By: Liz Moore
“We can do as we please, if we only learn not to care so much about what people think.”
The God of the Woods
*This post contains spoilers for The God of the Woods
Overview:
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
The God of the Woods
As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.
The God of the Woods has a very strong start. Immediately beginning with the disappearance of Barbara. It also utilizes nostalgia very well by setting the story at a summer camp during the 1970s. Though I did not live in the 1970s, any story that takes place at a time before cell phones in the internet evokes a sense of innocence.
Where the story suffers is when it pulls away from this setting and instead focuses time on ever characters family dynamics. While this is important back story to determine the character of everyone involved, there is too much focus on this. Easily these backstories could have been condensed and still been effective.
If you have read any of my discussions of other mystery books you know that I don’t love stories that are overly complicated. In my opinion, The God of the Woods commits this crime. Too many characters that are tied together through too many twists. Members of Barbara’s family, Anabelle and even Jacob could have been omitted all together without really changing the story.
I understand the importance of deceiving the reader so they can be really surprised. It would be very boring to know the twist too early into the book. The balance is hard to achieve and that is why some books are more successful in this than others.
The main mystery of the book is what happened to Barbara? Short answer is that she ran away from her family and nothing nefarious took place.
I like this resolution. It was interesting for the story to start with you thinking that the book is about Barbara’s disappearance but really it is about Bear’s. It was a good diversion. Of course as you are reading it you think that this can’t be a coincidence that two siblings go missing in the same woods. I figured that we would find out what happened but not that Bear would become the focus by the end of the book.
Overall,
The book was fine. I like the setting and the final resolution. I do think that the book could have been much shorter and that the author added in background and relationships that didn’t really add to the story.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
