Book review: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
November 4, 2024
This book I actually completed in early October, so it will be included in my October completed books list, but I am posting the review today due to October being taken over by Peachtober. I hope that you enjoyed that collection of short stories! Now, to the review!
I will do my best not to reveal anything about this book, but in giving my opinions about it, I may reveal some things about the story that you may not want to read prior to reading it yourself, so please proceed with caution.
I am going to be honest, I was a little bummed by the ending. That is not to say that it was not well writing, because it was. There were a large variety of points of view and characters that we heard their side of the story unfold from, and I really did love being able to see the whole story from all different perspectives, but I will say, it was much less twisty and suspenseful than I anticipated.
We jump into the story of a young girl, named Barbara Van Laar, who has gone missing from her bunk at summer camp. She is not the first person from her family to go missing in that same area - her older brother went missing before she was even born, on those very grounds. Her family owns the camp and all of the land that it is on and is surrounded by, in fact it has been in their family for generations. The forest that surrounds the camp have been known to have a ghost called Scary Mary and a killer called The Slitter, who was said to have kidknapped and killed her older brother. But as this story unfolds, not everything is as it seems, and there are more secrets than Barbara knows. What actually happened to her brother? Did Barbara run away because she was a troubled youth, or did she really get taken? What happened between the family that owns the land and the people that run it? Why can’t anyone seem to be trusted? Inspector Judy has recently been promoted and feels like she was shoved into this case, but she is trying to track down the answers and figure out why everyone is so touchy about the case of the missing brother.
We follow the points of view of Barbaras mother, Alice; her counselor, Louise; her bunkmate, Tracy and many more people who have been woven into the drama that is the Van Laar family. The topics that may be hard to read are: murder, neglect, physical and emotional abuse, false accusations, not being able to meet expectations that were either set by ones self, or by those around us, infidelity, grief, child loss, spouse loss and restricted eating.
Overall, I would suggest this book, but I am not sure that I would ever read it again. It is beautifully written and very thought out, I just wanted it to be a little….more. And I am not sure what I want more of, or how to describe what I want out of it, but I wanted a little more. Maybe my reading preferences are a little too intense. But I would label it as a cozy mystery and, I will let you know, all the loose ends get tied up in a neat little bow at the end, and that does feel nice. I did like it, I really did. It was a quick and easy read in spite of coming close to 500 pages, I just was expecting it to be more intense than it ended up feeling to me.
