Chuck Wendig has done it again. I'm always impressed with the writing style as it often paints a very vivid picture in my mind. The juxtaposition between the past and present enhanced the story telling. I highly recommend this book. Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy.

This book dragged for me. Sounds like a great premise, friends go into the woods and disappear up a mysterious staircase.. Once they have entered the house, the group must try to find a way out, while dealing with the hoorors that the house holds and the memories it causes each friend to remember. This story does contain very horrific and scary descriptions and witty writing, which is why I finished it and gave it 2 stars. he rest just did not work for me and it would have been a DNF otherwise. If you like a slow moving plot, full of toxic friendships, mixed with horro, this may be for you.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoy Chuck Wendig’s books very much and this is another excellent read. It is a gripping, dark fantasy thriller with strong characters and a unsettling atmosphere. I highly recommend this book and any by this author.

This book hooks you instantly with its gripping premise and relentless pace. Every chapter ratchets up the tension, leaving just enough clues to keep you guessing but never certain. The protagonist is both vulnerable and fierce, making their journey all the more compelling. The twists are smart, unexpected, and deeply satisfying. It’s the perfect blend of mystery, action, and psychological depth.

The title alone gave me serious spooky vibes, and I was ready for some classic, chilling horror about a mysterious staircase.

What I actually got was a story that felt more like a deep dive into the messed-up lives of these childhood friends and all their baggage. And honestly? It had a bit too much of a YA vibe for me. While the staircase is definitely there and it's creepy, the book spends a lot of time on the interpersonal stuff and how their past traumas play out, which sometimes felt more in line with YA character development than the adult horror I was anticipating.

I found the pacing a little sluggish in parts, and it wasn't quite the intense, straightforward scary story I might have anticipated. It's definitely a book that makes you think about friendship and the lasting effects of childhood, but if you're going in purely for the supernatural scares or a more adult horror tone, just know it takes a more winding, emotional path that might feel a bit younger than expected.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

I have been craving the type of book lately that gives me the absolute creeps and Chuck did not disappoint. The atmosphere in this novel is truly eerie. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a Staircase the same again...

The characters that are being focused on in this novel are fucked up in so many ways, however, their bond is wholesome and chaotic. I love their idea of The Covenant. It's gone from a pact to help each other through their lives major setbacks, to invoking unbridled and messy situations. It really opens up the question of "What would you REALLY do for your friends?". The novel explores so many various forms of trauma and character personalities that it's hard not to find an experience through them to relate to. I felt this added even more layers to the horrors the characters are being exposed to, as they are actively being forced to face them head on.

I love how these chapters are set out. It's coasty for a couple of chapters and they continue to get shorter as something looms. Then you're back to longer chapters which keeps building in a sense of dread, and because they keep getting shorter, the pace quickens making everything seem much more urgent and tense.

If there's a single triumph from this novel - I am truly proud to say it gave me the ever loving creeps. I had yet to find a book which actively made me feel uncomfortable, and this gave it to me in spades. Chuck's writing and how immersed I felt during the story truly gave me the feeling I had been searching for when it came to being given the heebies. And deeply I want to thank him 😂

Don't climb random staircases found in the woods, and if you have to, make sure you're past the serious therapy needed to recover from your childhood.
A group of friends estranged in adulthood, meet up to find a friend they lost back then, in the process they relive their unresolved childhood traumas.
The story isn't very new, (IT vibes all day) but it's engaging enough. The characters aren't very likeable, but not an issue for me, however the ending falls a little flat for me. I enjoyed the writing style so I will definitely read Wendig again, but the Staircase was not for me.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an early copy of this book. I liked this well enough but I didn’t like it as much as wanderers. I’ve already recommended this one to a few horror fans.

I'll admit that I didn't get too far in this book before deciding that it just wasn't for me. It was (for me) slow-developing, and though the characters had solid starts, I wasn't that interested in following along with their stories (another two-timeline friend group book). I'm sure many will love this one, but it felt like I was diving into something that would be bloated and too trauma-focused, so I decided to turn my attention that was more in my typical lane for reading.

I really loved the premie of this book and was very grateful to receive it. I ended up DNF'ing the book at around 50%. I gave it a couple of chances as the plot intrigued me, but I struggled to connect with the characters and there were particular topics that triggered me—making it difficult to continue. I do think the storyline is very interesting and could grip other readers, but this wasn't for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the arc approval.

I loved Stephen King's It and I love Stranger Things and this one kinda had a bit of both vibes. Five friends go on a camping trip in the woods and find a mysterious staircase leading to nowhere. In a fit of bravado, one of them runs up the staircase and disappears never to be heard from again. Twenty years later, one of the group reunites them all and they finally go looking for the missing friend and they end up in a nightmarish adventure with loads of scary creepy stuff happening. So this one had me wide awake at 2 am after I finished it not wanting to go to sleep. The book is strong on the supernatural/creepy factor but also surprisingly, on the relationships between the four friends. The twists at the end weren't predictable which is always a bonus. Never read Chuck Wendig before but I'll pick up future releases for sure.

This was just weird. The plot didn’t grab me. It felt flat and boring and the characters were so unlikeable.

Synopsis: Five high school friends find a staircase in the woods. One goes up and never comes down. They spend the next twenty years wondering what happened to Matty and spiraling. Now they’ve been brought back to the staircase in the woods by Nick in hopes of finding out what happened but what they find is even more disturbing than they expected.

*sigh*....I wanted to like this. I wanted a Blair Witch Project sort of vibe but I didn’t get that. In theory, the plot should have worked. It had a very “Saw" (the-movie) feel but I just didn’t get the action or suspense vibe. I wanted to be on the edge of my seat. I wanted to be looking over my shoulder when reading this alone at night. What I got was boredom and a deep desire for it to just end. I felt there were too many political topics that took away from the action and suspense. I wasn’t a fan of the writing style and how the narrative jumped around in time and in character point of view. And for a horror book, it was super slow. These characters were deeply disturbed. I am typically drawn to characters with traumatic pasts but these characters were insufferable. There was nothing likeable about them and it was really hard to feel empathetic towards them when they were just despicable people themselves. At 25% in, I was ready to throw in the towel. There was nothing that grabbed my attention and made me want to continue…yet I did because I was gifted this ARC in return for my honest review. Well….this is it. It wasn’t for me but it may well be right up someone else’s alley. To each his own! And if you enjoyed this one, I am happy for you. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Great set-up and beyond fascinating concept. I literally fell down the deepest reddit rabbit hole reading about staircases in the woods. I'm used to a slow burn from Wendig but this definitely felt longer than its 400 pages. I found myself expecting a bit more. Very creative haunted house story, though.

This book is going to appeal to a lot of people, but it was a miss for me. The characters were grating and all over the place, and Lor in particular was just cringy as all get-out. Their interactions weren't natural and the dialogue was stilted and loaded with political buzzwords that made it difficult to believe as dialogue for me.

My first Chuck Wendig book and I can see why he is beloved. This is an excellent mix of horror/thriller and fantasy.

I love a good horror story, and this one was great with twists and turns. I liked the 20 years later aspect, as it added some dept hand let you get to know the characters both as kids and as adults, it reminds me of like IT by Stephen King. Great read and I would reccommend to anyone who loved IT and horror stories like it.

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig has all the right ingredients for a gripping horror story—mysterious disappearances, eerie small-town lore, and a staircase that shouldn’t exist. The setup is fantastic, and Wendig’s signature voice brings some sharp, memorable lines and unsettling imagery.

But while the atmosphere is on point, the plot sometimes stumbles under its own weight. There are moments of real tension and dread, but they’re scattered between slower sections that felt padded or overly complex. The characters had potential, but I struggled to connect with their choices at times.

It's a decent read for fans of weird fiction and creeping horror, but it didn’t fully land for me. Worth checking out if you enjoy the journey even when the destination is a little murky.

What would you do if you were out in the woods one day — hiking, taking a leisurely stroll, however you like to exist out in nature — and you found… a staircase? Just a staircase, seemingly not leading anywhere, but just… there? Would you leave them be? Would you examine them? Would you… attempt to scale them?

I wouldn’t try that last one if I were you — not if Staircase In The Woods is anything to go by. Because if you go up them, you may not come back.

I was lucky enough to be able to speak with Chuck about creepypasta and digital horror tropes on the podcast Way Too Interested in 2022, and there’s a lot I recognize in the topics we covered back then in the DNA of Staircase In The Woods. You might even recognize the motif of stairs just hanging out in the woods as a popular creepypasta trope, of which the Search And Rescue series is probably the most well-known example.

But staircases in the woods are a real phenomenon, too — there are plenty of old ruins out in the wilderness, and sometimes stairs are the only structures sturdy enough to survive when everything else has collapsed — which is one of the things I like so much about this one: It takes a weird-but-real-thing and asks, “What if?”

And then it answers that question — and it does it in an enormously effective way.

Staircase In The Woods isn't a feel-good story. It's upsetting to read, and not for the faint of heart. But although it deals with things that are mean and nasty and bitter, it in and of itself isn't any of those things. It's about coming to terms with the mean, the nasty, and the bitter, and figuring out how to function and go on knowing that the world is full of mean, nasty, bitter things.

And that's oddly comforting, I would argue.

4⭐️

Weird, creepy, and suspenseful. I made the mistake of reading this exclusively at night and freaking myself out. I genuinely had no idea where the story would go, and it felt a little Coraline-esque at the end, which I kind of liked. Overall a great read and I will be reading more from this author.

Creepy in the best way. Wendig gives us weird woods, missing folks, and a kid who's way too brave for his own good. It has that slow-burn “don’t go in there” vibe that I lowkey love. I finished this one with my jaw clenched and lights on. Atmospheric, strange, and gave just enough answers to keep me satisfied.