Reviews

The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra

itsmandaaa's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

utopiareads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

katiejames's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

agaba's review against another edition

challenging funny reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

raegaroo's review against another edition

4.0

I want to read everything this man has ever written

calliope421109's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

sophwigan's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

eveblunden's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

sam_bizar_wilcox's review against another edition

2.0

I found this book indulgent and contrived, with an extremely self-pitying narrator and a latent undercurrent of sentimentality that made the cutesy/quirky/dear conceit all the more tedious to me. Then, there's the misogyny: in the year of our Lord 2023, I'm tired of reading about women who "just be crazy" (like writing profanity on the walls of a house) in order to evoke sympathy for the male hero. The entire subplot with Karla was absolutely ridiculous (and so is the name-dropping literature professor who is just a milquetoast observer in his own life)-- it made it hard not to just give up on the book then and there. To give credit where credit is due, Zambra (and McDowell, his translator) absolutely delivers exceptional language on the sentence level (as the blurb from NPR on the cover points out), and the book is so short that it doesn't feel like a monumental waste of time. Moreover, I do admire what the author is trying to do, investigating the passage of time, a narrators anxiety in his tenuous relationship with a woman (who isn't home yet) and her daughter. It just never materialized for me, and that's a shame.

This isn't as smug or cheesy as some other books I've read, but it definitely didn't live up to the hype.

wordsmithreads's review against another edition

2.0

I should have DNF’d it, but by the time I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to read, I was 60% done (it’s very short!) and thought what the hey, I’ll just finish it.