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A review by siriuscrack
Greenwood by Michael Christie
2.0
Painfully similar to Cloud Cuckoo Land -- from the complex interweaving narrative spanning different characters and time, to that narrative being nominally structured around some concept too abstract to actually support any cohesive theme, all the way down to having a pivotal reclusive character find meaning in life through his gay awaking -- ultimately the weird generation-spanning tangled narrative is executed I think a good bit better in this book, leading to a very extended, very satisfying payoff over the last several chapters as the massive tangle unfurls. Definitely my favorite part of the book.
That said, I do think the book sucks. I think I would not get along very well at all with the person who wrote this book, which I got from an overwhelming number of disagreements with writing decisions, from nitpicks to minor issues, just all throughout the book. There are so many, and they don't really fit into any larger more cohesive problems, so I can't really enumerate them, but I don't know... stuff like the central storyline being centered around a billionaire and the ways that it expected us to engage with that. Or the way it depicted a "radical" environmentalist, in a story pretty heavily involved with climate catastrophe, as a confused, hysterical impotent, <i>and then</i> the way it was unclear whether that was meant to be a positive depiction. There's almost something like a theme that exists throughout several narratives that seems to be something about the importance of refusing the ability to make the change you want to see in the world possible, while the book also seems to make fun of people too ideologically driven to keep their head on straight and their feet on the ground. It's also like randomly really moralizing about drugs? And the importance of motherhood? There's also like a surprising use of a racial slur, weird expressions of what empowered women look like, weird digs at leftists, random unironic "phone bad" "kids bad" stuff. Again just too many weird little things to list. bad book. weird book. cringe book.
That said, I do think the book sucks. I think I would not get along very well at all with the person who wrote this book, which I got from an overwhelming number of disagreements with writing decisions, from nitpicks to minor issues, just all throughout the book. There are so many, and they don't really fit into any larger more cohesive problems, so I can't really enumerate them, but I don't know... stuff like the central storyline being centered around a billionaire and the ways that it expected us to engage with that. Or the way it depicted a "radical" environmentalist, in a story pretty heavily involved with climate catastrophe, as a confused, hysterical impotent, <i>and then</i> the way it was unclear whether that was meant to be a positive depiction. There's almost something like a theme that exists throughout several narratives that seems to be something about the importance of refusing the ability to make the change you want to see in the world possible, while the book also seems to make fun of people too ideologically driven to keep their head on straight and their feet on the ground. It's also like randomly really moralizing about drugs? And the importance of motherhood? There's also like a surprising use of a racial slur, weird expressions of what empowered women look like, weird digs at leftists, random unironic "phone bad" "kids bad" stuff. Again just too many weird little things to list. bad book. weird book. cringe book.