Book Review: The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha

About:
The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha is the author’s debut novel. The idea for the novel began when Ms. Rakha met a mother of a murdered child in Silverton, OR who returned from visiting her daughter’s killer.

• 368 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767931742

My rating for The Crying Tree – 3

Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format*

Thoughts:
The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha is a deeply moving, well plotted book has many themes: forgiveness, redemption, belief, justice and the role of organized religion are among some of them. The book centers around Irene Stanley, wife to Nate – a policeman, mother to Bliss – a daughter, and Shep – her murdered son. Shep’s murderer, Daniel, is captured and sentenced to death while Irene keeps living as a zombie – walking in a daze and managing to get through the day with alcohol. On Shep’s would be 25th birthday she decides to write Daniel on death row and to her surprise – she receives a reply.

This is where the story actually starts!

Even though I liked this book, and it is a well written novel, the message the author tries attempts to send (personal forgiveness and redemption) seems a bit heavy handed at times and the ending, which to me was mostly predictable. The author handles multiple timelines well and even though the chapters not only jump from time, but also to a different place and characters it all seems to fit and not disjointed at all.

The ending of the book is where the story fell short, in my opinion. The characters were well drawn but the final chapters didn’t make sense at all, especially in the context given. I don’t want to spoil anything; the book is certainly worth reading and is enjoyable, but to me the ending fell short.

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I borrowed this book from the local library.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account