Hello, friends! I finished The God of the Woods by Liz Moore today and it was SO good. I wanted to hop on here and talk about it!!!
This book follows several characters associated with an Adirondack summer camp. We go from the 1950’s to present day — August 1975. Our story begins when one of the camp counselors, Louise, wakes up and is greeted by an empty camper bunk. Not just any camper, either — Barbara Van Laar, the daughter of the owners’ of said camp. Not only this, but she is the little sister of Bear Van Laar, a young boy who disappeared fourteen years ago. What follows is a gripping whodunit that had me flipping the pages furiously to try and figure out the secrets of the wealthy Van Laar family and Co.
I would give this book a 4.5/5 stars. I was thoroughly gripped by the story and was doing my best to read as fast as I could because I was so curious about what was going on!!! I did not guess the culprits for both the Van Laar childrens’ disappearances, which was refreshing, because too often, they make it all too obvious. I really enjoyed getting to know the main characters of the story… Judyta, Tracy, Louise, and Alice. They all felt very real to me and they all had had distinct voices.
One thing that took me out of the story was that there were too many point-of-views. I love books with multiple POVS normally, but this one just had far too many and it took me out of the story often. It also made things feel like they were dragging at times. I was certainly on the edge of my seat wanting to know what was going on, but sometimes I felt like I was more or less skimming because some passages felt unnecessary.
Overall, I would 100% recommend this book. I do not generally like books that are quite this heavy of a subject matter, but I found it to be manageable if any of you out there are terribly sensitive like I am. Let me know what you think if you give it a try!
XOXO,
Mattie Mae
Midwest Mattie 