Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
7 reviews
camoo3032's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
This book is an autobiography interdispersed with science. Although both were interesting, the way they were spread throughout the book disrupted the flow of it. You never knew what the next page would contain (personal life or method of an experiment)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical content and Cancer
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, Misogyny, War, Car accident, Child abuse, Pregnancy, and Grief
caelysium's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Sexism
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Grief, and Pregnancy
purplepenning's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer and Death
Moderate: Alcohol, Cursing, Grief, Pregnancy, Misogyny, and Sexism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Colonisation, and Dementia
hmatt's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.25
This book was... not what I expected.
I have been on a tree-book kick lately, and I was excited to learn about the relationships between trees in what the title would suggest is an accessible way. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the writing that described these natural relationships to be laden with scientific jargon. I think it may be more easier for folks with even a 101 undergraduate science background, or people who have read more tree-books than I have, to understand, but it left me with my eyes glazing over.
These sections were interspersed between personal autobiographical details. One thing to know going into this read is that these personal sections are not limited to anecdotes or career-specific stories. They actually make up a large chunk of the book. In my opinion, these inclusions were a bit much. I thought it necessary and interesting to learn about how the author's career developed and how she struggled to be taken seriously in her field, but I didn't care for the larger inclusions about her family and personal illness (in this context, at least). To me, these sections distracted from the main focus of the book. I actually would have been interested in reading an autobiography from the author, but as a separate book without the forced parallels she tries to draw between human relationships and natural relationships. There's a case to be made that there are significant parallels in our relationships, I do believe that, but I found the tonal shift between the science talk and the personal talk too jarring to be convincing. The personal/casual writing style in these bits actually didn't work for me on its own, either.
Okay last thing I'll rag on the book for: it falls victim to the pitfalls of "we-let-the-author-narrate-the-audiobook". I talk about this in all my reviews of autobiography/memoir. It's book suicide like >80% of the time. This author even discusses how bad they are at public speaking in the book.
All this said, it's a book I didn't hate. I think, as I mentioned, that some people will be more equipped than I am to take a lot of interesting information from it. I learned some things about trees, albeit some pretty basic things. I'm happy to see that the physical copy of the book has plates with photos - I find these enhance the read. The photo captions are some of my favourite parts of the book. I would have liked to see more (any) diagrams to help illustrate some of the processes described, too. I appreciated the upfront and recurrent acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledges and expertise in this area, too.
I have been on a tree-book kick lately, and I was excited to learn about the relationships between trees in what the title would suggest is an accessible way. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the writing that described these natural relationships to be laden with scientific jargon. I think it may be more easier for folks with even a 101 undergraduate science background, or people who have read more tree-books than I have, to understand, but it left me with my eyes glazing over.
These sections were interspersed between personal autobiographical details. One thing to know going into this read is that these personal sections are not limited to anecdotes or career-specific stories. They actually make up a large chunk of the book. In my opinion, these inclusions were a bit much. I thought it necessary and interesting to learn about how the author's career developed and how she struggled to be taken seriously in her field, but I didn't care for the larger inclusions about her family and personal illness (in this context, at least). To me, these sections distracted from the main focus of the book. I actually would have been interested in reading an autobiography from the author, but as a separate book without the forced parallels she tries to draw between human relationships and natural relationships. There's a case to be made that there are significant parallels in our relationships, I do believe that, but I found the tonal shift between the science talk and the personal talk too jarring to be convincing. The personal/casual writing style in these bits actually didn't work for me on its own, either.
Okay last thing I'll rag on the book for: it falls victim to the pitfalls of "we-let-the-author-narrate-the-audiobook". I talk about this in all my reviews of autobiography/memoir. It's book suicide like >80% of the time. This author even discusses how bad they are at public speaking in the book.
All this said, it's a book I didn't hate. I think, as I mentioned, that some people will be more equipped than I am to take a lot of interesting information from it. I learned some things about trees, albeit some pretty basic things. I'm happy to see that the physical copy of the book has plates with photos - I find these enhance the read. The photo captions are some of my favourite parts of the book. I would have liked to see more (any) diagrams to help illustrate some of the processes described, too. I appreciated the upfront and recurrent acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledges and expertise in this area, too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Misogyny, Medical content, and Sexism
Moderate: Pregnancy, Grief, Death, Dementia, and Alcohol
brodiemarshall's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Misogyny, and Death
deedireads's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
Finding the Mother Tree wasn’t quite what I’d expected, but it was interesting and taught me something new and I’m glad I read it. I also recommend the audiobook!
For you if: You like nonfiction about nature AND memoirs.
FULL REVIEW:
TL;DR REVIEW:
Finding the Mother Tree wasn’t quite what I’d expected, but it was interesting and taught me something new and I’m glad I read it. I also recommend the audiobook!
For you if: You like nonfiction about nature AND memoirs.
FULL REVIEW:
“Plants are attuned to one another's strengths and weaknesses, elegantly giving and taking to attain exquisite balance. There is grace in complexity, in actions cohering, in sum totals.”
After buddy reading Braiding Sweetgrass and loving it, two friends and I decided to choose another nature nonfiction to read together and landed on Finding the Mother Tree. It’s written by the woman who discovered just how connected and intelligent trees truly are.
I liked it for sure, although I didn’t quite *love* it. But that’s more of a “me thing” than a book thing. First of all, nothing can live up to Braiding Sweetgrass. Shoulda known that. But also, I didn’t read the synopsis carefully enough. I had expected it to be about the connections between trees, but this is about the story of how she discovered those connections. It’s much more like a memoir. And so I kept feeling like the book hadn’t started yet. About halfway through, though, I realized that my expectations were off and fell into the rhythm, and from then on I enjoyed the reading experience a lot more.
Simard’s family have been foresters for generations, but when she was young and working for a forestry company, she noticed that their attempts to comply with reforestation initiatives wasn’t really working. This propelled her down a career of scientific study and discovery that angered policymakers and had her butting heads with men who wanted nothing more than to dismiss her, but led to our modern understanding of the incredible reciprocity and communication that occurs between trees.
If you have any kind of science background, I think you’d really like this one, because she goes into detail about all her experiences and really takes us along on the journey. If you’re not a science person (like me), I recommend the audiobook. It was well narrated and definitely helped me stay engaged through the parts that otherwise might have lost me.
All in all, even though I struggled a bit, this book definitely taught me things and I’m glad I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer
Moderate: Misogyny
maddox22's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Colonisation, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexism
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