First: don’t read this book in public. It is a book about trees, yes, but dear god, it’s also about tragic deaths and accidents, and traces entire lifetimes in ways that make you realize you and everyone you love will end one day whether you like it or not. It is haunting and extensive. brb, now I have to tell some people that I love them and nothing bad is allowed to happen to them ever. I’m not emotional over a 500-page book about trees, YOU are.

This starts off as a short story collection before moving into braided-narrative novel territory: forest-as-novel form. It is well aware of its form, first showing us the nature of trees and then allowing us to realize its connection in the text. There is a pattern to the (many) plot twists in here, but for some reason, I never saw it coming, and everything feels like a surprise—does a great job of subverting expectations throughout.

I also have to speak to my experience reading it—I did not expect to be this invested, or this hypnotized. I have not been sucked into reading a book the way I was here for a long time. Putting it down is like waking up from a nap. It seems to know the exact moment when you get bored and switches tactics right then. Incredible piece of work. There are some books that I read and I’m like “yes, I can see a point in my life where I will be able to create something as good as this,” but oh my god, there is so much control over every part of this book.