From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

This Pulitzer Prize winner has been on my shelf for a while, and I admit I was drawn to this book by its pretty cover. The first 40% or so of the book consisted of introducing the reader to all of the different characters, and there are many. Because of this, the beginning of the book was quite slow and read like character studies. All of the characters were very multilayered and complex, and the writing was beautiful, so for me this wasn’t an issue, but if you’re a reader that needs a plot to move along quickly you’ll definitely struggle with this. The plot structure was quite unique and built over time with all of the characters’ storylines eventually converging. The book felt a bit long winded and dense at times and was a bit redundant. However it was beautifully written with a lot of poignant messages about environmentalism, conservation, activism, and resistance. I feel like I need to plant a tree or two after reading this lol.