Eschewing the overpopulated and over-processed world in which we live, the premise behind this book, is an appealing concept. However, the characters are so unappealing that it was hard to drum up any enthusiasm for the book. Mack is our narrator, and she has been damaged by some unspecified debacle while she was on a reality show called, fittingly, The Millennials. The small group that she joins to create a self-sustaining community called the Homestead on a remote plot of land is made up of other 20-somethings, and they don’t seem to have an ounce of maturity among them. It’s clear from the beginning of the book that their utopia does not survive, so I’m not giving anything away by saying that it’s surprising it lasts as long as it does. The one thing the five community members have going for them is that they are not as vile as the members of the other utopian community in the vicinity.

What saves the book is Mack’s research into 19th century utopian communities, specifically a small one that lived for a short while on the same land as the Homestead. She finds similarities between the past and present, and both a diary from the 1800s she finds and the information she discovers in her quest for a possible publication add interest to the antics of members of both present-day communities. The author’s descriptive writing is strong, especially when describing the land and the weather. Even reading this in the heat of the Arizona sun, I felt the cold as the author placed her characters in a winter blizzard.

When I saw this book's description, I thought it sounded interesting. Once I got into it, I realized this just isn't the book for me. I stopped just beyond the 20% mark and just haven't even thought of picking it back up to finish. That's pretty telling for me. None of the characters are very likable. From reading a few other reviews, I see there is a plot line still to unfold, but I just don't care enough to actually spend more time on this book. Life's too short for books you aren't enjoying.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I got 25% of the way through this book and had to stop. The writing seemed pretentious to me and I did not care about the characters or what happened to them.

Just not for me. I was interested when I saw it compared to Donna Tartt, but disappointed once I got into the story.

'After that first chilly evening out in the country, we were like unlanded peasants bewtiched by the promise of future rootedness.'

Working one night at a fundraiser behind the bar, Mack enters a caption contest and wins, drawing the attention of beautiful Louisa Stein- Jackson. This is the real win of the night. Invited to her garden party on a cold New York winter night she meets Chloe, Beau, and Jack when she accepts the invitation and is soon charmed by their stimulating conversation and beauty. A week later, Louisa’s seductive dream of running an idyllic Homestead together has taken root in them all. They should have paused to really think about that word, idyllic. Homesteading is anything but, and an organic existence doesn’t happen because you embrace the romanitcism of purity and freedom, you know, everything sold in ads that is all sunshine and beekeeping. But Louisa assures them, this isn’t some ‘half-baked spiritual notion of cutting themselves off from the world”. No, they just want to know what they are eating… be closer to the process. Not ingest poisons that GE farmers provide! It’s not quite the reality twenty-somethings lacking skills are going to be able to achieve without making mistakes. Certainly Louisa’s family wealth doesn’t hurt yet there is irony there I think. Louisa is adamantly against capitilism but a part of the priveldged. Can you really achive this utopia when you are grasping the wealth you’re turning away from for something more genuine? Oh well, nothing wrong with money, so long as they aren’t giving it to those nasty corporations, right? Before they venture forth into the woods, a strange incident seems to seal the deal, driving them into a deeper intimacy when they witness an accident. Certainly it feels ominous.

So begins the farming and as long as they are together that’s all that matters, right? The tender intimacy of it all? Mistakes will happen, they aren’t fools. How together are they really? Beau is a mystery (Mack tells us this), as are his disappearances, regardless of how Louisa seethes inside, it’s accepted by the friends as just his way. But his friendliness with neighbors at the ‘collective’ isn’t going over well, particularly the females. It doesn’t stop Lousia from letting him into her cabin late at night. Are Louisa and Beau really together? In fact, they all seem to take part in nighttime wanderings, except for Mack. Mack is the watcher, desperately jealous for her own trysts. Too cowardly to take what she wants, instead content to yearn from afar. Naturally she is as pulled in by Beau’s magnetism as the rest. Jack is the most solid, Jack actually knows a thing or two about farming. Why can’t she desire Jack, Jack is someone she could have if she wanted. Ah, that’s why…

Happy to be out of New York, she has her own dark shame to escape having been involved in something called ‘The Millienail Experiment’, while trying complete her PH.D. program in Anthropolgy. This could be the perfect escape from her current bleak reality, this thing that Jack calls the “Grand Experiment”. If she nearly drowns in freezing water with the fragile Chloe, well it’s worth it. Here she can be invisible from the outside world and yet share profound intimacy with a chosen few. Her deepest desire is for someone to explain her to herself. Maybe they can!

The land begins to feel as much hers once she settles in with the others. Too, the sense of community she didn’t realize she had lacked is nearly enough to keep her warm through the cold nights, as is her hunger to be self-sufficient. Yet the relationships are not as they seem. Louisa and Beau aren’t new to the Homestead having worked the last year on it. But this is a “collective endevor” so why focus on that? Here they can sustain themselves, find meaning, not like the world they feel has nothing to offer them- educated and meandering, society treating their generation as if they created all the problems that is their inheritance. Little does she realize how much animosity Louisa feels for the local farmer whose land borders hers, farmers who grow genitcally engineered corn. Nor the trouble it will bring.

Beofre long Louisa begins to obsess over Chuck Larson, doing all she can to disrupt the farmer. Fennel, one of Beau’s girls from the collective is more than just a distraction. There is a bigger story than Mack knew, and soon after joining Beau and Louisa protesting fracking, she meets Mathew, the head of collectives and is privy to plans to stop Lakeview from successfully taking over land locally. Getting entangled with others wasn’t what they signed up for. There is a thin line between passionate causes and crimal acts. Through seasons of exhuasting work and fruitful harvest, the idle is disturbed by the infectious presence of the neighboring collective and it’s leader. Alongisde their own story is the tale of an early attempt at Utopia in the form of writings by a man named William Fulsome. The hardships aren’t that much different from the ones they too face. What will get them all in the end? Will it be the elements, their dreams or each other? It’s wise to remember that all families, whether self-made or not, have seeds of destruction and secrets they keep from others. Idealism is contagious, reality always creeps in…

Publication Date: July 2, 2019

Random House

I could not even finish this one. I literally don’t even care what happens. The characters were just TOO intentionally unlikable for me.

It’s not the novel’s story.
This story has been told before.
It’s not that the plot has a structure of twists to keep the reader stumped and the ending held in expectation.
Although, early on, the reader is told not all is being revealed.
Mischa Thrace has written this novel with such an honest, authentic voice, a reader forgets the book is a work of fiction.
Whatever awards Mischa has or will receive are truly deserved.

I really liked how the characters are developed, and their secrets just start to trickle into the story. It was also cool to learn a little bit about the history of utopian communities as well. At times, the characters and their dialogue felt a little bit too much to me, but overall I liked it.

I think it's safe to say that after book #2 by this author, I'm just not the right reader for her stories. I'm going to leave off a rating here on Goodreads and simply encourage readers to check out the 4-5 star reviews to help determine whether or not this book is for them.

This is a perfect case of “it’s not you, it’s me.” This story had fantastic prose, and a clever narrative. It was pretty stylistic and literary, which I think a lot of people will really love and appreciate - but unfortunately that’s not my niche. Great story - the writing was just not for me personally.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was surprised at how much I liked this book (I did not have high expecations based on reviews aleady) but I was pleasantly surprised. Was it great? No, Was it awful? Also no. Was it enjoyable? I'm not sure if was supposed to be. Was it interesting? Yes, it was!

A group of 20 something year olds move to a isolated farm and start their own community to live off the grid. While at some points I wanted to reach into the book and smack the hell of some of the characters (Louisa!), but I'm also from a different generation than these characters. (OMG I'm so old!)

I enjoyed Mack's character and did find myself wondering at times why the hell she was with these people but it came mid book. I do wish that I knew earlier in the story, because while I liked the character, I didn't feel all that connected to her, until I found out what had happened. Knowing from the start of the book that things weren't going to end well and then finding out later what happened with her, was just sort of a let down for a odd reason. I think if I had known sooner about her past and the fact that things weren't going to end well, I may have connected to her more than I did. That being said, there is some potential though here.

I did hope this book gets on more look at by an editor before publication date for there is some more fine tuning that can take this ok book and make it a great book.

Thank you again for the ARC!

Unfortunately, this book was quite difficult to get into, and I had to quit reading about one quarter of the way through. Slowwwww. Superficial characters, boring plot.

I got through chapter 10, exactly a third of the way through, before giving up. Beyond a vague mention of possible ecoterrorism in their future, nothing happened. I briefly pondered whether it was written as satire before writing it off as just not my type of book, which is really saying a lot considering I read anything.

The bare bones of the story are fine, but every single one of the five are the epitome of obnoxious, preening, head-in-the-sand, boujee wackos. They use anachronistic language like “must”, “shall”, and “indeed” but are the shallowest, most naive characters I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. Not a single one of them has an ounce of a redeeming quality. If that was the intention, brava, but I just can’t read a book like this. If not, then I’d love to have a conversation with the author to really find out how she perceives these characters and how she intended they come across. This is basically the millennial communist’s manifesto so if that’s not your cup of tea, I’d recommend passing. I have not given a book a 1 star rating maybe ever, but I hated the characters that much.

The descriptions of nature took me back to my youth in upstate NY. I enjoyed the pull of waiting to find out what happened to Mack and thoroughly enjoyed reading about the independent, commune, homestead-lifestyle. I kept thinking that this was taking place in an earlier time, and was snapped back into the current details such as iPhone, social media and discussion of The Millennial Experiment. Perhaps I was so engrossed as to picture myself in this story. I also loved the overlapping characters and storyline from Dead Letters! Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled through this one for two main reasons 1) having the characters entitled millennials makes them almost completely unlikable and certainly unrelatable. 2) the storyline dragged along and needs a little tightening up.

I’m not sure I’m really the core audience for this one. I see reviews have been a mixed bag so if the description grabs you, give it a go! I didn’t dislike it, hence the 3 stars, yet I had been hoping for a deeper connection.

A group of 20-somethings trying to escape the problems of the world retreat to the woods to create a 1960s-style commune in upstate New York. Unfortunately, their problems and those of the world follow them. The characters are well developed but the book overall is lackluster. The "big reveals" are bland to the point of being inconsequential. The additional storylines around the previous commune inhabitants and Mack's "project" are convoluted and don't add to the story. I put down the book and wondered what I should take away for it. Was the point that over-privileged millennials are the worst? Perhaps that you can never really escape your problems? Or maybe it was simply that living by your ideals is hard and boring and still come with negative consequences? I'm not quite sure, and regardless, it was a bit of a boring slog for any of these morals.

Between 3 and 4 stars, rounded up. We Went to the Woods really suffers from the blurb’s comparison to The Secret History and The Immortalists; it is really not even close to being in the league of those two novels (my favorite ever, and my favorite of 2018) - the comparison made me intrigued to read it, but also made me judge it harshly up to the standards of those books, which it falls far short of.

All that said, I ended up being surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Sure, it reads like a college student doing her best Donna Tartt impression, and sure, sometimes the narrator uses words and phrases no American would ever say, and sure, the millennial crew who goes into the woods outside of Ithaca, New York to start an intentional community based on subsistence farming are SO pretentious you can’t possibly imagine humans actually speaking to each other this way, but the story is solid. The characters grew on me (especially Jack and Chloe, and by the end, even the insufferable Louisa), and I found myself dreading whatever unfortunate end was going to befall Mack and her friends - as you know from the first chapter that this doesn’t end well.

I hope this book gets one more pass by an editor before it goes to distribution, as it could use a little work to really shine. But it’s a good one, one of my favorites of 2019 so far, and I will definitely be recommending it to others. We Went to the Woods will be particularly interesting to anyone who enjoys character driven novels and readers interested in cults, intentional communities, or subsistence farming. I always enjoy books that send me down side research roads, and this book is impossible to read without googling utopian communities and the Oneida Community in particular. I’m grateful to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

Posted 4/2 to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2759417073

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The description of this book pulled me in but in the end it just wasn't for me. I couldn't connect with the characters and I found the plot slow and unrealistic.

I think this book greatly demonstrates the debates that the current youth generation is going through. Being torn between accepting consumerist and comfort of life that destroy the planet and not knowing how to live any differently. I enjoyed this novel for its story and how it developed. Especially I enjoyed conclusions Mack drew for herself and where she went after her trip to the woods. I found some of the foreshadowing overhyped, but I think for someone in their 20s-30s they would be perfect.

If you find an idea of living off the grid interesting, wonder about communal living and enjoy drama I would recommend it to you.

We Went to the Woods is just what it says, a group of people in the woods. Take a few millennials with zero life experience and entitlement issues and send them forth to live off the land. It's an old idea with many names-commune, cult, intentional community. By any name, it's not plausible in my mind for this group of people. The main character is already screwed up and self centered because she defines her value based on social media/reality television shows. Seriously? They are doomed before the story unfolds. It's too many different intentions trying to live as one. The living is harder than expected, and there are a host of other issues. Overall, I found the entire concept too cliche to garner much intrest. I wanted to like it, but it's never that simple. The characters are not likeable and the story is contrite. It's an unfortunate miss for me. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting book. A group of 20-somethings move to an isolated plot of land and work together to start their own commune where they grow their own food and live off the grid. Thinks become a little complicated when it's discovered that a couple of the members dabble in ecoterrorism against companies they believe to be polluting the environment. I think I loved the idea of this book more than the execution, though I did enjoy it for the most part. I think I really leaned into the wish-fulfillment of working together to create a community and family, but I was left a little cold by some of the characters (they felt like spoiled brats who were participating in a social experiment) and the ecoterrorism plot fell a little flat for me, especially since the story is told from the POV of a character who has no idea what is going on. Overall, I think i'd give this 3/5 stars because I enjoyed the overall story and thought it was an interesting concept. Thanks to Net Galley and PRH for the advance copy!