Peter Boyle's Reviews > Matrix

This story begins in 1158, in the royal court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. And 17-year-old Marie doesn't fit in - her unusual height, plain looks and rural French accent setting her apart from more sophisticated contemporaries. Eleanor sends her away to live in a rundown abbey, much to Marie's heartbreak, as she has always held a deep admiration for her Queen. The abbey is in a sorry state, its twenty nuns starving and rudderless under the charge of a blind, scattered abbess. Marie takes over as prioress and transforms the institution, bringing in new rents, setting up a scriptorium and putting the nuns to work more suiting their abilities. She also begins to receive visions of the Virgin Mary, and these apparitions guide her ambitions for the abbey.

I'm afraid I didn't get on very well with this one. The setup is intriguing, and I rooted for our hero, hoping that she would show Eleanor the error of her decision and prove her wrong. However, it becomes apparent that the Queen has no interest in poor Marie, and unfortunately that subplot never caught fire. I thought that I would find life in a medieval abbey more interesting, but it all seemed to come a bit too easy to Marie - as other reviewers have noted, it felt like she overcame every obstacle without breaking a sweat. And I soon found the visions tiresome and repetitive. I have enjoyed the work of Lauren Groff in the past: Fates and Furies was a particular highlight. But Matrix never grabbed me, and I struggled to understand the point that it was trying to make.