What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould

HorrorParanormal

Dec 20

Synopsis

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.

*Blurb taken from the StoryGraph

Review

This review contains spoilers.

Characters: Devin (POV) as a character was realistic enough, though I had qualms with her chapters. She undergoes immense character growth, steps into a leadership role, and comes into her own as she approaches adulthood. That being said, her POV was aggravating due to her obsession with Sheridan. And I get it—this hate-love infatuation was because she had a crush on the girl, whether she realized it or not. But Sheridan is a truly evil person through much of the story. It was maddening to have Devin staring into Sheridan’s eyes, describing the color of them in detail, after the girl just did something like leave the others to starve to death. I understand that Sheridan had a redemption arc, but it’s hard to ignore that she put the others into life-threatening situations that didn’t exist before her selfish acts. I finished this book still not feeling that Sheridan’s actions were justified in the least.

Ollie (POV) was the only character I found myself interested in. His moments of self-reflection fit the more mature themes in the book, whilst still demonstrating his age and his lack of familial support. He was the most authentic of the cast.

We do get secondary characters that are fleshed out, but something I can’t place my finger on kept them flat. It may be a general lack of connection due to the SLOW front half of the novel. Or, it may be that there was an element missing.

Plot: This one was difficult. A more elevated writing style could have summed up the first 45% of this novel in a few chapters, thereby launching us into the meat of the story sooner. Instead, the exposition drags on forever. There is a lot of info-dump about the characters via talk-therapy exercises, which leaned into Telling far more then Showing. The second half of the book picks up exponentially with the entrance of the Mimics and the survival-centered conflicts. Having these external obstacles happening as the characters worked through more personal trauma made for a complex storyline that finally engaged me as a reader. I think Gould handled this aspect well, and it was the point at which the story hit the ground running. If this had happened around the 25% mark, I would have enjoyed the book far more.

Craft: The writing is solid, if not a bit disappointing. There was an opportunity to take this setting and run with it, and I felt that the author chose dialogue and inner-monologues over an immersive experience. I enjoy a horror with an intense atmosphere built out of tone, mood, and imagery. In this novel, however, most of the story was spent with the characters talking to one another to create conflict and tension. There’s nothing overtly bad about that, but it’s not my cup of tea.

Audio: If you enjoy audiobooks, this one was good. The characters felt distinct from one another, and Dorcus puts in some effort to add emotion into her narration.

Overall Thoughts: I would have DNFd at 25% if it weren’t for the high star rating from other reviewers. The first 45% of this novel is excruciatingly slow with a lot of basic character building and plot setup. It took way too long to get into the heart of the story, and while I’m glad I stuck around, this just didn’t do it for me. I never felt invested in the characters. So much so that, when deaths were revealed, I didn’t feel the grief or loss I should have. With a concept that had every opportunity for the writing to build a tense, creepy atmosphere, I truly think Gould missed the mark here. Especially having read books like The Dark We Know and Don’t Let the Forest In. Both of these novels also use monsters in the wood as a personification of past trauma tied to grief/shame/mental illness, but they do it in a way that’s so visceral and character driven, I was hooked from the start and fully engaged with the characters’ journeys. In contrast, this novel took time to get into, and I felt a separation from the characters that was never fully resolved. There were some standout moments here for certain. I especially liked that, at the end, these teens held their parents accountable for the emotional damage done pre-wilderness therapy, and that they built their own family through the friendships made. The back half of this book definitely picked up the plot and the pace. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make up for the mind-numbing beginning.