The first novel in the Titan's Forest fantasy series.

The premise for this novel really caught my attention and imagination. Dyer does a fantastic job of evoking and describing this canopy-world. The author's prose is excellent, and helps pull the reader on through the story. As a first book, it perhaps doesn't quite deliver everything one would want. For me, it felt like it was very much an establishing shot/volume.

I did enjoy it, though, and look forward to reading the next book when I can.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

The premise of this book sounded very interesting. The world sounded intriguing and the story seemed promising as well. Sadly this book just didn’t reach any of the expectations I had. I really didn’t like this book and it was a chore finishing it. (I’m really glad to be done with it now.)

The writing in this reminded me of fairy tales and it’s one of the only aspects that I enjoyed from this story. While the writing was beautiful, the way the story was told was very confusing – especially in the beginning. Some of the descriptions were beautiful, while others felt bloated. The pacing of the story was off as well, it just didn’t flow well and towards the middle I was really bored with this book.

My biggest problem with this story is the main character, Unar. She is one of the most dislikable protagonists that I have ever read about! She was so childish and got angry at the most idiotic things possible. She was also very prejudiced and rude. She only cared about herself and had no understanding for anyone around her. She constantly thought that she was better than anyone else and it was very frustrating to read.

Another problem that I encountered was that Unar kept constantly thinking about sex and who she wants to sleep with (I’m not kidding, it felt as if 90 % of the book was about that) and how it’s unfair that she had to take a chastity vow. I’m asexual and reading all of that made me beyond uncomfortable. The descriptions were very awkward and disgusting, like the author didn’t know how to properly write “sensual” scenes. I really could have done without them.

The story was kind of interesting, but having Unar constantly complain about sex and how no one sees how amazing she is (I’m not kidding) made me not enjoy the story either. Unar’s thoughts kept bringing me out of the story, especially since she made me angry with her way of thinking. Honestly I just wanted to be done with this book.

Overall, I really disliked this book – as you can tell by my review (rant). I wouldn’t recommend Crossroads of Canopy, it just wasn’t good and you could be reading much better books.

I really wanted to like Crossroads of Canopy, but in the end I'm giving it up as a bad job. It's not a bad book per se, but it's not for me.

With themes of social justice and some spectacular world-building, and this should have been right up my street. However, two key elements don't work for me at all: Unar herself, and the theme of sexual awakening (which I wasn't expecting and is a massive put-off for me even without presenting characters as being aro/ace purely because their sexuality is being magically repressed. By a fertility goddess. This doesn't work for me on any level).

I'd love to call Unar a flawed protagonist in a good way, but the narrative is so firmly on her side - and she's incapable of seeing how badly she behaves - that I found her hard to swallow. This is clearly a coming of age story, but I found myself actively rooting for Unar to come a cropper. When I don't actually want to see a protagonist proceed, it's time for me to put the book down.

Unfortunately, I had to mark Crossroads of Canopy as a DNF as it wasn't working for me.
Neither the world building nor the characters could hold my attention so I decided to not finish it.

Thoraiya Dyer's debut novel, Crossroads of Canopy (review copy from Tor) is a fresh take on the fantasy genre. Set in a lush rainforest, Unar runs away from her parents, who want to sell her into slavery, and becomes a junior priestess to Audblayin, goddess of growth and fertility. After Audblayin's death, the ambitious and rebellious Unar is passed over for promotion, and leaves the temple, vowing to be the person to find the reincarnated Audblayin and become the god's Bodyguard. Unar leaves Canopy, the part of the forest protected by the gods and goddesses and descends to Understorey, where she discovers a new way of living and uncovers a plot to destroy Canopy.


There's a lot to like about Crossroads of Canopy. Unar's growing realisation of the unfairness of the society that she lives in shows us the dark underbelly of privilege. It depends on the exploitation of others. In this case, the slaves sold into servitude and the outcasts living outside Canopy who don't benefit from the protection of the gods and goddesses above. This is a society of strict hierarchy where the privileged live close to the sun and the rest scrape a living on the edges of society. Unar's compassion for the slaves is what ultimately leads to her being cast out of her temple and ostracised. Socialism and class awareness are still rare enough things in contemporary fantasy writing, that to see them is always a delight.


The treatment of female friendship and family loyalty is also a particular strength of the book. Unar is close to her fellow initiate Oos, though the two come from widely different backgrounds. Oos is a noblewoman, all grace and elegance next to the tomboyish Unar. Their friendship suffers trials and is repeatedly tested, but it endures and strengthens. But the real joy of the book is Unar's relationship with her younger sister. Lost as a baby, Unar's life is shaped by the desire to find her and make restitution. That guilt and drive is shamelessly exploited to Unar's downfall.


Unfortunately, though, I struggled with Unar herself. She is an angry and rebellious teenager who repeatedly does exceptionally stupid things. That makes her a difficult protagonist to identify with for the whole of the narrative. She does have a lot of growing up to do - and matures significantly over the course of the novel - but it disrupted the flow for me and frequently threw me out of the novel.


Goodreads rating: 3*

Pages Read: 95/336 and then 105/336

Because: I had no idea what was going on? I loved the premise for this... but the world is very sink or swim and I don't even seem to have arms? This is a very bad metaphor but I felt sunk when it came to understanding the world at play, the aims of the characters, or even how they all interacted. Just not a book or writing style that suits me as a reader. This is one I tred again but the eARC and I were not friends.

A very well written and enjoyable fantasy which is a rarity in the field at this time. Ms. Dyer has created a beautiful fantasy world in which John Muir could have lived out his days in bliss. I must confess that I could too. Ms. Dyer's use of the all of the parts of the Forest is ingenious and original and her strong female character is a breath of fresh air. Certainly a talent to watch!

Excellent writting, intriguing plot and memorable characters. Thoraiya Dyer is an amazing storyteller, and the Canopy Worldbuilding is superb.

On the face of it, 'Crossroads of Canopy' begs comparison to Zilpha Keatley Snyder's classic 'Below the Root,' and the more recent 'Updraft' by Fran Wilde. All three novels feature a culture that lives in the treetops, with a literal 'underclass' segregated to the forest floor, strong themes of social justice and a controlling religion, and an element of gliding between trees (always a dangerous activity.) However, aside from the similarities, I thought this book was quite different in feel.

Our protagonist, Unar, has a background of harsh poverty, and is traumatized by the loss of her beloved baby sister. When she hears her parents discussing selling her into slavery, she suddenly feels a convenient "calling" to religion, and presents herself at the door to the temple of the goddess Audblayin. Coincidentally, her 'calling' seems to not be entirely spurious, and she is accepted as a devotee to this fertility goddess. However, she's a less-than-obedient initiate, willful and rebellious. Although she's never cared much for anyone besides herself and her sister, her near-escape from slavery has left her with a chink in her shell where empathy for the slaves of the temple sneaks in. Unar may be an unlikely candidate to campaign for justice and to change the structure of her society - but that's just what it looks like she might end up being.

The plot is fairly standard: coming-of-age, and awakening to the problems of the world around one - but the setting and the worldbuilding elevate it above the average. I'll be happy to return to this world when the sequel is released.

Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are unaffected by the source of the book.

Thoraiya Dyer's Crossroads of Canopy was one of my most anticipated debut novels of 2017, and I'm pleased to report that it did not disappoint. Crossroads is a truly tremendous book, full of fantastically original worldbuilding, fascinating mythology, and a cast of compelling characters led by one of my favorite fantasy heroines in a very long time. It's a gorgeously magical and delightfully challenging novel that only gets lusher and more incredible the longer you read it.

Things start off promisingly with the introduction of Unar, an abused child about to be sold by her parents, and Dyer does a good job in the opening couple of chapters of introducing the city of Canopy and something of its societal structures and religion. Things quickly shift gear, however, when Unar evades enslavement by pledging herself as a servant of the life/fertility goddess, Audblayin. This initial transition and subsequent time jump--about ten years--are more than a little jarring, verging on confusing, and the rest of the first half of the novel often struggles with keeping a good pace and maintaining connections between many moving parts. It makes for a slow start to the book that may be offputting for less dedicated readers, but I still found Unar's story gripping enough to keep reading, and it pays off big time in the back half of the novel, where things get amazing.

In the end, I loved the deliberateness of the way the tone and depth of the story reflects Unar's character growth. We start the journey with her as a young child, inquisitive about her world, engaged in what's going on around her, and this is reflected in the vividness of the opening chapters, in which Dyer paints a clear picture of the world of Canopy. As a teenager, Unar has become ambitious, but also self-absorbed, convinced that she has a great destiny, obsessed with achieving it, and resentful towards anyone who she sees as an enemy or impediment (and that's basically everyone). She chafes at the restrictions of Audblayin's Garden, flouts rules, and ultimately takes actions that force her onto a very different path than what she thinks she deserves. Most of Unar's story, then, is about Unar's long, painful struggle to understand her world and her place in it, and the way that Dyer deploys worldbuilding details reflects that, taking the reader on the same journey that Unar must take from disconnection to understanding. It makes for somewhat frustrating reading early on, but the payoff at the end, when so many things really come into focus for Unar--and for the reader--is well worth the wait.

Unar herself is one of the most fascinating and infuriating and deeply lovable protagonists I've read about in years. I love her pure, unadulterated stubbornness and grit and her dogged belief in herself, even as she grows to learn that her destiny--if it is a destiny at all--isn't what she wanted it to be. I love Unar's ability to make mistakes, even disastrous ones, and still keep going because even when she doesn't have a clue what she's doing, she can't stand to give up. Most of all, I love Unar's ever present drive to be better. She has a strong sense of justice that evolves and grows over the course of the novel as she comes to think more of others and learns more about the world outside herself. Crossroads of Canopy is Unar's coming of age story, but more than that it's a story about Unar's political awakening.

I have long had a soft spot for difficult women as protagonists, and Unar is exactly the kind of character I want to read about these days. Certainly she grows up in many ways throughout this book, but Unar's deeper and more important journey is to figure out where she fits into an imperfect world and how she can leverage her strengths--both personal and magical--in order to fight the injustice she is still slowly coming to understand at the end of this story. I cannot wait to find out what Unar does next.

About : The opening novel of Thoraiya Dyer’s “Titan’s Forest” series takes place in the world of a giant forest. Three realms live at different levels of this forest: “Canopy” claims the privileged position at the treetops, Understorey clings the boughs, and “Floor” settles in the shadows at the foot of the trees.

Crossroads of Canopy opens in Canopy, the most privileged of the three realms. Here, thirteen theocracies rule the Canopian citizens and interact through the usual ways of war, trade and peace. When a god or goddess dies, they are reincarnated into the body of a human babe. Unar lives in the Garden, a theocracy ruled by the goddess, Audblayin. Having run from poverty and barely escaped slavery, Unar plans to find glory by winning the position of Audblayin’s next bodyguard. But she becomes sympathetic to the slaves from the lower realm of Understorey, a complication that gets her into trouble with the Gardeners.

Then, suddenly, Audblayin dies. With her death, the magic that bound Unar to service and mandatory abstinence disappears, and new, overwhelming distractions get in the way of her plans…Fantasy. Expected publication: January 31st 2017 by Tor Books.

I requested this one immediately, when it popped up on Netgalley. Look at that cover. And the description?! Sounds amazing, right?

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it and ended up DNFing it at 47%

Why DNF?

When I started Crossroads of Canopy, I expected political divisions among the theocracies, adventure among the trees and a sense of wonder about the gorgeous forest realms. I hoped for some interesting philosophy about the religions, perhaps debated among friends.

But this book focused on other things, and unfortunately I struggled to connect with the characters, who often provoked each other with hostile attitudes; also, most of the action felt uninteresting and incidental to the plot. The purpose of each scene got lost in Unar’s focus on other things, mainly her sexual awakening.

Following the death of the goddess’s abstinence magics, most of the cast seems fixated on sex and sexual organs—and we’re not just talking about during a few sex scenes. One minute, we're discussing religions/climbing gigantic trees/social inequality, and out of the nowhere, we’re talking about male "organs" and lady “flaps” and unrequited crushes.

Some of this makes perfect sense and would have been fine, had it remained a minor distraction from Unar's plans; but it goes overboard and we end up spending lots time oogling Unar's love interest or exploring Unar's theories about masturbation when meanwhile, we only know the names of three of Canopy's thirteen theocracies.

Since Crossroads of Canopy is book 1 in a series, the author seems to be taking her time in exploring the world (and adding in sexual tensions and drama-rama to keep us interested) instead pushing forward with the plot. Unfortunately, while the descriptions did a great job portraying the social stratification, I felt like they neglected other areas of worldbuilding—although some of the imagery of the garden flowers blew me away. Clearly Dyer spent a lot of time developing the flora of her three realms. Check this out:

“The exotic plot was filled with rare blue and bronze-colored grasses from the places where Floor met the edge of the forest. A messy hedge of maroon guavas, interspersed with purple sugarcane thickets, formed a semicircle around the western boundary.”

Overall : The worldbuilding has lots of potential, if you find the style appealing, but the book just moved too slowly for my tastes.

Recommended To : Reads who might enjoy slow worldbuilding through the eyes of a single narrator. Also, readers who really appreciate gender and racial politics might enjoy the book’s diversity enough to keep reading. A couple of Goodreads reviewers really enjoyed the book for that reason.

Thanks so much to Thoraiya Dyer, Tor and Netgalley for this e-arc!

This was a DNF for me. I thought the idea of a world built around trees was really neat, but the descriptions were so vague that I couldn't really picture what the author was describing. I also never got invested in the plot or characters.

Crossroads of Canopy is set in a world that is full of lush
forests. At the top of these forest trees we have Canopy, aworld ruled over by thirteen gods who are reincarnated in human bodies every time they die. Below Canopy there are two other realms, Understory and Floor. The Canopians arehellbent on keeping the people of these other realms out and the only time you will find Understorians or Floorians in Canopy is when they have been captured and taken as slaves. From the outset the cruel nature of the rulers of Canopy and of life in Canopy is made clear and juxtaposed with the comfortable life which wealthy Canopians or free Canopians who serve the gods are lucky live at the top of the trees near the sun.

Read more…We follow Unar, a brown skinned Canopian who has ran away from home in order to avoid having her parents sell her into slavery. She goes to the Garden of Audblayin, goddess of fertility and growth, convinced that she has enough magic to serve Audblayin as their bodyguard if they are reincarnated in the body of a man. Unar doesn't like following the rules of the Garden, a fact which frequently gets her into trouble and which puts her dreams in jeopardy. However, Unar's refusal to follow the rules opens her eyes to the unjust way in which the Canopians treat the Understorian slaves when she befriends two slaves who work in the garden. This friendship and realisation sets the plot in motion and sees Unar struggle to reconcile her Canopian identity and dreams of being a bodyguard with inequality and ill treatment of the other races which she sees before her.

Long plot summary aside this book definitely had some interesting and unique aspects which probably will result in me picking up the sequel. Firstly the world was really unique. Apart from Enid Brighton's Faraway Tree which I read when I was really young I don't think I have ever read a fantasy novel set in the trees. I have read books set in woods but in the actual trees, not so much. My one issue with this was that I don't really feel like the descriptions were really up to par. I did struggle a lot of the time to envisage what the setting looked like or how a tree was big enough to house a garden or a river to swim across. I often have issues with visualising certain situations so this may just be a me thing but all the same I definitely longed for a greater degree of description in this regard. I think that as the setting is so unique a better grounding for the reader in the world would have been helpful and would have made the story more immersive and more addictive.

I enjoyed the representation in this book. The Canopians are brown skinned people and the Understorians are pale skinned. Presumably this is connected to the fact that Canopians live in the tree tops and are exposed to more sunlight and therefore need more melanin while Understorians get very little access to sunlight and thus much like the majority of Irish people, including myself, are pale and white. I also think it is interesting to see the situation in our world where the white race are generally dominant over darker skinned people turned on its head as the Canopians are the more powerful race and they have darker skin. In this way it kind of reminded me of the Noughts and Crosses books by Malorie Blackman which I read in primary school, as a young white kid growing up in a country where the vast majority of people around me were white I found it to be very tough provoking and that was true again here. Also, it is worth noting that in both Crossroads of Canopy and Noughts and Crosses both the light skinned and dark skinned races are equally flawed, in some ways they are kind and beneficent but there are cruel people on both sides and they operate in a society in which there is a great degree of institutionalised racism. As such, in neither case would I say there is any kind of racially coded discrimination bubbling under the surface although I am open to being challenged on that point if you disagree.

What really didn't work for me in this book were the plot twists. There was one in particular I called about 100 pages before it happened. In fact I think you would need to have not paid any attention to the huge degree of foreshadowing which was going on in order not to call this particular twist because it was so bloody obvious. Furthermore, however, it was just so freaking convenient. It was clearly something which was done to manipulate and drive the plot but as a reader you could tell it wasn't in any way organic but rather you could clearly see the author pulling the strings behind the scenes, controlling how everything played out. That kind of convenience is something which always gets to me in books as the simple fact of the matter is that yes coincides do happen in life but at the same time you need to be realistic. Sorry for the cloak and daggers stuff, I don't want to spoil anyone but I do want to register my frustration with that aspect as that particular 'twist' wasn't the only predictable or convenient element, it was just the most egregious one.

The final major issue for me was the pacing. I felt like this was way off. The author spent the first 40% or so of the book on set up. While I am more than happy to accept that world building at the start of a fantasy series is important, I prefer being launched into a world and being fed elements and descriptions a little bit at a time while simultaneously following the action. I found myself bored with the first part of the book and questioning if it was something I wished to continue on with. I think the pace picked up in the latter half of the book as Dyer found her feet. As such, I reckon that the second book probably won't suffer from the same problems.

All in all, not the cracker of the book I was hoping for but still a solid start to a different and diverse fantasy series that I do plan to continue on with when the sequel is releases next year.

Rating: 3*

I received a digital advanced readers copy of this book from Tor in return for an honest review. This book will be released on January 31st.

Thirteen kingdoms form the vast city of Canopy. They are each ruled by a god or goddess, depending on whether the reincarnation was male or female. Canopy is also high in the treetops of a giant forest. After overhearing her parents say they were selling her as a slave, Una decides she is destined for greater things and runs away. She just knows she will serve the next Audblayin. So, her journey begins. I was very excited to read this book, but it wasn't all that I was hoping for. I liked the world building, but was not a fan of the characters. I had a hard time finishing it.

I maintain that if a book has tree-centric cover art, designed by Marc Simonetti, I will drop everything to read it. Unfortunately, I was much less enamored by the pages beneath the beautiful cover.

Conceptually, the novel intrigued me — there is a societal hierarchy that is based on where you live within the trees that make up the world. It feels like a fairytale, following the exploits of a girl who lives amongst the trees and the gods that rule them. Execution-wise, it just did not work for me. I found the protagonist, Unar, to be frustrating, unlikable, and whiny for most of the book. My issues with the main character created a feeling of detachment from the overall proceedings and I had a hard time caring about what was happening.

The setting made me think that there would be some sense of whimsy or joy present in such a fantastical world, but instead there is a gloomy energy that I never quite connected with. What should have been a 336-page jaunt feels like a 750-page slog.

This was one of those books that held my attention just enough to keep me coming back, even though I set it aside in favour of other amusements quite often. I think this was because, even though the setting (the upper branches of a tropical rainforest) was fascinating and well developed, I found the viewpoint character annoying for about 80% of the book.

It's a coming-of-age story, among other things, and so the main character is meant to be naive, meant to be pursuing unrealistic goals, meant to be lacking in self-awareness and a bit self-centred. That didn't mean I wanted to spend time with her. Despite the considerable effort and risk she takes to help slaves - apparently simply because she almost became a slave herself - I didn't find her particularly sympathetic until late in the story (when she finally figured things out).

Putting aside all of that, the book is well executed, and the society is beautifully imagined.