Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you want to read a book about privileged white people who attended ivy league schools and who have tons of time to drink and have porn quality sex, then dive right in. If you want a book about a real marriage between real people with real problems, then look elsewhere. I found this book utterly pretentious. Lauren Groff wants us to know on every page--in every sentence, for God's sake--how very, very clever she is. Her writing stands in the way of the reader actually absorbing a story. For example, her characters are named Lancelot (Lotto) and Mathilde, and their dog is named God. So every time you read about them, in the phrase, for example, "God screamed", the narrative dream is broken and you are left wondering if you should make more of what you are reading than you are. Furthermore, there is nothing about the characters that inspires you to care about them. The choice to read to the end is compelled by the hope that something will happen that will make you finally care--make the laborious effort of reading through Lotto's pretentious plays worth it. Nothing ever does. Groff relies on Hollywood style plot twists that cast characters as either good or evil; doing things that are much more common in movies than in real life. There is nothing in these characters that a real person can relate to. I read this because it was chosen for the Morning Edition book group. I'm sorry I did.