A review by annemaries_shelves
The Overstory by Richard Powers

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I started this book in March 2020 and it took me almost 2 full years to read. 

There's two branches (heh) that my experience reading The Overstory could've gone down:

The first is a 5 star experience full of memorable characters, strong statements about nature, trees, environmentalism, and how humans are destroying the planet with our greed and need for more. With gorgeous writing and a clear love of trees woven throughout.

The other is my actual experience.

The second was a grandiose story that could've been told in 400-450 pages, where the last 150-200 pages were the most interesting of the whole novel (which are the parts I read in 2022).
Each section is represented by a part of the tree, and the Roots section is essentially 10 intros of 10 characters. The constant starting and re-starting made for a difficult entry into the novel as each character existed completely separately from the rest and only in subsequent sections were some of them connecting together. 
With respect to the characters - they were often times well realized and fleshed out and yet other times they fell flat. The characters who received more page time in subsequent sections often felt more developed and less stereotypical. Some of the characters didn't really have an impact on the story because they so rarely interacted with anyone else in the novel. The majority of characters were also presumed white - only 2 (from my 2020 recollection) were people of colour - a Chinese-American woman (who later
ends up with a facial disfigurement
) and Indian-American man (also a wheelchair user). I think a story like this would've benefited from a greater diversity of characters, which would more accurately reflect both our world and the environmental activism space. There was also a notable lack of Indigenous characters and world views. Considering there was only one Indigenous character (or presumed Indigenous) who appears in some of the last scenes to help out Nicholas, and who doesn't have a name and 'speaks to the trees in a very old language' - it might've been a good thing that Powers didn't attempt to write characters I sense he would've struggled with characterizing without stereotyping.

However, the nature writing was gorgeous and the love of trees obvious - I loved learning details about various trees and sharing the experiences of the characters. Nicholas and Olivia's experiences living in Mimas (a mature redwood tree) were some of my favourite scenes in the book. 

I think there were a lot of strong messages in here about the power of trees and the importance of environmental activism and protecting our natural resources for their own sakes. However, the novel felt a little too bloated due to all the characters attempting to generate these messages. 

And this final point is more due to marketing... I was expecting more speculative fiction elements of the trees literally talking to the characters and more change happening to save the trees. However, this was a novel incredibly grounded in reality and only hints of some characters 'hearing' what the trees were saying - which could be easily explained as a normal psychological phenomenon rather than the speculative element I was expecting. This is very much a work of literary fiction and I think some of the marketing did not emphasize that piece enough.

Overall, I'm glad I finally read it - I think the nature writing was great, and Powers knows how to tell a story. But his stories don't need to be this long with this many characters. 
Finishing it did keep me distracted during a very stressful weekend and for that I'll have fondness for it.
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