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A review by kennnedyexe
The Overstory by Richard Powers
3.0
i wanted so badly to give this more stars because i loved the concept and a lot of the writing especially at the beginning, but there were just a bunch of little things that kept chipping away at my appreciation for it.
the way this book dealt with race, queerness, and women really irked me. the way the book kept referring to mimi as "ethnically ambiguous" well into the story as if it was the most important thing about her, really the romanticization of mimi's race felt off to me. the fact that every single woman had to have a (frankly quite forced) love interest. and besides that the book is painfully straight. the only time queerness is mentioned it is tokenized and seen as an experimental college phase, and it is specific only to the women, so that the audience with think it's kinda hot i guess?
other than all that i did like the format of the book, with all the different stories converging eventually and the multigenerational time scale. and i liked the point/message of the book even though it did get a bit preach-y at times.
the way this book dealt with race, queerness, and women really irked me. the way the book kept referring to mimi as "ethnically ambiguous" well into the story as if it was the most important thing about her, really the romanticization of mimi's race felt off to me. the fact that every single woman had to have a (frankly quite forced) love interest. and besides that the book is painfully straight. the only time queerness is mentioned it is tokenized and seen as an experimental college phase, and it is specific only to the women, so that the audience with think it's kinda hot i guess?
other than all that i did like the format of the book, with all the different stories converging eventually and the multigenerational time scale. and i liked the point/message of the book even though it did get a bit preach-y at times.