This book had such an interesting premise but unfortunately it was incredibly disappointing and even problematic for me. The way important subjects are represented in this book really made me mad because even without doing my research, I know some of these things could NEVER happen.

I can’t get into this because of spoilers, obviously, but I do wanna say It did really have potential. Due to its weird pacing and unbelievable twists, though, it wasn’t something I’d recommend.

I’ve decided not to post reviews for this novel because I can’t say a lot without getting into spoilers. I’m so sorry!

Love,
Alissa

When I first saw this book's title and description, I was expecting a spooky jaunt through the woods, full of twists and turns that left me gasping and flipping pages until the very end. What I got was unfortunately far from that. WHAT SHE FOUND IN THE WOODS did the one thing that I absolutely despise seeing in thrillers: it used mental illness as a way to create an unreliable, dishonest, violent character. As someone who suffers from a mental illness, and has been on various medications in the past, this rubbed me the wrong way. Not only that, but it also used a women's shelter and addicts to help fuel the plot, which I wasn't a fan of either.

Yes, there was a murdered in the woods. Yes, there was suspense and action and flashbacks, and everything else that should make a good YA thriller, but the way it was presented didn't work for me. I was expecting something different from this book, and ended up very disappointed with what I read.

I'm sure there are readers who will love this story. It has many themes and tropes that other popular books within the genre do.

Thank you to the publisher, Sourcefire Books, for an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley.

This was a brilliantly written puzzle of a YA thriller. I don't know if I have ever read a slow burn thriller that packed this much of a punch before. This is one that I definitely had to reserve judgment for until the very end, because you need all the pieces to form the full puzzle.

Magdelena is not your typical teenage girl. She is running from one heck of a haunting past. One that you won't fully know until the author gives you all the breadcrumbs. Patience is key in a thriller like this. You are given just enough at a time to keep you baited. And, with the unreliable narrator that Magdelena is, you don't even really know what you're getting.

Moving to a town that she spent her summers in, and living with her waspy grandparents, Magdelena is on a strict medication regimen, a practical shell of a person. She gets back in touch with some faces from the past but all she wants to do is spend time reading in the woods. In those woods, she comes across a beautiful young man living out there. Soon, she is spending all of her time with him entwined in a whirlwind teenage romance.

But, when girls in town start to go missing, she is compelled to find out what is happening. Along with her unreliable memories and reality, she must piece through her present and her past to figure out the truth. Does she know more than she thinks she does?

I really enjoyed this thriller, though I will admit that it took a little while for it to start to grip me. Once it got its hooks in, though, it did not let go.

If I was a teen, this thriller would have been good for me. Instead, I'm a 40-something year old woman who has been reading thriller most of her life and this just gave into too many thriller tropes for me to enjoy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Trigger warnings: mental and physical abuse, drug abuse, mental illness (schizophrenia), self harm, suicide.

If you told me this book was originally written in 2010 and re-released, I would believe you. The story follows Lena, who has been sent to live with her grandparents after a hospitalisation that you discover more about as the book progresses. While she’s there, she reunites with old friends from her youth and it spawns the entire book. She also does a lot of hiking and it leads to an instant love between her and a boy. There’s also murder, a mystery, and drugs.

This book portrayed a lot and hardly any of it was done well- our main character’s schizophrenia is the major plot point in this, so much so that it is actually used against her in a rather... unimaginative way. Furthermore, the author connects four suicides to this girl through her schizophrenia and that’s a stretch for me. The drugs problems were looked down on for most of the book and were, in fact, how the killers picked their victims. The book was correct in saying that most people suffering drug abuse/addiction aren’t looked for by police; my main issue was the tone the book took about society and drugs.

The characters were pretty flat too, there was a whole bunch of side characters that actually did play some role in the story and yet, weren’t that real. As if all the effort went into us believing the mental illness + murder plot line.

Honestly, the only interesting part of this whole book was who the actual killers were and the discussion of assisted suicide.

This book can be listed under many genres. It could be called young adult, mystery, thriller and even romance. It also deals with plenty of timely issues such as mental health, violence, social class, drug use and family dynamics. While the writing itself was okay the pacing was a little too slow for my liking, especially in the beginning chapters. BUT the book redeems itself in the last quarter.

I really enjoyed the parts where we get to read Lena's diary entries. It showed the mind of a teenager in crisis very well and we got a great internal view of her backstory and she became very unlikable. In fact all the characters in this book seemed real and flawed. So, because I enjoyed the twists and the unreliable narrator theme I am rounding up.

I found the build up for the resolution to be better then the actual ending. The ending left the reader feeling dissatisfied and disappointed. The story starts off as being very believable but it quickly turns ridiculous when the main character suddenly has this amazing new skill set that nothing in her past could have called for. It was nice to see this mental health rep in a ya story it just didn’t hit the mark for me.

This book ended up being so different than I thought it would! It took a little while for the mystery aspect to get started, but it ended up being so exciting by the end. The background of the narrator is fascinating, and I love how you only get little bits and pieces as the story unfolds. I didn't want to put it down, and I was so drawn into the story and characters. Great read!

This book was amazing and much better than I was expecting in the beginning. The loved the main characters especially Bo something about him really grabbed me as a reader and I couldn't wait to read more about him. While this is a YA book it deals with a lot of deep and dark subjects that really made the story come to life and stand on its own from others in the same genre. I found all of the main characters really pulled you into the story while the plot itself is what sealed the deal and really had you falling in love. While the flashbacks aren't usually my favourite thing this book really did them justice and I can see why they were important. Very good read and I'm very glad that I got the chance to check it out. I really liked Bo and Magdalena's relationship it seemed so real and genuine. I also like how it showed the pain that Magalena was going through and what caused it. Great read the characters were so realistic and the plot pulled you in while everything else kept you hooked. Very good read and I'm glad that I got the chance to check it out.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was first drawn to this book because of the description and then I realized who the author was and was even more excited because she’s wrote some of my fave books. I wasn’t quite sure how she’d do on a thriller/ mystery compared to her usually fantasy but I was pleasantly surprised.
I did really enjoy this read literally just read it in one sitting and started when I was going to bed and ended up finishing it haha! I liked the characters, the love interest. I was a bit ify on what was going on but then I guessed it, but it was still a bit of a shock.
I would definitely recommend this one!

First i wanna say Thank you netgally so much for sending me this ebook to Review
Ok I really didn't like this book as a person who has dealt with mental issues I feel the author did a bad representation of using Mental illness as a plot device I Realize Mental illness is in a lot of books Either to add to the character story for the plot or to add to awareness But I feel the only reason The main character had mental illness with to add to the Thriller/mystery aspect and nothing else Making it something to be Feared. I also feel the book Didn't know if it was a romance book or mystery/thriller They didn't mix well with each other

I wanna say thank you again to netgalley and to the author for sending me this review copy I'm sorry that i didn't like it this was one of my most anticipated books

What a twisty, turning tale! I was captivated from the very beginning. There were parts that were very difficult to read. Yet the characters were written in such a way that I couldn't quit thinking about them, even while I wasn't reading. The villain was not expected until very close to the end. I was convinced of the same ending as the main character.

**There are definitely some triggers within this book that some would want to know before reading: mental illness, drug use, and detailed hunting scenes. Although, with this being categorized as a YA Thriller some vivid writing is a must.

Thank you to the publisher through Netgalley for an advanced copy.

I was in the middle of a decent book when I decided to preview this title. The other book was immediately put aside. Magda is a flawed and compelling character struggling with a serious mental illness which makes her an unreliable narrator and contributes to the complexity of her character. Her struggles make her sympathetic in spite of her past questionable decisions. She does not just stumble into a mystery that she feels she must solve, but is thrust into the action and intrigue in an unavoidable series of events. You never think "Really! What is she doing?" There is an admirable suspension of disbelief created by the author. This book is worth your time.

I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I started this book! The description is a little vague, but there are lots of very serious topics talked about in this book (mental illness, addiction, murder, suicide, just to name a few) so there’s a lot of material that could be a potential trigger for a lot of people. Overall, a very good storyline. The story was paced well and I really did enjoy getting to know the characters. The suspense reads well. I truly was surprised at the end because you are kept off balance for a good bit and it’s easy to head down the wrong rabbit trail. Good read!

Magda can't remember the details of most of the last year. After a scandal that destroys her friends' group and leaves her in an institution, Magda isn't sure she wants to remember the details anyway. All she knows is that she's recorded everything in her journal. And she will never write in it again.

But after she meets a strange, charming boy in the woods at her grandparents' summer house, Magda starts to feel again. And that's dangerous. Because people are ending up dead. Just like last time…

--

Angelini has written a well-crafted YA thriller. There's drama, privileged rich kids you really can't feel sorry for, secrets, and a vibrant world inside the dense woods that makes it easy to see how someone could confuse what happens in the woods and out of them as two different worlds.

I was a bit torn on a rating for this one, because it's a good book, the past and present narration helps keep the pace from slowing down, and I was interested in what was happening from beginning to end. Unfortunately, there are two sticking points for me that I found a bit troubling.

Being mentally ill (or having a diagnosis or being on meds) does not make you an automatic villain or criminal suspect. People can be bad, manipulative people without needing to justify that with an illness. Throughout the book mental illness was not handled with nuance to bring awareness. It was a plot point. Various elements of selective mutism, PTSD, and schizophrenia (which sometimes seemed like it was confused with dissociative identity disorder) were used to add twists to the plots and move the story along, but weren't presented in their complex reality.

This was also true with narcotics addictions. Addiction is another linchpin of this plot, but the characters with addictions are also not given the nuanced treatment of real humans struggling through addiction and recovery and relapse. In fact, they bordered on stereotypical.

In the end, I’m not sure that this one was for me.

What She Found in the Woods tells the story of Magda, a teenager who has been sent from New York to the Pacific Northwest to live with her grandparents for the summer. She’s uninspired and bored until she meets Bo and life gets even more interesting when she realises that not all is as it seems in the woods near his forest home.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a young adult novel and so I was nervous that I would find it hard to get into but I actually got through the book quite quickly. The story really gets going once you’re introduced to Bo and get to follow along as this young couple’s relationship starts to develop. I thought Angelini captured quite well the awkwardness of being a teenager and trying to fit in with the crowd.

Where the book lost me though was how the author treated the topic of mental health. I found the depiction of medical professionals troubling, as I did the portrayal of women living with addiction . It’s quite negative and I didn’t understand the need for that. I also found it weirdly dark and overly complicated towards the latter part of the book. There’s nothing wrong with darker content but I felt that it was unnecessary and the plot became almost unrealistic by the end (even though it’s fiction to begin with).

I think this had the potential to be a Veronica Mars – esque mystery but it got lost along the way. A good first part but one that could have done with some editing touches to the second and third.

I'm not going to lie, I did not have high hopes for this book. The first bit of it felt like I had been tricked into a non-thriller book. However, as things moved along, I couldn't put the book down as I needed to know what was going to happen. As it started to become more of a thriller book, I was more and more interested. The twists in this book are well done and incredibly redeeming. Admittedly, I didn't and still don't care about any of the characters. I reacted to any deaths with indifference. As is generally the case in thrillers, there isn't much character growth either.

I could get into the issues around the way missing people, drug usage (both legal and illegal), and the handling of these things- but really, it's a thriller novel. This is considered normal. The "not crazy, maybe crazy" trope is not new, but, to see it in a teen was interesting.

3.5 out of 5 stars overall.

Read full review: 9/23/2020

I was provided an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Astonishingly terrible. The author’s writing was painfully basic to the point where I thought this was a new YA author (spoiler alert: she’s not) and the plot kept layering tropes that were not only moronic but potentially dangerous like encouraging pathological lying while vilifying mental illness, sexuality, and conventional medicine. It got boring rather quickly with the amount of unhealthy relationships and unbelievable plot lines in this book. Subpar “thriller” if you can even call it a thriller.

My student loves your books so much you did such an amazing job writing this. Thank you so much for helping my students and i during this pandemic!

Let me preface this review by making it clear that in this novel Josephine Angelini uses schizophrenia as the plot device of a thriller. Pause to let that sink in...

Using mental illness to add mystery and depth to your plot, especially in a thriller/horror/suspense novel, is not only uninspired, it also misrepresents those people who actually have these conditions, and it misinforms those who don't know the facts about these conditions, which allows misconceptions and fear to breed. Schizophrenics aren't untrustworthy psycho-killers. I'm really disappointed that in 2020 a book targeted at a younger audience is portraying this trope.

Still following this thread: using a schizophrenic as your unreliable narrator is the ultimate form of lazy writing. "This person can't even keep track of what's real and what they're making up. This'll really mess with the reader!" Here's an idea: take a creative writing class. There is no need to rely on tropes and to misrepresent/libel against an entire demographic to write a wild and unexpected thriller. Just look at Gone Girl.

Ranting aside, the writing itself is good. The structure is good, the pacing is good (though maybe a little slow at times). I can't deny that What She Found in the Woods is a technically sound novel. It's just that I despise the plot. If I had been told from the blurb that this thriller/suspense novel's main character has schizophrenia it would have been a hard pass for me.