Reviews

Birnam Wood is a wonderfully dark and unusual literary thriller. The title is taken from a line in Macbeth, and I’d say there are definitely some Macbeth-inspired details in the plot, although I don’t want to say any more for fear of spoilers, but suffice to say that this could be called a tragedy and a rumination on power. The plot focuses on a small community guerilla gardening group in New Zealand, that is to say a group that gardens on abandoned or unused strips of land, without the legal authority to do so. The group in the book is a hodgepodge of characters with a whole raft of political or ideological motivations, slightly chaotic but, as with Lord of the Flies, making up a sort of microcosm of society as a whole, for the drama to play out within. Their idealistic leader Mira goes off without the knowledge of the rest of the group, to see an abandoned farm after a landslide with a view to a more ambitious project that might allow them to break even - but while there she stumbles across a mysterious billionaire who at first frightens her but then offers her an unbelievable deal that, if they accept it, will allow Birnam Wood both to farm the site and to achieve more than their wildest ambitions. While the group votes to accept this offer, it is one that immediately begins to cause rifts and upsets. The billionaire Robert Lemoine, who made his fortune in surveillance drones, also has his own agenda which begins to spiral out of control as a consequence of Birnam Wood being on the scene.
Although this is nothing like Catton’s previous novel The Luninaries, I think it’s a clever concept and I mostly enjoyed it.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Granta for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

kells30's review against another edition

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4.0

Birnam Wood is a wonderfully dark and unusual literary thriller. The title is taken from a line in Macbeth, and I’d say there are definitely some Macbeth-inspired details in the plot, although I don’t want to say any more for fear of spoilers, but suffice to say that this could be called a tragedy and a rumination on power. The plot focuses on a small community guerilla gardening group in New Zealand, that is to say a group that gardens on abandoned or unused strips of land, without the legal authority to do so. The group in the book is a hodgepodge of characters with a whole raft of political or ideological motivations, slightly chaotic but, as with Lord of the Flies, making up a sort of microcosm of society as a whole, for the drama to play out within. Their idealistic leader Mira goes off without the knowledge of the rest of the group, to see an abandoned farm after a landslide with a view to a more ambitious project that might allow them to break even - but while there she stumbles across a mysterious billionaire who at first frightens her but then offers her an unbelievable deal that, if they accept it, will allow Birnam Wood both to farm the site and to achieve more than their wildest ambitions. While the group votes to accept this offer, it is one that immediately begins to cause rifts and upsets. The billionaire Robert Lemoine, who made his fortune in surveillance drones, also has his own agenda which begins to spiral out of control as a consequence of Birnam Wood being on the scene.
Although this is nothing like Catton’s previous novel The Luminaries, I think it’s a clever concept and I mostly enjoyed it.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Granta for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

alicepeacockk's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

bjor6n's review against another edition

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adventurous informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

tedgraham's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense fast-paced

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

4.25

aliciareadsthebooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

sassysparky's review against another edition

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3.0

WTF

This book is wild. I don’t know what I just read. The plot is really kind of interesting but there were so many lectures and internal monologue.

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