The Lie Tree

By: Frances Hardinge
Location: FIC HAR
Genre: Fantasy? Murder Mystery? Historical fiction? All of the above!

I love the imagery of the tree. Tolkien used it, Aesop used it, Jesus used it, Maori use it and so do many Aboriginal peoples. This story is about a tree that fruits when it hears lies.... and so much more.

Jules from Goodreads.com reviews it this way

The Lie Tree is a ‘fantastic’ tale, in the true sense of the word. It is imaginative, extraordinary, dark and at times magical. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything quite like it.

This is a historical novel that focuses on a teenage girl called Faith, her challenging relationship with her parents, and her struggle to be taken seriously as an intelligent young woman in a society that thinks women should be seen and not heard, and shouldn’t worry their tiny little brains with intellectual matters.

The death of Faith’s father throws her into a personal mission to find out the cause of his death. As she looks through her father’s books and written notes, she discovers the truth about a secret tree her father has been keeping hidden. A magical tree that needs to have lies whispered to it. The bigger the lie, the bigger the fruit. What consequences will knowing about this tree have for Faith? 

This story covers religious faith, the challenge of faith versus science, death, friendship, and the truly bizarre. It is happy, sad, serious, sometimes funny, dark and hopeful.

It is really hard to place this book into one genre, as there is the murder mystery, the feministic attitude of Faith and her struggle because of this, and the fantasy aspect of a truly unusual and magical tree.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes something a little bit bizarre, while still containing serious historical topics and a thrilling murder mystery

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