⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 1/2

Next time I see a random staircase in the woods, I’m definitely walking up them because now I just assume they’ll lead me to self-actualization and healing from past trauma.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advanced copy and the opportunity to provide an honest review.

This book kicked ass. This is my second Wendig book, and both have been differentiated pieces of art. He’s a gifted storyteller.

The Good…
I mean, pretty much all of it. The characters, the vivid, otherworldly setting, the prose, the nostalgia, the themes… all of it, stellar.

I was invested in this story from page one, and maybe it’s my soft spot for traumatic, supernatural events reuniting a group of disbanded friends, but this hit all the right notes for me.

The Less Good…
I don’t know that I’d change much of anything in this book. It’s one of the best I’ve read this year by far.

The Conclusion…
Go read this the second it is published.

What initially drew me to this book was its eye-catching cover and the intriguing premise it offered. The story started off strong, grabbing my attention right away, but sadly, I found my interest wavering at times. There were a few too many political rants for my taste, which took away from the overall enjoyment. The pacing began well but slowed down significantly in the middle. While things picked up again in the second half, I was already finding it a bit of a struggle to stay engaged. During those slower sections, I ended up skimming a bit, and to be honest, I didn’t miss anything crucial. It felt like the book could have been a tad shorter.

On the bright side, I really enjoyed the vivid descriptions throughout the story, especially the gory ones! They definitely added an edge, but I did notice some repetition, especially since we got to hear them from the perspectives of different characters.

The characters were quite fascinating, and I loved learning about their backstories and how they became friends. However, I felt they didn’t quite develop as the plot unfolded, which was a bit disappointing.

As I approached the ending, I was excited and expecting a fantastic conclusion. Unfortunately, I was left feeling a bit let down. The ending left a lot open, which hints that there may be a sequel in the works. I really hope there is, as I have a few lingering questions!

Even with its flaws, I still think this book is a good read and would be a nice introduction for anyone looking to dive into the horror genre.

I want to thank NetGalley and the wonderful folks at Random House Worlds, Del Rey for providing me with a digital review copy (DRC) of "The Staircase In The Woods." All the thoughts I've shared here are my own, and I’m glad to be sharing them voluntarily!

This book is not for me. I will start by saying I love a Chuck Wendig book, but this one really missed the mark for me. I read about 40% before marking this as a DNF. I think the book started out fairly strong and I was interested to see where it was going. Initially I was interested in seeing where the characters were going to go and how the story was going to come together. Unfortunately, the story did not catch my attention. The staircase in the middle of the woods was a stretch for me as a means to enter another world. Overall, I did not feel connected to any of the characters and found them rather dislikeable both in the past and in the future. I would have immediately disconnected from all these characters in real life and the book did nothing to help change my opinion of them. The random things that were thrown in to add "horror" or "gore" to the story did not seem to add content at the same time so I found them also rather distracting and off-putting. I would try another Chuck Wendig book in the future, but I will be a little more cautious about reading the readers summary if this is the direction his books are going.

I'm going to go with 4 stars on this one.

There was alot of great parts and some parts that I just wanted it to get on with it.

But all in all loved the creep factors.

A group of teenagers find a strange staircase in the woods that leads to nowhere. When Matty climbs the staircase, he disappears never to be seen again.
Years later the remaining friends reunite and find the staircase again: can they find their friend in the strange horrific world at the top of the staircase in the woods?

The Staircase In The Woods is a strange and beautiful tale that weaves through two separate timelines seamlessly. The world beyond the staircase is mysterious and horrific with incredible descriptions: a literal house of horrors. The characters are very realistic, with a great focus on mental health struggles, traumatic experiences and angst. You can feel the genuine friendships leap off of the page.
While I have read a similar story before, Chuck Wendig has a unique perspective that I really enjoyed. This is a really solid read

This book would have easily been a 4 almost 5 star book if it hadn't been filled with political bull crap. I get it, we all have an opinion one way or the other but I don't need to read about it in a book meant for enjoyment. As for the meat of the book, it was really good. The plot was original and something new. I started out hating every character and after reading about them more I started to root for them to get out alive. The descriptions of what was going on in each room was so vivid, I could actually picture each one.

Wow ok. Thank you NetGalley for giving me a chance to review and read this book. This may very well be one of my favorite books I have read in a long time. Right now I want to go find a staircase in the middle of the woods!!! I was drawn into the story and could feel what was going on in each and every room. I wanted to be in there with them!! I loved all the characters and how they interacted with each other. I am already going on my Goodreads and find another book to read. I am also going to put my review there. And to prove that it will happen. All i will say is.... The Covenant.

June 5th, 1998: 5 teenagers go into the woods. Only 4 come out.

Owen, Lore, Hamish, Nick, and Matty are camping one fateful summer evening when they find a staircase in the woods, suddenly appearing where one had never been before. Drawn to its mystery, Matty climbs the staircase and is never seen again. Fast-forward to present day and the 4 left behind have been estranged for years. However, Nick calls the group together for one last camping trip. Another staircase has been discovered, and this time they won’t leave the forest until they find out what happened to Matty.

Childhood friends reuniting as adults, tied together by a shared childhood, a tragedy, and some paranormal activity. A classic setup in the horror genre (invoking classics such as IT, or more recent reads like Small Town Horror) and for good reason. The staircase leads the friends from their world to another; a maze invoking the backrooms. It’s got a dash of humor, some unsettling scenes, and an exploration of the traumas and people we try to leave behind us, but never quite escape from.

Like all of Wendig’s work I’ve read so far, this is filled to the brim with pop culture references. This will appeal to some readers and turn some others away. For this story in particular it helps the characters (and the reader) stay moored in reality as it drifts apart around them. It also has cheeky nods to other Wendig books, with mentions of people and locations from Black River Orchard and The Book of Accidents.

This is an enjoyable read overall; like the place the staircase takes our protagonists to, it got a little meandering towards the end, but nothing to derail my enjoyment. A solid story!

Thank you Del Rey, Random House Worlds, and NetGalley for this e-arc. All opinions are my own :)

Wow. What a read! I originally heard of the staircase in the woods “myth”, “legend” — whatever you want to call it yearssss ago on a show I really loved called Channel Zero and was sooo creeped out so I love the idea of a novel centered around it. This was very “It” by Stephen King — esque with five high school friends who witness the staircase and lose a friend to the mysterious anomaly and years later must face that trauma once again.

Overall, this was a creepy, well written story. Though the writing does get repetitive at times, with the quality of the story I was able to look past it

I had to DNF this book at about 30%. The story was interesting but very very slow moving. It's about a group of friends that had gone camping as teenagers (they may have been a little younger, it may have said but I honestly can't remember) and while out in the woods, one of their friends disappeared. It's a classic trope that I normally really enjoy. I like when books have two view points, one current, one past, and this book did that about a quarter of the way through. It mainly followed the POVs of two of the friends, but the entire group are horribly unlikeable. I'm not sure if the author is making fun of the "woke culture" or is of a different generation and is just being cringy with how he thinks these people would talk. I found myself rolling my eyes at them so much that I gave up. If the story had picked up pace a bit, I still don't think I could have made it through with these people. And I'm guessing that's what happened to the missing friend, he found them so insufferable that he ran away.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC. All opinions are my own. Darn it. I had high hopes for this one but I have found for me that Chuck Wendig books are very bifurcated. I either love them or they are not for me. This one fell squarely into the not for me category. I had trouble engaging with the characters and I don't think I was prepared for a trauma read where so many awful things have happened to so many of the characters. I also got confused by the number of flashbacks. When I can't find someone to root for, I struggle to engage and invest.

I loved that the setting was taking place in the 90's with a group of 5 friends going into the woods and finding a staircase. This was so creepy, trippy and hard to put down. It did read slow but did not take away from the story. Coming together after 20 years and confronting each characters own trauma in this labyrinth. Atmospheric, and eerie make sure to pick this up on publication day!
Make sure you read the trigger warnings before going into this book.
Thank you, Random House,/Del Rey and NetGalley for the copy of this book in return for an honest review. Release date is 4/29/25.
4 star

A psychological horror novel that in many ways feels like playing a grown-up version of Corpse Party, with a fascinating premise and a trapped-location feel.

Trigger warning for: Self-harm, self-mutilation, CSA, child abuse, body horror, negative self-image, suicide

Unfortunately, like when I read The Book of Accidents, this book just wasn’t for me. I am a huge fan of the staircase in the woods phenomena and r/nosleep story, so I decided to give this book a chance before deciding that this author wasn’t one for me. However, while the title of this book does focus on the penultimate staircase, and there are a few other staircases scattered throughout - in all honesty, this book is barely about them. This book focuses much more on interpersonal relationships and traumas - and the house they all wind up trapped in - than staircases at all! I would honestly say this book has much more in common with the No-End House creepypasta and some similarities to the game Corpse Party, and that the staircase motif was more added so the author could have an exciting title to catch readers familiar with the concept.

The first about 30% of this book was a chore to read. I’ve heard people complain about the politics being included in this book, and hilariously I would almost agree - except from the opposite direction. If I wasn’t so sure the author was leaning anti-Trump, I’d have believed him to be conservative. The ONLY openly queer character in this book is such an open stereotype that despite me also being nonbinary, agender, and aromantic I felt like Lore was almost a strawman so readers could point and laugh at how “ridiculous” a nonbinary aromantic pansexual would be as a person. ESPECIALLY when her introduction is made by harassing the “normal” seeming pro-Trump character in this novel - and this character is never given the same stereotypical treatment, and is instead seen as the “straight” man to offset how “insane” the other character is being. We’re supposed to find it funny that Lore accuses him of “hating” her because he voted for Trump - as if it’s ridiculous to assume someone voting for someone who has openly been racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic and has created legislation to make being anything other than “acceptable cishet” a crime would - maybe - not be someone a queer woman would be comfortable around.

This uncomfortable feeling of homophobia never fully leaves the novel, as while Lore is openly attracted to both men and women, and is supposed to be aromantic - she still ends the novel in a relationship of some sort with a character who had been in love with her as children. A relationship that she, herself, had decided then to not pursue because she wouldn’t be able to give him the same kind of devotion he would give her. And at no point do either of these characters discuss what being in a sexual queerplatonic relationship would look like, and so I can only assume this is her “proper” ending to her “wildness” she had before - she’s been tamed into a relationship that she had never indicated wanting or desiring. And granted, I’m very much projecting here, but since I - once again - am ALSO aromantic it seems like an uncomfortable throughline. (Also, the author very clearly states that she can have sexual relationships but not romantic because she’s aromantic, NOT asexual, and as an asexual myself that’s…not true? Aros can have romantic relationships and aces can have sexual ones - and I’m not saying that Lore ending the book in a supposed romantic relationship is a bad thing, just that - with no discussion in the book to imply any kind of discussion about it - it feels a bit heteronormative to read.)

[Also, the character Lore ends up with I felt like had a much clearer romantic throughline to one of the other men in the story, which I feel would have done a lot to counteract the (hopefully) unintentional homophobia present in this novel.]

After I forced myself to continue past the first 30%, the book itself did improve - but that could be in part because it no longer felt like a flashlight was being pointed at my face and going “haha aren’t people like you so weird and confrontational!”

Rather than staircases, this book instead focuses on the broken friendships of these characters and the traumas each had faced growing up. And, well…some of these could have been included more tactfully - or, not at all. One in particular felt like it was added simply for the shock value, and then each character winds up in a sort of “trauma Olympics” with each other to try to one-up everyone - even if that’s not how they intend to come across. (One scene even felt like in Jenny Nicholson’s video on Split, where she criticized self-harm scars as the only way someone with depression or suicidal thoughts could articulate it, and that these scars are the only way to help save themselves.)

Finally, I found the ending to be a tad annoying as - while generally I enjoy open-ended stories - the way this one did felt anticlimactic, as it very clearly set up something that would have ruined the emotional feelings the reader (and these characters) felt about this character throughout the story. Also, I felt like this book kind of took a sharp left turn when we left the staircase mystery and motif, and instead entered into “evil sentient house” where…the motivation to do things just…fell apart? As the story progressed it slowly made less and less sense - especially with the climatic reason for the house to have become evil and sentient in the first place. (No spoilers, but really? That’s the evil that started this mess? That’s it??) I felt like having an actual root cause we could explore almost made the story less believable, and by the time it was revealed I was simply reading to finish this book. However, I know I’m not in the majority of my feelings towards this book, so I would recommend you check it out if you are a fan of horror and being trapped in a single location that is actively trying to break you down.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Random House Worlds for providing this e-ARC.

I tend to hold a horror novel to a higher standard than a lot of genres as they’re easy to become lackluster quickly. The staircase in the woods was both haunting and beautiful, it brought the reader on a ride though the bonds of friendship and how terror and trauma can dismantle the mind. The end had me both shocked and begging for more. I LOVED this book.

2.5. Really cool concept but lacked execution for me and was way too long. Pacing was all over. You don't even get to the staircase till around 30% and everything before is all long exposition and flashbacks that could have been shortened a lot. Once in the staircase's realm things pick up a bit and get a little gory and exciting, but it quickly falls into more flashbacks and meandering in a cool setting that is just a lot of showing and not telling. This room has a dead thing in, this room has nothing in it, this room has food, this room has a couch for sleeping. You get it. The disappointment, really, for me is two fold. One, the main events you can probably get through in like 100 pages. The rest of it is filler and sooo many flashbacks. The flashbacks tend to repeat things already said or known. They may dive a littler deeper but the main knowledge is the same and so you just feel like, "I get it. Can we move on to the creepy haunted house elements." Two, is that the characters are all cardboard cut outs. One is so anxious and depressed he chews his nails and sort of self harms, one is a queer liberal fighting everyone and everything, another is chill druggy turned Christian conservative, one is a wild card who ends up with a dark secret that isn't that shocking. The all have similar trauma. Mostly parental, but while all of it makes sense it feels like it brings nothing new to the table. If you are huge on "Stranger Things" you might love this book because it's basically just that without superpowers, but even down to the misfits playing DnD. It is a cool take on a haunted house story but very predictable and the prose at times can leave you eye rolling hard. "They had escaped the house. Though it, perhaps, had not escaped them." While true, my eyes might as well have backflipped. I saw sooo much potential here but it was too run of the mill for me and nothing about it was truly scary. Interesting bits for sure but overall disappointing.

Rounded up a bit to 4 stars. A classic horror story about friendship, trauma, and secrets. It took me a while to get into - as a child of the 90s, the flashbacks to the characters' school time, while absolutely necessary for the story, felt too nostalgic and that was not the mood I wanted if I am honest. But when the action got going, about half-way into the book - then it became a proper horror and drew me in. Creepy, unsettling and at the same time laced with undeniable sadness - about the horrible things people do to each other, about the secrets we keep and how much they hurt us, about the loneliness and isolation of the modern world and the way we seem to be forgetting that we need others, need the connections and closeness and trust in order to live happy fulfilling lives.

Overall, a bit slow in the beginning but very good in the second half. Definitely putting Wendig on my tbr list.

Not sure this is necessary for horror readers, but do pay attention to content warnings (including child abuse and self-harm).

Thanks for Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a great premise, the title says it all. Shades of the Navidson Record part of House of Leaves with a healthy dose of Cube thrown in. A lot of hurt and sadness but it comes together beautifully at the end.

Thank you Random House/Del Rey and NetGalley for the copy of this book in return for an honest review.
Release date is 4/29/25.

This was my first time reading Chuck Wendig, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

In the late 90's, a group of 5 friends go into the forest and find a staircase. Overcome by curiosity, one of the friends ascends the stairs only to never been seen again. The remaining friends eventually grow older and go their own way, only to reunite twenty years later to try to discover what became of their lost friend.

I will admit that I had a moment of thinking this story was not going to be for me, when the friend's bickering and politics became a bit too much for me. I'm glad I stuck it out, because as we get further into the story, the view of these characters mature considerably, leaving the reader with an amazing story about friendship, trauma, and how we can face adversity with the help of true friends.

Chuck Wendig conjures up an eerie atmosphere and some truly disturbing visuals. I enjoyed the inclusion of video game references, though they may not be to everyone's liking. I'm not sure I 100% believed in the origin story of what was happening (I'm being vague here as to not spoil anything) and I didn't feel that current politics had a place in this story. For those reasons, this wasn't a 5 star read for me, but still a very solid read. I look forward to reading more of Wendig's work.

I can't say enough how much I love Wendig's writing. It’s always sets the tone and holds my attention completely. I didn't want it to end. Thank you NetGalley!!!!!

Even though "The Staircase in the Woods" premise is something we have read before in several other stories, a group of adults fighting against the monster of their youth and the book does has some "It" vibes it does hold on pretty much on its own.

One of the best horror books I've read, so much it took me a good while to finish it due to the trapped feeling it caused me, but at the end it got everything even the much coveted back story to explaining it all that many if not all the books on the supernatural horror miss.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Worlds, and Del Rey for providing me with the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.