I’m not sure why this was on my TBR because it’s not really my thing?

The premise was interesting and the art was detailed and evocative. I’m just too squeamish.

I don’t know how 2-5 pan out, but so far, if you like Stranger Things, you might like this.

CN for homophobic slurs (criticized by other characters), gun violence, threatened sexual assault of 12 year olds, attempted suicide, accidental shooting.

Read for Read It or Remove It TBR challenge.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ- 2.81 ★

I was no stranger to proving my worth in kitchens where I’d chopped faster and worked longer than men who sang out honey, sweetheart, bitch. I’d inked my arms and, once, shaved my head to deliver the warning my stature could not. — page 17 (Kindle)

This book has a lot to say about living on a dying planet, about wealth, about human behaviour, about being a woman, and about (white) nationalism. But the way it says it all is very surreal and buried under a mountain of food & an unlikeable love interest.

The writing conveys the haziness of telling a story many years after the fact by an older woman who might not remember it all clearly. It makes you feel the out-of-time-ness of tragedy in progress during a pivotal scene. Honestly, the writing itself is expertly done. Eunice Wong’s narration is precise and she carries each character in a way you forget there is a single narrator.

I’d once possessed that strain of fury, as had my fellow cooks, my friends, my produce guy, a virulent rage against our tainted inheritance of this stupid, smog-choked planet. But it couldn’t last. We’d been inoculated from rage by other, more immediate concerns. For example: how to pay rent, how to stay alive. — page 58 (Kindle)

Zhang’s main character is in a place I think a lot of us are familiar with. The world is burning, and we care - of course we care, but what can we do? There’s a reason we were able to protest in numbers during 2020 that we aren’t able to here in 2026. She’s not super likeable, but there are ways we can relate. She never gets a name, which makes writing a review a bit clunky.

She takes a sketchy job from a man who is a sort of mash up of Bezos, Musk, and Trump. And falls in love with his scientist daughter. I’m not exactly baffled - she’s the only person our MC is allowed to have contact with during that time. But the girl (Aida - she actually has a name!) is basically batshit and annoying and between that and me not really caring about food (especially not fancy food), most of the book was pretty frustrating or boring.

I’m sure part of the surreality of the setting and plot were to create a sense of horror, but horror isn’t my thing, either. And it all gets weirder over time until almost the end.

How deep the grooves, how quiet the anger worn into this man who would forever measure himself against the expectations of those who found him lacking. — loc 2,911 (Kindle)

I think there’s a lot here that’s interesting - that if you like food & cooking, and can put up with reading about dramatic divas who play god, it’s worth it to read. It’s a good take on most of our current players in world politics, really, and where the rest of us are trapped at the moment. If you enjoy Severance-type surrealism, you might even love it. I don’t regret reading it, or thinking about it, I just couldn’t call it a good time.

Content notes (not comprehensive, just the ones I noted while reading) Animal abuse Animal killing/hunting (not for necessary sustenance) Small fire Accidental killing of a child (not a character) Long time illness of a pet Weight loss/gain for mental health reasons.

Notes & Highlights (goodreads link)

read for Storygraph TBR Read It or Remove it 2026 challenge - I think maybe originally added to TBR from Roxanne Gay’s review. Also met “New Beginnings” & “Baby Animals” for Dewey’s pre-readathon spring challenge.

ᨒ↟𖠰 2.75 ⭑

"But the bird cherry is alert and senses when the danger of inbreeding looms. When a pollen grain lands on a stigma, its genes are activated and it grows a delicate tube down to the ovary in search of an egg. As it is doing this, the tree tests the genetic makeup of the pollen and, if it matches its own, blocks the tube, which then dries up." from page 22

This book is as much about forests as trees, and as whimsical as it is scientific. I wasn't pulled in very often, but there are some fascinating bits and pieces and the rest was pleasant to listen to. Listening to Mike Grady narrate was a bit like listening to David Attenborough ramble, which I think made him a perfect choice for this rambling book. I'm not sure I understand the organization of it, but it probably makes more sense in the native language/culture (German). The Kindle version from the library had some lovely tree line drawings here and there.

The translation was at least somewhat localized, seeming to use a mix of imperial and metric and explaining specific German concepts that don't quite translate.

I do have a bit of a gripe with how sense words like "sight," and "taste" are (mis)used, but I get that the point of the book is to humanize trees a little so we're kinder to them.

Probably the best parts of the book, and I wish they were more cohesively organized, was how everything (everything) is interconnected - both within a tree and inside a forest. How, yes, all living organisms are adaptable to a point, but it does hurt us in the long run. Human tampering cannot be gentle or knowledgeable enough to overcome the complex web of systems to do it in a way that doesn't compromise the other living things around us... but will we ever believe that?

I believe the voice is meant to be accessible to teens as well as adults, so if you have a botany/nature/foresty teen, I wouldn't hesitate to gift this (though the graphic adaptation may be more fun).

Read for Dewey’s Readathon Pre-readathon Spring Challenge for the prompt: Read a book with a cover that gives spring vibes.