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Greenwood

Michael Christie

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Mar 28, 2021 Melinda Worfolk rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-2024, book-club, canadian, fiction, canada-reads, historical-fiction, lgbtq-plus, giller-winners-and-nominees

I loved this book! It was a real page turner, and beautifully written. Although the opening and ending (2038) were just okay for me, I loved the rest of it so much I'm going to give it 5 stars anyway. My very favourite character was Everett, and I found his story the most emotionally rewarding and moving. This is a book about family, chosen family, dysfunction, trauma, secrets, and the power of place and nature.

"Everett has always avoided children, but since finding the baby, he's been noticing I loved this book! It was a real page turner, and beautifully written. Although the opening and ending (2038) were just okay for me, I loved the rest of it so much I'm going to give it 5 stars anyway. My very favourite character was Everett, and I found his story the most emotionally rewarding and moving. This is a book about family, chosen family, dysfunction, trauma, secrets, and the power of place and nature.

"Everett has always avoided children, but since finding the baby, he's been noticing when their coats are ripped at the armpits, or when their pants are more patch than pant, or when their rickets are so bad they're chewing their palms for the texture of meat." (The City)

"...Temple has no illusions concerning her library's impact. Her books won't lift anyone from their low station. They won't right wrongs or save wandering souls from perdition or fill grumbling stomachs. But they might let a few scraps of sunlight fall into some lean, desolate lives, and that's something." (The Great Library of Estevan, Saskatchewan)

"The old saying goes that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But in Willow's experience, the opposite is more likely to be true. An apple is nothing but a seed's escape vehicle, just one of the ingenious ways they hitch rides--in the bellies of animals, or by taking to the wind--all to get as far away from their parents as they possibly can. So is it any wonder the daughters of dentists open candy stores, the sons of accountants become gambling addicts, the children of couch potatoes run marathons? She's always believed that most people's lives are lived as one great refutation of the ones that came before them." (Black Cars)
AND YET...
"[Willow is] nearly giddy at the thought of what a wonderful, forest-defending, nature-attuned soul her son will become after he grows up on that island." (Bequeathment)

"Why is it that people are engineered to live just long enough to pile up a lifetime of mistakes, but not long enough to fix them?" (Bequeathment) ...more

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