Match BookThe Overstory
Richard Powers
2018 · 502 pages · Literary fiction
How it reads
The Overstory is literary fiction (environmental literary fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is melancholy. It's quietly sad, wistful and reflective. It's a slow burn: character-driven, with a payoff that comes from accumulation rather than twists. It rewards attention and suits unhurried reading more than five-minute gaps.
It's set in several locations, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are nature, family and loss and grief. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 502 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something melancholy
- you have time to settle in
- you want something to chew on
Maybe not if…
- you need something funny or hopeful
- you're reading in five-minute gaps
- you want something you can finish this weekend
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- literary fiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- contemporary
- Mood / feeling
- melancholy
- Pace
- slow burn
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- long
- Narrative style
- third person, several viewpoints
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- nature, family, loss and grief
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The Great Offshore GroundsVanessa VeselkaShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn- The Paper YearAvery AsterShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
- The Snow GardenChristopher RiceShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
Things Don't Break on Their OwnSarah Easter CollinsShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn- The Gap of TimeJeanette WintersonShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, bittersweet ending
The Lovely BonesAlice SeboldShares: literary fiction, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, slow burn
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