“How quickly, I reflected, peril could be followed by beauty in the wilderness, each forming a part of the other.”
“The idea that one is free to do what one wishes in life, expectations be damned.”
The God of the Woods is about a rich family, a camp, and the ripple effects emanating from them. The story centers around Barbara, a missing girl from this camp that was created by the Van Laar family a few generations ago. The story grows from there, where several characters and timelines get introduced. The author jumps back and forth between present day in the story and things that happened in the past. We get perspectives from counselors, campers, police, friends, and the community of the town nearby. There is an investigation into the missing girl but things are complicated because she is a Van Laar and her brother vanished years ago as well. What happened to the brother and what happened to Barbara?
Liz Moore is the author of this book and this is the first book I have read by her. Overall, I thought it was ok. I found it a little boring and I did not like the resolution. There were only a few likeable characters, so I found myself despising a lot of them. There were plenty of weak women and asshole men in this book. I was very judgmental throughout and kept on thinking how can anyone do that. There were a lot of characters and timelines to keep track in this book. I had to keep pausing and think heavily to remind myself who each character was, how they fit into the overall story, and where we were in the timeline. I couldn’t feel like I could really sink into the story. There were a couple of lines I smirked at including “From her toiletry kit she removed the new glasses…these she placed at the back of the single drawer…it would be better, she thought, not to see anything too clearly this summer.” This was also a long book and I thought it could do with a little more editing. There were multiple times I didn’t think a chapter added any value to or moved the story forward. This was also true of a specific character. I didn’t see the point in them. There were loose ends that were never tied up. However, I did feel compelled to finish the book to find out what happened to the missing kids. As usual, there were a few words that I came across that I enjoyed like indefatigable and abstemiousness. This is exactly the type of book that I would read if I was trapped in a cabin and was bored and wanted to read something. It was enjoyable enough as a distraction but not something that I would highly recommend to people.
Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/4njrL54