas to get them on paper and don’t go back to edit them.) It was entertaining, insightful, well-paced . . . and then I entered Part 2.

The book is sectioned into Part 1, Fates, and Part 2, Furies. Both are the tale of a marriage, the first as seen through the eyes of the husband, the second through the eyes of the wife. I didn’t like the wife’s perspective as much. It seemed more focused on the way she viewed herself, the real her, versus the way her husband saw her, the way she wanted to be.

This book is very different from what I usually read. It was written in a different style, had a different subject matter, and was told in a different manner. I didn’t like the characters, but I liked the writing so much it didn’t matter. (I often don’t like the characters in books.) If the second half failed to please me as much as the first, it may have been due to the fact that it was a complete departure from what I was expecting. 4.5-5 stars.