Jennie's Reviews > Birnam Wood

I do not normally give reviews on a book that I did not finish but in this case I felt the need to.

I barely dragged myself through part one of Birnam Wood, so this will be only about part one. This book is stream of consciousness writing and there are multiple story lines and POV characters that bleed into one another. So try to know immediately from one paragraph the next whose story you are on is difficult, you also have no idea how much is left of that segment. There are no chapters so it makes it hard to know where a stopping point is in the story.

Now that structure is out of the way, the story is boring and the characters are annoying. The bulk of the characters are Gen Z eco-fighters who go an "borrow" other peoples property so they can plant plants on public or other people's properties without their knowledge or consent. The story revolves around the leader of Birnam Wood (the eco group), Mira. When a natural disaster occurs several hours away she decides that this would be the best place to guerilla garden since all of the residents have left. While trespassing on a rich man's property she meets a billionaire tech designer who is there for is own, non-legal reasons.

Like I said, I found this characters so annoying that I did not want to read on but the worst part of part one is the meeting of Birnam Wood during which there is a very long discussion amongst a bunch of middle class white people discussing social injustices. It is a scene of the worst types of allies. I just could not go on after this. Not sure if the rest of the novel is better but at that point I did not care. None of these characters are heroes and I hoped they all failed.