Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In all my 55 years of constant reading, this might be the most annoying, irritating book I have ever read. If the author was trying to make a point about trees, he might have done better with a long-form article in The New Yorker Magazine for the self-importent and erudite to slave over. If he had wanted to write a novel, -a *good story* - he should have left out all the handwringing and lecturing, and about one third of the convoluted story lines. But the combination of the two forms results in a mishmash of wispy, artsy prose, insufficient science, painful word painting, and no good tale. As a novel, there are far too many characters, not one of which is well-developed, far too many stories, and oh my heavens, words, words, words, words, and more words. The pointless poetic prose of this book, with hundreds or even thousands of unnecessary ellipses, incomplete thoughts, obscure references, inscrutable allusions, meaningless phrases and more is enough to make even a very patient reader want to throw this book in the nearest mud puddle. Seriously, this book desperately needed a ruthless editor who would have insisted the author get to the point. As a story teller, he does little to satisfy our need and craving for a good narrative. Plots weave and intertwine, go forward, backwards, digress, break off into tangents, and trail off with no good sense of purpose, climax, conclusion, or “moral of the story.” There is no humor, no romance, no suspense, and no sense of satisfaction, only gloom, doom, and depression. I was obligated to read this work for a book group that meets every five to six weeks in the tiny village I live near, otherwise I would have chucked after the first one hundred pages. I thought and hoped that, living on sixty acres, most of which is untouched forest, this book would have affected and educated me deeply. Instead, all I feel is confused, disappointed, and less informed than I was before I started reading.