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A review by mackenzierm
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
4.5
4.5 stars.
On an early morning in August of 1975, a camp counsellor discovers an empty bunk – Barbara Van Laar is missing. Barbara is the daughter of the family who owns the summer camp and employs most of the residents in the region. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared, Barbara’s brother disappeared similarly fourteen years ago and was never found. A panicked search begins, with the search taking the investigators places they’ve never imagined.
I was delighted to read this book in August (please excuse my backlog in reviews 🫢) with @read.withrachel and the rest of her virtual monthly book group!
THE GOD OF THE WOODS is a phenomenally written, slow burn mystery with multiple POVs and various timelines. It takes some extra focus in the beginning to become familiar with each POV, their timeline, and their relationships with the other characters, but it is well worth it! I found each POV to be vital to the story, despite liking some POVs more than others. There are many characters within this novel but each is well written with great characterization and unique voices.
The setting of this book is in rural New York State and I thought it to be very descriptive and easy to visualize each aspect of the setting: the camp and all the associated buildings, the Van Laar family home, the surrounding nature, etc.
The plot is very well executed, and I was invested from early on, eager to see how things would play out. The storytelling is not done linearly but I ended up really liking this as it adds lots of tension and drama. I enjoyed that the title of each chapter indicated the character’s POV and showed a bar with all the timelines and the current timeline bolded to help the reader identify easily where in time we would be reading.
The ending was well done and I liked how each mystery was solved. A book I’d highly recommend!
On an early morning in August of 1975, a camp counsellor discovers an empty bunk – Barbara Van Laar is missing. Barbara is the daughter of the family who owns the summer camp and employs most of the residents in the region. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared, Barbara’s brother disappeared similarly fourteen years ago and was never found. A panicked search begins, with the search taking the investigators places they’ve never imagined.
I was delighted to read this book in August (please excuse my backlog in reviews 🫢) with @read.withrachel and the rest of her virtual monthly book group!
THE GOD OF THE WOODS is a phenomenally written, slow burn mystery with multiple POVs and various timelines. It takes some extra focus in the beginning to become familiar with each POV, their timeline, and their relationships with the other characters, but it is well worth it! I found each POV to be vital to the story, despite liking some POVs more than others. There are many characters within this novel but each is well written with great characterization and unique voices.
The setting of this book is in rural New York State and I thought it to be very descriptive and easy to visualize each aspect of the setting: the camp and all the associated buildings, the Van Laar family home, the surrounding nature, etc.
The plot is very well executed, and I was invested from early on, eager to see how things would play out. The storytelling is not done linearly but I ended up really liking this as it adds lots of tension and drama. I enjoyed that the title of each chapter indicated the character’s POV and showed a bar with all the timelines and the current timeline bolded to help the reader identify easily where in time we would be reading.
The ending was well done and I liked how each mystery was solved. A book I’d highly recommend!