First, the good: I learned a lot of different things about trees and the forest.

The bad: I couldn’t tell what this book was supposed to be about. Was it about some specific aspect of trees and/or the forest? Was it meant to draw readers in, who may want to learn more in the future? Was it an environmentalist text? A memoir? Something else? I simply couldn’t tell.

The writing here on indigenous peoples in Canada felt particularly egregious, although I think Wohlleben simply doesn’t know enough about them. Moreover, he seemed to just have a general naivety about the world in general, which was touching, but it made the book feel a bit wishy-washy.

I like Wohlleben’s writing, and I heard good things about his other books, but this one just didn’t do it for me. Better luck next time.