Hothouse Bloom
Beautiful and strikingly original ... Through much of the novel, [Wohlers's] language is sharp, saturated and wonderfully active ... But at times the prose becomes bogged down with unnecessary explanation...and clunky similes ... And where Anna is intense and obsessive—Much of what makes Hothouse Bloom distinct is her wild and dreamy point of view—the brief shifts in perspective toward the end of the book...serve to deflate that intensity, and the novel’s rising tension ... But even in these moments, it is thrilling to witness a writer attempting and mostly succeeding at something so ambitious.
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Emotive ... [Anna's] intimate knowledge of ecosystems is conveyed in brilliant colors, befitting her artist’s perspective ... However, because Anna’s thoughts dominate, the complex inner states of others with vested interests in her story...are underexplored ... The steady and measured pace of Anna’s healing process throughout the novel accelerates toward the book’s conclusion, which includes a surprising development.
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Wohlers uses language in a painterly style, layering sentences thickly, the prose dense and almost cloying ... The effect is like passing through a series of rooms, every colon a doorway to another idea. Overall, there is a fluid, unsettled feeling to the narrative, which serves to emphasize how unsettled Anna herself feels ... Heavily crafted, full of beautiful scenery and complex characters, self-conscious and inscrutable ... The final scene, which comes out of nowhere, leaves readers to pull all these elements into a cohesive whole, and for some, this open-ended quality may be frustrating. For others, perhaps those who appreciate the unexpected and prefer to probe the uncertainties of a piece, it will be just the thing.
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