"Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets ... At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and ...

NUBClub liked Groff before with Arcadia, but our appreciation went to a whole new level with Fates and Furies. We all found the book to be a powerful and profound look at how privilege shapes lives, and how love, support, and jealousy can intersect. What made the book so powerful was how true Groff was to the two characters' perspectives. She does an equally good job at looking at Lotto's precious and tortured relationship to art as to Mathilde's diligence and caution in approaching the harsh realities that Lotto can't see. We deeply respected the fact that Groff did not cheaply make Lotto a hack, and loved the moment when Mathilde realized that she did not have the same creative gift he had. At the same time, we felt that the book was held together by the believable strength of the couple's love, even though that love led to a deeply uneven power dynamic. Groff created a relationship that reflected a truth about creativity and dependence that we found utterly convincing, and even though we could see the naivete and bitterness running through the characters, we never stopped rooting for them, or ever doubted their feelings. Creating a couple that is so problematic and yet so compelling and sympathetic is not a small feat, and that Groff does so with such grace and power makes this one of the better things NUBClub has ever discussed.