Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Apr 10, 2011

Steve rated it:

I have admired Caitlin Kiernan's short stories for some time now, so I was excited about finally getting to one of her novels. I wasn't disappointed. The Red Tree is a very ambitious effort, an accomplished metafiction that is certainly horrific, but also stands as a piece of literature. It's a damn shame the book is saddled with some of the worst, and most misleading, cover art I've seen in some time. (It's packaged as a YA novel, with a brooding goth chick on the front. If I were to rate More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Jamie rated it:

I liked this and was sufficiently freaked out (I didn't really realize it was a horror novel until about half way in), but I was hoping for a bit more supernatural and a bit less psychoanalysis. Which it wasn't even really that, more Sarah getting stuck in her head too much (and lord knows I know enough about that myself). I actually identified quite a bit with Sarah - mostly the overthinking things to death, hating her own writing, seeing metaphors in everything. I like to think I've moved p More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Kathryn rated it:

Apparently I missed the boat here because this book gets many rave reviews. It was absolutely drudgery for me to read – so much so I didn’t finish the book. I got to about page 220 and it just didn’t reel me in to make me want to find out what it was all about. I wanted to stick with it but perhaps because I have read a rash of really lousy books lately I just gave up on it.

I don’t like classic horror and certainly not gore so I thought this would be right up my alley. But the prota More...

0 comments like

Jul 25, 2011

Hannah rated it:

Often I read books or watch films, and the momentum pulls me forward enough that I overlook plotholes or pacing problems. This is all well and good, but then in hindsight I realise what the problems were, and I no longer enjoy it at the same level. For me The Red Tree provoked the opposite effect: I enjoyed it more in retrospect, and now feel pretty fond of it.

The story begins with an editor writing a preface about the troubled narrator Sarah Crowe. This lays hints about her unreliabil More...

0 comments like

Jun 25, 2011

Alex rated it:

Part way through The Red Tree, I congratulated myself on not feeling creeped out by this excellently creepy story. However, by the time I finished the book and put it down, there is no way in Hell I would have gone down into my cellar after dark. During the day maybe, but only while resolutely thinking about laundry and avoiding the dark corners.
Kiernan's writing is so well-crafted and her research so excellent that despite the ambiguities of the plot, or perhaps because of them, I was draw More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 22, 2011

Traci rated it:

First of all I should state Caitlin R. Kiernan can definately write. I did like her style and narrative voice. I would recommend this to most readers of horror even though not everyone will like it. One of those books that even though it didn't end up being a favorite I'm glad I read it. However the plot itself was almost completely missing. And what was there I have seen before and nothing was a surprise. Even though I liked the voice of the writer I didn't like Sarah. And I got the feeling Kie More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 29, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

I picked this off the corpse of the local Borders on a whim. It was a total win. I don't usually care for horror, but this was fantastic.

The "diary found after mysterious death" is not a new framing, but it works very well here. The horror here is largely - although not entirely - psychological, as the narrator becomes increasingly unreliable and it's harder and harder to tell what is real. It's also not shock horror - nothing jumps out of closets, and while there's men More...

0 comments like

Feb 21, 2011

Erin rated it:

I wanted to like this more than I did. A glance through the other negative/ambivalent reviews shows a lot of disappointment in harsh language, and more than a touch of thinly-veiled homophobia - let me say now, clearly and unequivocally: those were not my issues with this book. I think the narrator's (Sarah's) voice got to me, which made it difficult to enjoy the book, since it's written in the form of her journal. She should be an incredibly sympathetic character - within the first few pages, y More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Don rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Oct 28, 2010

Chibineko rated it:

I'll warn you- if you are looking for something that is more akin to a Stephen King-esque "Pennywise is jumping out of the sewer" type of scary story, then you'll be best to avoid this book. This book's scares are more psychological than anything else.

That said, the premise of the book intrigued me. It follows Sarah, an author with a huge case of writer's block who decides to rent out an old farmhouse close to a spooky red oak tree growing close by it. With the beginning of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 17, 2010

Marvin rated it:

I've been meaning to try a book by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I chose this one because I need a novel with "Red" in the title for a reading challenge. We Goodreads people pick books for the stupidest reasons, don't we?

---------------

So I finished the novel and I'm not sure if this is typical Kiernan. It has many of the traits I've been warned about including the wandering off-topic and obligatory lesbian sex. But it reads like more of a tribute to a style of horror story t More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 10, 2010

Orrin rated it:

Basically, The Red Tree is a masterpiece of suggestion. If I had to show someone an illustration of how suggestion builds up the supernatural, this might be the first book I handed them. The events that actually unfold directly on the page don't really amount to a whole lot, but the buildup of folklore, stories, quotations, background, etc. create an atmosphere that makes the suggestion of whats going on seem increasingly potent and cosmic in scope.

Kiernan is, in some ways, an author More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2010

David rated it:

There are few things that terrify me more than the thought of my brain ceasing to function properly. I can imagine dozens of truly horrifying situations and experiences I might be forced to endure, but I know from simple moments where I can’t remember a name, or a word that I should be intimately familiar with, that if I had to question my own sanity, or worry that others were questioning it, I’d be off the ledge and free-falling pretty quickly.

In The Red Tree, Caitlin Kiernan deliv More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2010

Juushika rated it:

Author Sarah Crowe flees Atlanta and the end of her recent relationship for an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island. There she discovers a manuscript written by the house's previous tenant, which chronicles the long and haunting history of a massive red oak growing on the property. As Sarah's own obsession with the red tree grows, she records her experiences in a journal, published posthumously by her former book editor. Kiernan is a master storyteller with a unique voice and a superb handle on t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2009

Mike rated it:

H. P. Lovecraft was a writer who managed to overcome his faults (frequently racist overtones and often stiff language) and evoke an atmosphere of dread and despair that turns even the hottest summer day into something dark and chilling. Many writers have written works based on the mythos of Lovecraft, many others have written clever homages to his fiction (see “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” by Neil Gaiman) but few, if any, manage to capture or even expound upon the atmosphere of horror and fear of t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2009

Allison rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2009

Derek rated it:

Please ignore the god-awful, "paranormal romance" cover art. This book is not even VAGUELY romantic...though it certainly is paranormal. Cait Kiernan is one of my favourite authors, and this is beyond any shadow of a doubt her best book since Threshold, the first of her longer works I'd ever read. The Red Tree is a swirling, delerious, and very troubling descent into the same realm of New England horror first mapped out by Hawthorne and H. P. Lovecraft--but, unlike their works, this on More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2009

Heather rated it:

This latest and much anticipated book by Caitlin R. Kiernan is some of her best work yet. The Red Tree is presented as a journal written by the author Sarah Crowe after she rents a remote farm house, in order to have solitude to write, and discovers an old typewriter and an unfinished manuscript by the house's previous tenant; Charles L. Harvey. Mr. Harvey was putting together something of a coherent history of a huge red oak tree on the property surrounding the farm house. The history of the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2011

Luis rated it:

The main character is an author, and most of the story is told through her journal, which is more wordy and "writery" than any real journal. She recounts her stay in a rented house far from town and the allure of an ancient oak growing near the property which sometimes seems near and other times impossible to get to. While in the house she finds a manuscript written by a former (deceased) tenant who was writing about about the supernatural occurrences tied to The Red Tree. Parts of thi More...

0 comments like

Jan 20, 2011

Erin rated it:

This amazing, creepy, densely atmospheric book works on so many levels for me. I love books that are about reading and writing, and whether either of those activities is dangerous or imparts responsibility. The more Sarah writes in her journal, the worse her situation gets, and she (and the reader) can't help wondering if one is feeding the other (but in what way? and in which direction?). The book is an ouroborous, endlessly looping back on itself with repeating images: the woman writer, th More...

0 comments like

Sep 05, 2010

Naty rated it:

The self-loathing misery the narrator wallows in was difficult to swallow at times. In terms of story, i wished more strange things had happened rather than suggested or dreamed of. I don't mind the vague ending, but more meat in the middle would've been nice. Also a little more digging into Harvey's life and death. As it stands I'm trying to resolve the imagery I was given and can only conclude that some great ancient evil has always lived in the Red Tree and for each inhabitant of the property More...

0 comments like

Nov 04, 2009

BarkLessWagMore rated it:

Sarah Crowe is a writer suffering from writer's block after her relationship with her girlfriend comes to a devastating end. She decides to rent an isolated old farm house out in the boonies of Rhode Island to recover and hide from the world.

Whilst poking around in the home she comes across an old typewriter which eventually leads her to a manuscript obsessing on the red tree on the property written by a previous renter who committed suicide on the grounds. Sarah begins to have increas More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 27, 2009

Angie rated it:

A haunting, poetic piece of work that is meant to provoke, frighten, and disturb, The Red Tree deserves much more attention than it will probably get. The cover (which the author didn't like) appears to make it easy to categorize--paranormal romance.

Instead, the work is a highly poetic description of a descent into madness provoked, in part, by her narrator's sudden move from Atlanta to an old farmhouse in Rhode Island. But that's just my interpretation. It could be that the autho More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2011

M.E. rated it:

I am a little caught off guard by this latest book of hers. On one hand I have been reading CAK since Silk and have enjoyed her work (Murder of Angels, and Low Red Moon being my faves), and to read this feels like she never wrote it. Not that it was bad, just that the style is such a far departure from her other books.

The novel is written in 1st person journal style and so on the nose and pared down compared to previous works, I am so amazed at how she accomplished this, the amount More...

0 comments like

Nov 13, 2011

Kate rated it:

And so my attempts to get into horror continue.

This is a book I ended up admiring rather than loving. This book is technically excellent. Kiernan is a skilled writer and has held everything in perfect balance for maximum effect. Sarah's journal read the way real people write journals, Charles Harvey's unfinished manuscripts in creepy but with appropriate dusty textbook feeling. Amanda's ghostly presence stays just out of the foreground for most of the book, but she's always there in More...

0 comments like

Jun 22, 2011

Val rated it:

I loved the concept for this book. The use of an unreliable first-person narrator had its challenges. I thought overall it worked. What I didn't like was how so much of the story was told via a manuscript the protagonist found. Literally, the font itself, meant to emulate an old, type-written manuscript, was difficult to read in my darkened room before bed (while the regular font was easy to read). The manuscript sections also tended to drag. Of all the voices, I liked the one of the editor the More...

0 comments like

Jan 21, 2011

Julie rated it:

I liked it, but I don't even know why I liked it. Or why it was interesting. Why it made me keep reading. Because it had a lot of elements that I don't particularly enjoy in books.

It had a literary feel to it (to me). It was epistolary, so at times you were buried 3 steps deep into the narrative. Like trying to read Frankenstein and you're hearing the story from someone hearing the story from someone hearing the story.

On top of that, there were a lot of dream sequences. T More...

0 comments like

Sep 16, 2009

D. rated it:

Where to begin? I am a big fan of Kiernan's work. No, I have not read all of her books... yet. What I do hold in high regard, nearly on a pedestal if truth be told, are her works "Threshold," "Low Red Moon" and "Alabaster" as well as "Tales of Pain and Wonder." I love those books and the way she handled horror with class, understanding that it is much more powerful when implied than shown. Fantastic characters in the setting of the urban South. Amazing stu More...

0 comments like

Jun 08, 2010

Michael rated it:

A spooky, atmospheric story which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was a little concerned. I usually don't care for the first person narration with an author as the main character. I am also usually leery of book within a book books. The Red Tree has those elements, as well as multiple narrators for the audio version and I was very pleased to have liked it more than I had expected to.

Not everyone will enjoy this novel. The horror is more personal than some may be looking for. Much of it More...

0 comments like

Mar 29, 2010

Grace rated it:

I fear I may be in the minority on the review and rating of this book. First off I'll start with the positive. When the story flowed it flowed very well and left me wanting more. The problems I had were the constant interruptions. If I want to know the latin names for wolves I'll look it up. And the constant apologies for the digressions doesn't make them any less irritating.
The almost constant quotations were very annoying. The main character is supposed to be a writer yet she constant More...

0 comments like