theonetree

Judge A Book By Its Cover

Book Reviews and Synopses

The One Tree

Stephen Donaldson

Donaldson. R, Stephen. The One Tree. Ballantine Books. New York. 1982.

The One Tree is written with little description and sparse creativity.

The tragedy, has bored people everywhere. Everyone was expecting a

new, mesmerizing book from Mr. Donaldson, but he has sadly

disappointed his many fans.

Kevin, the leading male, sets out with his love Stephanie to find the

great tree of wisdom. They had a few questions to ask the tree. They

run into no troubles or interesting characters on their journey. Kevin

and Stephanie find the tree with great ease. This was a very, very

weak part of the book and very boring to read. The journey took

one-hundred pages. Once they find the tree of wisdom, they ask their

first question. Kevin asked if it was right to come on this journey,

if it was right for him and Stephanie to come all this way to ask

questions. The tree of wisdom answered “no.” So they turned around and

went home. Besides completely boring, this part is also a total waste

of time, extremely plain, unimaginative, uncreative and pointless.

The journey home was almost exactly the same as the journey there, the

author could have copied and pasted it. Once Stephanie and Kevin get

back home they find that in the time they had been gone, their house

burnt down. The tree of wisdom was right; they shouldn’t have left.

Then Kevin and Stephanie spend about two-hundred pages wandering in

the woods disheartened. Kevin suggests they build a home out of

sticks, ferns and other materials they find in the woods. They don’t

build a house though, they just talk about doing it. This has to be

the most boring part of the entire book, by far. How could anyone

publish this? It’s like publishing a piece of blank paper, except it

goes on for two-hundred pages. Why would someone waste their time with

a story of no creativity and a huge lack of vocabulary?

The One Tree is one of those books, you’ll wish you hadn’t read.

Overall, this book had a very thin plot with only two characters and a

tree. Although the cover looks interesting, its quite the opposite.

Half of the book didn’t make sense and on the whole it was carelessly

planned. Hopefully Mr. Donaldson will think twice before publishing

his next book.

1 out of 5 stars.

Contributed by K. Roberts

May 5, 2011