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    Family Tree
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    Family Tree
    Unavailable
    Family Tree
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Family Tree

    Written by Barbara Delinsky

    Narrated by Becket Royce

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Dana Clarke has always longed for the stability of home and family-her own childhood was not an easy one. Now she has married a man she adores and is about to give birth to their first child. But though her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, no one can help noticing the African American traits in her appearance. Dana's husband, to her great shock and dismay, begins to worry that people will think Dana has had an affair.
    The only way to repair the damage done is for Dana to track down the father she never knew. Dana's determination to discover the truth becomes a poignant journey back through her past that unearths secrets rooted in prejudice and fear.
    Barbara Delinsky's Family Tree is an utterly unforgettable audio that asks penetrating questions about race, family, and the choices people make in times of crisis-choices having profound consequences that can last for generations.

    "Family Tree is warm, rich, textured, and impossible to put down."
    -Nora Roberts
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 6, 2007
    ISBN9780739333495
    Unavailable
    Family Tree
    Author

    Barbara Delinsky

    Barbara Delinsky has written more than twenty New York Times bestselling novels, with over thirty million copies in print. Her books are highly emotional, character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship. She is also the author of a breast cancer handbook. A breast cancer survivor herself, Barbara donates her author proceeds from the handbook to fund a research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Visit her at BarbaraDelinsky.com.

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    Reviews for Family Tree

    4/5

    263 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      An absolute delight to read. Tepper is one of my favourite authors, and I'm willing to forgive her a lot of her soapboxes (heavily laboured in this book as they are) because of the beautifully crafted nature of her stories. I never have difficulty reading her books - they slide through the mind like jelly down the throat. (okay, so I might be exaggerating here. there is at least one of her books that I'm unlikely to read again, but being a sad completist, I've probably still got it in my collection. this year at least). Split between a future time and the present, the story follows Dora Henry (in the present) a cop with husband troubles and the plant that mysteriously appears in her garden, and a group of assorted travellers (in the future) all of whom are following one fortune or another, as seen by one of the 'Seers of Sworp'. It is no surprise that the present and future peoples meet, but there are a number of surprises from that point on, which on rereading as only very slightly telegraphed. My big complaint about this book is not the enviro-evangalism, which is at least reasonably well integrated into the plot in this book (unlike, umm, whatever the one is that I'm never going to read again, but am too lazy to go and look up the title), but the ending, which seems to come at the wrong point of the story. Not that I'm sure that it could go anywhere, and the threads that are hanging loose are just everyday ones (do they have kids? what happens to the settlers? what happens to the bad guys?), but I don't have that satisfaction of having finished reading a story. Instead, I'm wishing that there was more to read.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorites of Tepper's work.
    • 4/5
      The Family Tree deals with all of the serious themes that Tepper is known for - ecology, overpopulation, etc... but does so in a very clever, funny way. The format is one of two seemingly unrelated, interleaved stories (one a contemporary drama, one an Arabian-Nights-flavored fairy tale) which merge about halfway through the book - some might find it a bit gimmicky, but I like it...
      It's one of those books that it's hard to say much about without major spoilers, so I'll leave it at that!
    • 4/5
      The first half of this book takes place in two timelines: present-day America, told from the point of view of Dora, a police sergeant who is finally leaving a loveless marriage, and in a fantasy world, told from the point of view of Opalears, who is accompanying her prince on a quest to fulfill a prophecy, picking up fellow travelers along the way. The two stories seem unrelated except that in both times, the trees are acting strangely, growing up in great numbers and rebelling against people. Although both stories are very readable, the high contrast between them is very disorienting--until they come together with a very neat but completely unexpected revelation. Toward the end, Tepper's hand becomes a little heavy; the authorial point of view--her frustration with the destruction of the earth's resources, her strong feminism--intrudes just a bit too much. Overall, though, this is a well-crafted adventure story that's pretty hard to put down.Read in 2015 for the SFFCat.
    • 2/5
      On the one hand, this is a clever and entertaining story. On the other hand . . . It relates with approval a near-total genocide of the human race by environmental terrorists. So.
    • 3/5
      This would be much better without the slightly ridiculous twist right at the end. Without it, I'd give it four stars.
    • 3/5
      A parable, tho I thought parables were usually much shorter. You could call it a fairy tale, or two fairy tales that eventually join up. In the one tale, there is an ordinary woman whose world is taken over by trees. In the other, Scheherazade setting with a quest, mystery to solve and journeys. As the chapters alternated between the 2 settings, I wondered what could these two tales have in common.This book had a kind of "surface" feel to it: lighthearted despite talking about serious matters, targetted to your head instead of your heart. I was reminded a little of Piers Anthony's series with his play-on-words approach. Happily Tepper didn't go as far overboard.This was not the kind of writing I expected from Tepper, but in the end I thought it was a very appropriate read during this year of the pandemic.
    • 5/5
      In "The Family Tree", Tepper manages to convey insights about ecology, human behavior, patriarchy, cooperation, and atonement. Two very disparate narratives come together convincingly in this story, as much fable as science fiction novel.
    • 4/5
      Delicious. Full of fun surprises. Except for a spate of missing punctuation (not the author's fault, I suppose) the writing was also quite good.

      Recommended by: Margit S.
    • 4/5
      Oh, Tepper, how I love you. Why have I not read all of your books?

      This is, at first, a confusing bunch of unrelated stories and then suddenly, magically, inevitably it is one blisteringly good story- a story that makes one question one's essential assumptions about what it means to be human, what it means to be ethical, what it means to be good. There's a richness here that wells up slowly and almost imperceptibly, a richness that comes from top-notch writing and plotting. This is a book to be read over and over. I can already tell that once is not nearly enough- and I can't wait to go back and see what I missed.

    • 4/5
      The first time I read this book I loved it. It was mysterious, intriguing, exciting and wonderful in places. There was an incredible revelation in the book that I did not see coming at all, which made it all the better. The themes were a little heavy handed at times, but overall it was an immaculately story. Having said all this, I expected the book to be better the second time round, knowing what I knew about the characters and eventual plot, however I didn't find this to be the case. Perhaps it was just my mood during my second reading, but I really felt that I had been overlooking flaws in the writing due to my excitement in finding out what was going to happen next. The first time I read it I couldn't put it down, the second time I was impatient for all the interesting bits to happen. Its a wonderful story, but I do think it relies on the early confusion and intrigue to pull the reader through into the second half.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I've ever read. Following the story of Dora in the present day and Opalears/Nassif in another entirely, the two stories converge with the best twist I have never seen coming. Dora's town is being taken over by a new kind of plant, which she has an affinity for, while at the same time she is trying to leave her controlling husband. Opalears is a slave who has been sent on a journey with the Prince to the mysterious St Weel because an Evil Thing, the Great Enigma, is threatening everyone's way of life. Themes include ecology, family, tolerance, and humanism. I can't really tell you much more about it without ruining it for you, so you really need to read it yourself. Please, please read this book.
    • 4/5
      The Family Tree by Sheri Tepper is a book that is difficult to categorize. It is part post-plague apocalyptical tale, part romance, part fantasy/sci-fi, part eco-treatise, and partly confusing! At the same time, it was fascinating, well written, believable, immersive, and completely unique. Firstly, the confusing part: the story is written part current times, part future; in addition, the story is told by a number of different narrators (from both the past and the future) in alternating chapters. I found this so frustrating that I actually skipped many of the alternating chapters until I could work out what was going on, then went back to them. I don't recommend this, as there are some very interesting twists to the story. Stick with it...all the threads come together and make sense.Now the rest: This is a greatly enjoyable story which will likely be with me for quite some time. Believable...?! The day after I finished it I read a newspaper article describing one of the main events in the story. It is clear that a plague could easily decimate the population, and other threads in the story are just as plausible. The fantasy elements of the story are strong, but again, not too far fetched. The characters are idiosyncratic, flawed, lovely. Conversation is interesting, and the plot is fast paced. All in all, reading this book was a very unique experience and I'm glad I did.
    • 4/5
      One of Tepper's greats. Less anger towards mysogeny here and more focus on humankind's general respect for the world around us. I can't be too specific without spoiling certain plot devices, but this is a good read, occasionally heart-wrenching and touching, but never as heavy-handed as some of Tepper's works.
    • 3/5
      The Family Tree has some of the elements you expect from Tepper - a woman married to a cold, controlling man, strange things happening in the world around her, a mystery to unravel. Thankfully, this novel doesn't have some of the more graphic violence against women that pops up in Tepper's work. The elements of this mystery become so enormously large and complicated - in fact, a little too enormously complicated, perhaps? I don't know - I don't become as involved in this novel as I do in some of Tepper's other work, for some reason, although I find some aspects of the story lovely, and very aesthetically pleasing.
    • 4/5
      This novel captivated me from first to last page. I hadn't read Tepper before and recall being very anxious to read more of her works. However, two novels later, this one remained my favorite for its ingenuity, its characters, plots and subplots. This book combines a little of everything, trees and plants which seek revenge, talking and conspiring animals on a mission to save themselves from extinction, a cast of quirky and memorable characters who spin the tale along. It's definitely a must read for any fantasy fan.