Richard Powers (1) (1957–)

I loved entering the world of trees through this multi-character narrative. I'm guessing the weave of the stories, their outstretched branches and roots, served as a metaphor in its own right to the complex lives of trees and forests. I took off one star because I wish it were 150 pages shorter, as I felt like I had to slog through a hefty portion. But finishing it felt pretty incredible. It was heartbreaking. Finally, I wanted to read the fictional character Patricia Westerford's book "The Secret Forest" which sounded spectacular. Fortunately there is the real book "The Hidden Life of Trees" to look forward to.
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After completing the audiobook, I needed to let the story soak in before posting a rating. There are a lot of thoughtful positive and negative reviews on Goodreads, so I will keep my thoughts brief.

The story is told through the POV of an astrobiologist, raising a son who has some unspecified type of medical diagnosis, though it comes across as autism. The father who is a person of science, completely disregards any recommendations involving 'western medicine' for his son and eventually embraces a controversial, unproven type of treatment. The emotionally charged exchanges between father and son were amplified in the audio version, so after a while I found them draining.

The environmental related interests of the son, Robin, brought up some subjects that are very relevant to what is going on in the world today. Unfortunately the author really glosses over the complexities of those issues. Instead, the focus is often on bedtime stories related between father and son, going into detailed explanations and technical simulations about the universe. ​By the disturbing end of the book, I questioned many of the father's decisions, though I did have empathy for his situation.

Overall, I didn't really care for the near constant dialogue, which was used as the primary method of storytelling. I also wasn't entirely sure what the intent of the author was. Is this an environmental book, a statement about the medical community, a political book or primarily a story about a father trying to figure out the best way to raise his troubled son? Maybe it is all of those and the author's intent doesn't matter.

I did feel the narration by Edoardo Ballerini was well done. In many ways the audio improved upon the story but in other ways it highlighted some of the flaws in the writing. I was hoping the interest in and connection I felt with the characters during the initial chapters would last throughout the entire audiobook but unfortunately that didn't happen, for me anyway. For now, I am giving it four stars, although I did consider a lower rating.

Noting: The content of this review was slightly edited after the initial posting. I also decided to add spoiler tags, although there aren't any detailed spoilers in my review.… (more)