A review by livlosiewicz
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Pros: 

• this book was so off-beat and a very different vibe than most other books I’ve read. It starts off as a literary fiction with characters waxing poetic about social justice and philosophizing about random things and it turns into a suspenseful novel partway through. It was super fun and I never had a good idea of where the vibe was going next, which was also really fun
• As someone who likes to think about hypothetical questions a lot, I liked some of the silly conversations that characters like Mira and Shelley had
• All of the characters are quite flawed in this book, so an additional fun layer was that I really didn’t know what I wanted to happen. I had some rooting interests, but the situations were so murky and messy and that was really fun

Cons: 

• it’s dense!! Only three chapters, and while the scenes switched, it made it trickier for me to pick out good stopping points. Some of the philosophical conversations got a little too dense for (I’m looking at you, Tony and Amber) but that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the book

Recommendation: What a fun, bizarre book! I recommend to folks who like offbeat literary fiction. The characters are what drive the novel here- there is a plot, but it’s slow to get going. If you like three-dimensional, flawed characters and unique plots, this could be a good one for you. Avoid if you want clear rooting interests, lovable characters, or hate seeing disasters unfold before you (because everything that happens in this book is like one disaster after another).