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A review by audleigh
From the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots of Our Fairytales by Sara Maitland
2.0
I again find myself with a book that I came into with high expectations and little payoff. I believe this book is best suited to people from the UK or who have very strong physical connections to the UK. I felt the author was disinterested in an international audience given her writing style. I was willing to overlook all that as I tend to have heavy fondness for most things British despite never having visited there. However, I could not get on with the authorial voice at all. I did finish the book, did read every single word in the main body of the book. I knew at about the 35 page mark that I wasn't invested but I plowed on, pausing again that 100 page mark to consider the merits of DNFing it. But that's not really my style so I pushed on.
This book is certainly for someone. I know people who have enjoyed this book which is part of what made me expect to have a better relationship with it. However, I felt the author got bogged down in specifics that didn't interest me in the non-fiction portion of most chapters. It wasn't uncommon for me to want a chapter to be shortened by several pages because I thought there was too much extra information that didn't enhance my reading experience. The other problem is that I didn't enjoy any of the author's fairytale retellings. I can't say exactly what it was that I didn't like beyond the authorial voice, something that is a matter of taste rather than something that could have been fixed in the editing process.
Another major issue for me was having the wrong expectations going in. The first chapter is set up in such a way that I thought the author would be travelling with her son and discussing fairytales before sharing a fairytale at the end of each chapter. While, there is a fairytale retelling at the end of each chapter, the main chapter body is about her considering the science and history of forests and (to a lesser degree) their relationship with the stories we've set in and around them. At no point beyond the first chapter does another person's voice seem to ring out. It's mostly the author giving us facts, figures, and history so it lacked that personal element I had so greatly wanted.
In the end, what I had hoped would be a sweet, homey chat in the woods turned out to be somewhere between popular science and popular history non-fiction. If I had known that beforehand, I would not have bought the book.
This book is certainly for someone. I know people who have enjoyed this book which is part of what made me expect to have a better relationship with it. However, I felt the author got bogged down in specifics that didn't interest me in the non-fiction portion of most chapters. It wasn't uncommon for me to want a chapter to be shortened by several pages because I thought there was too much extra information that didn't enhance my reading experience. The other problem is that I didn't enjoy any of the author's fairytale retellings. I can't say exactly what it was that I didn't like beyond the authorial voice, something that is a matter of taste rather than something that could have been fixed in the editing process.
Another major issue for me was having the wrong expectations going in. The first chapter is set up in such a way that I thought the author would be travelling with her son and discussing fairytales before sharing a fairytale at the end of each chapter. While, there is a fairytale retelling at the end of each chapter, the main chapter body is about her considering the science and history of forests and (to a lesser degree) their relationship with the stories we've set in and around them. At no point beyond the first chapter does another person's voice seem to ring out. It's mostly the author giving us facts, figures, and history so it lacked that personal element I had so greatly wanted.
In the end, what I had hoped would be a sweet, homey chat in the woods turned out to be somewhere between popular science and popular history non-fiction. If I had known that beforehand, I would not have bought the book.