South of the Buttonwood Tree
Published 2020 · 336 pages · 92,400 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Magical Realism, Mystery & Crime, Romance
How hard is South of the Buttonwood Tree to read?
South of the Buttonwood Tree scores 27 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 27 out of 100
- A contemporary Southern magical-realism novel aimed at a broad readership, likely written in plain, warm language. It sits near Beach Read in its everyday vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Commercial women's fiction of this kind favours clear, conversational sentences. Its syntax resembles Beach Read's accessible contemporary structure.
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- The premise is concrete: a woman who finds lost things discovers an abandoned baby in the woods. Like It Ends with Us, it works through personal experience and direct emotion.
- Information density: 28 out of 100
- At about 92,000 words with a mystery thread and a second heroine's storyline, it offers manageable plot reveals. It reads at a comfortable pace like Beach Read.
- Narrative indirection: 28 out of 100
- A mystery around the baby's origins invites some inference, but the genre gives readers clear signposts. It stays close to Beach Read's what-you-see approach, with a little more held back.
- Symbolic density: 33 out of 100
- The titular buttonwood tree and Blue's gift for finding lost things suggest a light symbolic layer typical of Southern magical realism. It stays well short of literary-fiction density.
- Ironic distance: 18 out of 100
- Reviewers describe a charming, earnest tale of family secrets and second chances. Its sincere tone sits near It Ends with Us.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Its blend of mystery and romance and its theme of second chances point to a satisfying genre ending. Like Beach Read, it likely closes its threads.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- The story follows two women, Blue Bishop and Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton, which adds a dual-strand structure. Otherwise it is likely linear, like Beach Read.
How South of the Buttonwood Tree is regarded
South of the Buttonwood Tree holds a literary regard score of 19 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.