Book Review: The God of the Woods

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Do not read this post if you don’t want to know how this book ends. Because I really cannot adequately discuss my thoughts on this book without also discussing the ending.

Let’s start with the positives. I loved the writing style, the setting, the characters, and suspense. I felt totally transported to Camp Emerson & nostalgically, back to my own days as a summer camp counselor. The suspense was SO GOOD, I stayed up until 1am on a Tuesday to finish it because I had to know what was going to happen. Up until the very end, I truly enjoyed every page of this book.

BUT THEN, hundreds of pages of suspense came crashing down into something both anticlimactic and surprisingly ordinary. I found the ending to be quite implausible. TJ helped a 13 year old girl run away to escape her rich family by…spending the rest of her childhood in total isolation in the wilderness? And when the detective, who has been committed for hundreds of pages to solving this case, confirms that the kid is alone in the wilderness, she’s just like, sure! No problem, you do you, teenager, this isn’t a problematic resolution at all.

Barbara was described as a pretty vivacious and social kid. I have a hard time imagining her emerging from 5 years of wilderness isolation as a well-adjusted adult. And I have an even harder time imagining the detective, so committed to justice, being okay with this scenario.

Also, not that I necessarily wanted a gory, horrible, disturbing ending (okay maybe I did, just a little…), but after almost 500 pages of mystery and suspense and so many red herrings, the ending fell flat for me. Missing Child 1 died in a tragic but somewhat ordinary accident and his family covered it up by pretending he was missing; Missing Child 2 simply ran away and is fine. Was the point of the mystery to make suckers out of all of us for believing in the red herrings about serial killers and abusive boyfriends and entitled rich old men, instead of a perfectly ordinary explanation for the missing kids? If so, it was effective, but why is that the point?

Overall, it’s hard for me to give this a thumbs up or thumbs down. It was fun to read for 99% of the book, and I found the writing style to be much stronger and mor compelling than most thrillers. However, the ending soured the fun for me. I’d definitely be willing to give this author another try in the future though — it feels like she has a lot of potential.