In 1975, thirteen-year-old Barbera Van Laar goes missing from the Adirondack camp that her wealthy family owns. But Barbara isn’t the only camper who has gone missing from the property. Fourteen years before, her older brother Bear went missing and was never found. As the search begins for Barbara, many questions arise. Barbara is a difficult teen and she has never expressed any interest in being a camper. Why does she suddenly want to join the campers? When the police are finally brought in, it becomes apparent that everyone involved with the camp has secrets.

The God of the Woods has a lot of characters and the story is told from different points of view. What happened to Barbara and who is telling the truth? I enjoyed this book, the immersive setting at a summer camp and the slow burn mystery. I didn’t see the ending coming and it took me completely by surprise.

Thanks to Penguin Group Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy.

Keep making both exciting and literary thrillers like this! I loved the vibes of this book, but it also had such rich, nuanced characters but also a fast paced plot. Loved it!

This book got so much hype, I was so excited to start it but it ended up just not being for me. Maybe it's because I tend to like spookier and/or sadder books? But I just don't get it. I tried text and audio and I just could not bring myself to care about what was happening to the characters.

The God of the Woods captivated my attention and had me guessing the whole time I was reading it. A slow burn mystery, but with enthralling characters that were very memorable. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery.

I am a bit late in reviewing but this book was amazing and it completely blew me away! A slow burn filled with immersive characters and a fantastic plot and intrigue!

A beautiful cover. A great book for end of summer / fall book as it is a fun summer mystery / light thriller. If you have ever been to a sleep away summer camp, this book will bring a lot of nostalgia. This book has you guessing, but your guessing will never be right as you flip through the pages. The different narrators and stories split up through the years were confusing at first, but made the book in the end.

I was completely transported to the Adirondack Mountains in 1975. There are a lot of characters and POV. But, I felt they all became more interesting as the book went along. This is creative and engaging writing. A book has not captivated me like this for awhile. Liz Moore certainly has my attention.

This book is by far in my top 5 of all time. I cannot get the characters off my mind. The writing was so good! I was afraid that I would not be able to keep track of the multiple characters in the book but it was so interesting that I didn't have that problem at all. I am now reading Long Bright RIver because I cannot get enough of Liz Moore's writing.

If I was asked to rate this book before 50% it would've been low. I admit I was not feeling it as the plot was slower and there were too many characters who blended together for me to remember who was who but as the story progressed it did get increasingly more interesting and I was ultimately rooting for some of the characters by the end.

This definitely will not work for most thriller/mystery fans as it reads more fiction but if you are looking for a character driven book or a slower family drama read this works for that.

The ending was good. I was expecting a bigger twist based on other reviews. I'm am looking forward to more from the author!

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy!

Sensational, in more ways than one!
When a camper disappears from her summer camp grounds, the tension begins and never lets up. It appears to be a repeat performance as the camper's brother disappeared years earlier.
The writing is so compelling. The story touches on so many angles including the class struggles, the haves and have-nots. The characters are so well drawn, and the suspense kept me on tenterhooks. I could not put this book down. The narrative was so well-constructed.
Great read!

This one took me a long time to read, mostly because of my own life happenings. I did feel that it moved slow, but the story and writing was still great and worth the read. There was a lot going on as far as characters and timeline, but it wasn’t difficult to follow, especially with the dates and names at the top of each chapter. If you like fast-paced suspense, this might not be your absolutely favorite; but, if you like a good, well-written mystery, you will be golden.

This was not a thriller in my opinion, but a literary mystery. The characters were well developed and the plot was intriguing. I enjoyed this more than Long Bright River, the authors previous book. Going in knowing what to expect, that this would not read as a thriller helped my enjoyment of this story. My heart breaks for Alice. Loved the multiple points of views and the strong women characters. The mystery was engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. What a great thriller!! After two teens from the same family go missing years apart, the search is on for the cause. The story expertly weaves the 2 situations together and the reader has to turn the pages quickly to uncover the mystery. 5 amazing stars for Liz Moore

This literary slow burn suspense from the former podcast guest and the author of Long Bright River is one of my favorite books of the year so far! The story is set in the mid-1970’s at an outdoors-focused summer camp in the Adirondack mountains of New York that’s owned by the wealthy Van Laar family. The story opens when Barbara Van Laar, the daughter of the camp owners who is at Camp Emerson as a camper, disappears from her bunk in the middle of the night. And, over a decade earlier, her younger brother (Bear) had gone missing from the estate and never returned. This book is perfectly balanced between plot, character and style. You’ve got the mystery of what happened to Barbara (and her brother years ago), but, this is really a story about the Van Laar family (there’s definitely some demons there), Camp Emerson, and the people who run and attend the camp. The family ties run deep here and there’s a wealthy interlopers vs. the locals vibe running through the story. I was totally immersed in this almost 500 page book from start to finish…the Camp Emerson setting, the focus on love of the woods and the land, and these highly nuanced and well developed characters. This is the kind of mystery / suspense novel I love...one that rides on far more than the mystery / suspense of the story. Note: this is NOT a thriller...so, don't be surprised by the slower pace.

I'm apparently in the minority here, but I do not get the hype around this book. The only reason I can think of that it's so popular locally is because I live near the setting, and because Jimmy Fallon (who went to school in Albany) chose it for his book club.

It honestly felt like I read 500 pages to learn something I already knew: rich people suck. We get no real answers until about 400 pages in. This isn't so much a thriller as a generational family drama with a few red herrings. It wasn't bad by any means; I just think I had different expectations for it based on all of the reviews and publicity. I was expecting something more along the lines of Angie Kim's Miracle Creek or Happiness Falls, both of which I found much more gripping and fast paced while still acting as a searing commentary on family, identity, and race. This was just a bit too slow of a burn for me, and there were too many characters to really develop any sort of connection to them, despite the book's nearly 500 pages.

tl;dr- didn't love it, didn't hate it, just had different expectations and feel it's been a bit over-hyped

Also, thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, as I got to start reading it before it hit the shelves and didn't have to wait in a long line of library holds!

Absolutely lives up to the hype. Liz Moore is an incredibly gifted writer. She manages to keep a suspense novel tightly paced while giving each of her large cast of characters ample breathing room and space to show their many dimensions.

Super engrossing, compelling mystery that I couldn't put down. Atmospheric and lush with a lot of good characters. Highly recommend.

I love Liz Moore and her previous book. Something about this one just wasn't doing it for me. It may admittedly be the topic itself, but it just seems like Long Bright River was so much better. However, I'd gladly recommend the book to anyone who is a fan of Moore's and a mystery book.

Liz Moore's latest is as unsettling as it is beautifully written. When Barbara, a young camper goes missing, not unlike her brother 14 years before her, the whole community reels from it. There are three distinct story lines that intersect: the camp. counselors, and campers, the wealthy families who own/are friends with the owners of the camp, and the town that surrounds it. I found the characters from the community to be most intriguing, but the entire story is riveting. The connections from one group of characters to the other make it murky, impossible to tell who can be trusted, and heartbreaking. A moving thriller with a lot of tension and a bit of hope.

Many thanks to Penguin Group Riverhead Books for the advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤.... [𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥] 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘨𝘰𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘯: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴. 𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴. 𝘛𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤, 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘛.𝘑., 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵. 𝘛𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥."

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗢𝗗 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗦 by Liz Moore is my kind of book. A slow burn, literary, character-driven novel about two siblings who disappear 14 years apart, it's set at a summer camp with complicated class dynamics, and has rich people behaving badly and tons of family dysfunction.

This isn't a short read but I couldn't put it down. It's so atmospheric - I loved how the woods almost become a character (both the audio and ebook come with a PDF map of the camp). The narrator did a tremendous job narrating the large cast, and each new POV added another layer to the story. There were some great twists, and resolution of the mysteries totally surprised me.

If you're a fan of complex storytelling and beautiful writing that will keep you guessing, pick this one up. You won't be disappointed.

4.5 stars

Thanks to PRH Audio and Riverhead Books for the copies to review.