From the title I understood that this story would be very intriguing and it really did not disappoint me! From the very first pages the suspense and mystery dominate! The chapters are short and always end in a way that you can't stop but immediately start reading the next one..

This is a page turning story of mystery and horror that keeps you in suspense until the end!

This is the second of Wendig's titles that have just not done it for me. Characters feel offensively shallow and we just don't get things moving quickly enough. There are readers for this book, but I am not one.

One of the many things I got from this amazing book: cherish and honor your friendships. Check on your friends. They're the bread and butter to your mental state for most of your life besides your family. Having even one or two friends is a privilege.

I absolutely loved this book. It had that vibe from the movie Cube (one of my faves from 1997) and the visuals from the movie The Cell (another fave). At first I was a bit confused on the characters because I can imagine it can get quite daunting for authors to introduce a few characters all at once and having us be able to distinguish them. But slowly each one grew on me and I was able to categorize and visualize them whenever they spoke. And the way he really punched up their back stories were great. A few repetitive moments, but once you get going with this, it was worth this absolute thrilling ride. Truly, this was incredible.

Not only were their amazing horror elements throughout the book, the curiosity of the staircase in the woods itself set the foundation so wonderfully. There were also deep exploration of friendships, expectations, family, and all the emotional roots among all that listed. Bravo to this work as this was one of my top reads this year.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Books and the author for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Creepy premise, eerie atmosphere, and some dark twists but overall this didn’t quite land for me. I loved the idea of an ominous staircase in the woods tied to old secrets and grief, and the way the story moves between timelines kept things intriguing.

But I never really connected to the characters; they felt more like vehicles for the plot than real people, which dulled the impact when things turned truly horrific. Still, there are some chilling moments and interesting themes about how the past haunts us. A solid horror concept, just not a standout for me.

2.5

4.5 stars but rounding up!

I’m not a horror person, but this one sounded so good, I had to request it. And sure enough, I ended up being entertained even as I was *this* close to losing my mind. It is scary, gory, creepy in so many places, thought-provoking (yeah, I KNOW!), and will ick you out by ‘elevating’ something that you probably do on a day-to-day basis.

It’s not all gore and creepiness, though. There are beautiful moments of human connection throughout the story, where you are reminded that the world (real and the one in the story) can be scary and cruel, but you will always find points of beauty that will sail you through, that will keep you sane in the midst of all this insanity. You only have to nurture your own willpower to match that beauty.

Given, friction between the characters is ever-present, but that is what’s normal in real life too. Friends that don’t butt heads from time to time don’t exist, even if it’s a gentle process. To watch these 4 try to get through whatever it is they have directly jumped into is equal parts terrifying and emotional.

So if you’re looking for a book that’s exactly that, then The Staircase in the Woods is one you should definitely pick up.
But be careful, because this one will make you hallucinate, especially if you live in a house where fridges and drywalls make sounds. I say this because I have experienced it. Phew.

This was a good one! It is definitely a page turner. The story is well written and you are right there in the woods with them.

I picked this up because it reminded me of a reddit story I read long ago. it was good but I wanted more to do with mysterious stairs and not a house in the void realm, but that's my fault with the expectation I had. I felt the characters were one dimensional but I still enjoyed their trauma and the metaphor for it. *thank you to netgalley and the author for the arc*

Thank you to Random House Worlds and NetGalley for the ARC of The Staircase in the Woods in exchange for an honest review.

The idea behind this book is genius. While I am not one for horror novels in the least, I was able to skim over some of the more descriptive parts as to not totally gross myself out because the story in itself was very good. There were definitely times when the book moved rather slow and it was the same thing over and over, but there were other times when I just couldn’t put it down.

In quick summation, five friends find a staircase leading to nowhere in the middle of the woods back in 1998. Matty, the leader of the group, climbs to the top of the stairs to investigate and disappears into nothing. The remaining four, who were already at the bottom of the social ladder, are immediately cast out by the community as everyone assumes foul play. Police are unable to locate Matty and with no evidence to convict the remaining four, life moves forward as each of the friends go their separate way. Fast forward to present day, Nick calls the group together on one last camping trip, where they stumble upon another staircase. This time, everyone goes up and finds themselves within a house of horrors that is strategically designed to break you mentally and emotionally. Our cast of characters treat the house as a game in order to stay alive and hope to find their way out as they also look for their long lost friend. Let me tell you, shit gets weird…fast.

I did enjoy the gaming element that was woven throughout the book. The overarching themes of the book run much deeper and most certainly push the average readers level of comfortability. In this case, the reader must certainly suspend all forms of disbelief and view the story for what it is to really appreciate it, which can be hard for many. If you are a horror novel fanatic, I would definitely suggest to give this book a go as I was pulled in from the start.

I am hoping to pick this book back up later this year, I am soft dnfing this book for now. Made it 40% through the book but my expectations were set higher than what the book is giving. This just may not be a book for me but the writing is phenomenal.

This was such a great horror novel! I had a hard time putting it down. It was so wonderfully weird and fascinating.

Huge thanks to Random House Worlds/Del Ray and NetGalley for an eARC copy of this story in exchange for an honest and unbiased review!

Suffering from a disappointing ending and a sometimes disjointed plot, full of taught moments bookended by lengthy psychological musings and flashbacks. There are lots of "unlikeable" characters here, but none that really ruined my reading experience.

Horror is so subjective, and I found this scary enough to shut it early some nights, which I get from very few horror novels these days.

𝔽𝕠𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕟𝕤 𝕠𝕗
🌲Stories with "Urban Legend Feel"
🌲very real morally grey characters
🌲Representation of mental illness
🌲melancholic
🌲with aspects of survival horror

𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕥'𝕤 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥:
Five friends wander through the woods. After discovering a strange staircase between moss and trees leading into nothing, only four of them return. Tragedy rips them apart but reunites them many years later once more. And with their Covenant complete again, another staircase appears.

𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕀 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥:
This story feels like an urban legend at first and the whole idea of a staircase deep in the woods is very eerie to me. The characters felt very real with all their darkness and equally their love for each other. I not always liked the characters but they absolutely made me feel so many emotions throughout and are people that were hard to let go of when the story ended. 🩷 The concept of this book is unique and definitely gave me goosebumps. It's very melancholic and hopeless, though powerful and partly felt like survival horror.

I think during the middle part, it had some lengths and I wanted the characters to finally escape their situation. But this waiting and stagnation was perhaps exactly what the story needed to transport a certain feeling to the reader even though it made me uneasy and impatient (a big flaw of mine definitely is impatience).😅

All in all, this is a very interesting horror tale with short chapters, lots of heart and melancholia. You definitely won't be able to guess where the story goes, trust me on that.

The Staircase In The Woods is a Book Of The Year candidate.

I read this one last weekend and I was absolutely blown away. This book is fucking awesome. It is an incredible, mind-bending, and scary as shit journey.

Staircase is masterfully written and explores the horror of friendships and secrets and... well, life in general.

This is an amazing novel full of heart, scares, twist, turns, and insane imagery you'll never guess or forget.

I was in awe for the entirety of this novel. You hate the characters, but you also love them. They're messy, they're fucked up... they're REAL. It's that grounded reality of the people involved in this absolutely BATSHIT book that make it oh so much better than most things you'll read. That's just how Chuck rolls though.

The Staircase In The Woods was an easy 5/5 for me.

You'll be seeing it on a "Best Of..." list soon and it deserves to be on a "Scariest Of..." list too. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.

I went in not knowing staircases popping up in the woods was a thing, and admittedly if I saw one, i probably would walk up it. Walk- not run.

The cast of characters in “the covenant” were flawed and unlikeable at times, but worked for the story. There were certain elements that I loved - the tie in to simulation, video game puzzles and npcs. Also bonus points for did I see at least a couple of references to the world of Black River Orchard. The story kept me in the whole time. My only complaint was honestly the ending.

Would still recommend, and can’t wait to read the next Wendig.

Great premise; Stranger Things fans will enjoy. I felt it was a bit over-written; while the pacing was good, it could have been 50-100 pages shorter and it’d have been a real thriller. Gory body horror scenes were vivid, so horror fans will love. Underdeveloped protagonists with stunted maturity were both frustratingly unlikeable and made perfect sense for a CPTSD story. Once the story gets to the demon house, it really took off. Loved the video game/escape room angle of the protagonists trying to solve the mystery.

Absolutely loved this book. I don’t know what it is about Wendig but his writing style just suits me perfectly which makes his books such enjoyable reads. TSitW was full of dark, gory and captivating chapters. Will definitely be recommending!

While on a camping trip 5 high school kids find a staircase in the middle of the woods one of them goes up and doesn't come back down. Twenty years later they find the staircase again and this time they all go up.

I loved the creepy vibes of this book. I went in not knowing much about the story and just enjoyed the ride. I had no idea where it was going to go and was not at all disappointed. I WILL BE HOLDING OUT FOR A SECOND BOOK ! 😉

I also listened to this on audio and the audiobook is amazing (as is the Evernight special edition book 😍)

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Worlds and Chuck Wendig for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a creepy little number this was 😮‍💨

Chuck Wendig has a real knack for spinning horror that lingers — not so much in the jump-scare sense, but in that uneasy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-it way. The Staircase in the Woods kicks off like your classic ‘group of kids stumbles across something they shouldn’t in the forest’ story — and in a way, it is. But it’s also so much more layered than that.

The premise? A staircase in the middle of nowhere, no structure around it, just standing there. One of the boys climbs it… and vanishes. Fast forward 20 years, and the staircase returns — and the group has to reckon with everything that was buried along with that moment.

Wendig captures the way trauma echoes through adulthood so well. You really feel the weight of the years on these characters — the way their lives diverged, the guilt, the half-healed wounds. It’s emotionally grounded in a way that makes the horror hit harder when it does come. There’s this constant thread of dread, like something terrible is just out of frame, watching.

If I had one small gripe, it’s that the middle did sag a bit — the flashbacks and present-day sections occasionally got a touch repetitive, and I found myself itching for the story to move forward. But it’s a minor thing in an otherwise gripping read.

So yes — creepy, character-driven, and unsettling in the best way. Not a book you finish and forget.

A group of high school friends who often hang out in the woods and smoke and drink all the things find a random staircase one night. When one of them climbs said staircase he disappears. 20 years later the group reunites when one finds the staircase has reappeared. They reluctantly enter and are thrust into a house of horrors. Will they find their lost friend or will they fall victim to the evil that is possessing the house?

I was completely glued to this book! The characters were well fleshed out and I found the story to be really fascinating. I liked the mix of fantasy with the horror in this one. It made it really suspenseful. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Not my normal go-to genre of book, but I liked the cover so much, and the premise seemed really interesting. Overall, the book was good. I definitely skimmed/quickly read some of the ending.