This book was fantastic. This was an arc read for me and I absolutely loved it. I will be getting a physical copy. It also reminds me why I will not go into the deep woods 😂

3.5 stars Creepy woods, solid tension, and a cool concept. Some pacing issues and not all the characters clicked for me, but it kept me reading. Definitely eerie and worth checking out if you like slow-burn horror with a feminist twist.

Thanks NetGalley & the publisher!

Overall I think this was a very good horror story. I really enjoyed the old folklore aspect of the tree spirits and some of the killings were very gruesome and detailed. Also I thought the characters were really well developed and allowed you to have true feelings towards each of them. I will say the story did fall a little flat on twists and a big reveal. I had a feeling from the beginning exactly where it was going to end, however that might have been the intent of the author.

I enjoyed this book and its voice. I think I was anticipating a different ending that wasn’t so convenient and predictable.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced ebook of this title. Opinions are my own!

3.75 STARS

An atmospheric horror set in a claustrophobic paranoia inducing forest setting. The hook really got me.

The setting of this book and the journey that the characters go on, through the woods, surrounded by strange happens, was so intriguing to follow. I was so caught onto the mystery of it and found the foreshadowing of it really fun. There were points where certain details jumped out at me and I felt like I caught onto what the plot twist was going to be but it felt earned and made me excited for when the reveal would eventually happen.

I did have certain gripes with the characters. Especially with the supporting cast of characters, I often found myself frustrated by the lack of nuance to them. And sometimes I was just bothered by something the character did in general. (I particularly had this issue with Miranda's character.)

Overall, I enjoyed this book, especially the last 100 pages when all the weird things in the woods amped up!

First my thanks to DAW and NetGalley for an ARC copy of this novel 🫶

I’m always wanting to get my hands on anything spooky related to the woods. I’m an Appalachian girl after all and we’re known for our superstitions with the forest so I was chomping for this book.

The premise? Super cool! Main characters dad goes missing in the first years ago, she gets a call to come back home because they found his body. Her ex (son of local timber-czar) suggests a short group trip into the woods to honor him. The forest has other ideas for the group once they start to venture deep.

The execution? Leaves some to be desired. I really didn’t like ANY of the characters. Definitely not the secondary characters and honestly not even the main character. They’re all very siloed into specific archetypes and stick to that to the point of being repetitive.

The horror doesn’t really start until the story is over 2/3 of the way over. Once it gets started I enjoyed how it was portrayed— I genuinely found myself holding my breath during several parts picturing myself out in the woods and seeing what the characters saw.

The end seems a little rushed to me? I think I just would have liked to see more of the horror and for longer. Because like I said, I really liked the premise of the story.

I would still recommend it to a friend— especially during the fall/spooky season!

with a midsommar comp, this promised atmospheric horror. it's supposed to be about a woman returning to the misty forests of washington to uncover the truth behind her father's mysterious disappearance. what i got instead was a grating protagonist and a whole lot of mean-spirited pettiness.

jen monroe, our main character, is one of the most unpleasant narrators i've read in a long time. she's smug, hypocritical, and constantly tears down other women for no real reason. she's sleeping with her married college professor (and somehow thinks his wife is the villain) and mocks nearly every woman who crosses her path. and she's also really childish? after reading her mentally referring to two characters as turds within the first 10%, i searched up the word. why was the word 'turd' used as a descriptor five times? the writing often veers into the strange and distracting. she referred to a pregnant woman as swollen with a fetus??

i made it to 25% before tapping out. by then, the book had given me little horror, no atmosphere, and not a single character that i was interested in following, just a lot of aimless meandering and aggressive self-sabotage from a character who seems immune to self-reflection. the synopsis promised eldritch feminist dread and psychological depth. i did not get that, nor did i feel the need to stick around to see if i would later in the book after reading other reviews.

i really wanted to like this. the cover is great, the pitch had potential. but i can't stand an unlikable character that's not at least a little messy and interesting and i'm not going to keep reading just for the hope that something spooky finally happens halfway through.

This book has a great premise and excellent atmosphere. I liked the ending, but I had a hard time getting there.

I generally enjoy reading about unlikeable characters. They keep things interesting, and several of them at odds makes for excellent conflict. You’d think I would really enjoy this book. Jen and her estranged friends from high school are awful. Unfortunately, that awfulness seems more like checking off a list of attributes rather than developing characters. This is particularly frustrating in the case of Jen Monroe. As our narrator we spend the most time with her inside her head. Worse, she spends a large chunk of the beginning setting the scene with the rivalry between her forest ranger father, and her boyfriend’s father the lumber magnate, but promptly forgets anything relating to those motives as soon as she starts investigating. I kept hoping it would get better or more engaging, but at 80% I was ready to put the book down. I did finish it, mostly to see if my suspicions were correct.

i mean right from the start i was given the creepy vibes. the tension and unease that some writers managed to build in their books is for me are the things that actually 'scare' me in a book like this rather than blood, guts and gore kind of telling. so for me this is a big tick in this book. i felt uneasy and was getting wary of what was to come. i also appreciate seeing someone deeply effected by life and her circumstances in our main character. she was sharp and with sharp edges but living the life she had a cant say i blame her and can see how it formed the young woman she is.
years ago Jen's father went missing in the woods. she left and says she will never return, she cant. until she gets phone call from her mother saying his remains have been found. but this cant be true, Jen cant believe its him. so she heads back if only to prove this for herself. and thats when the 'brilliant' idea of a trip into the woods with mates comes about(seriously people?0
we get the stage set for us at the start of the book so you are feeling like you're there, sat, involved from then. and then of course we are taken to the woods. and from there its dark, its woody and its oh so ...!!!!! the woods as a character is definitely playing up to its stigmatic role lol. and its putting our characters lives at risk. isn't it?
since i didn't much like the characters it was actually pretty fun to see what happened next. it crowded you in and things start to snap, break, fall apart.
but just what was it in these woods?

"For fans of Midsommar, Catriona Ward, and Sarah Gailey, this addictively readable modern horror novel unfolds like a movie with a climax you'll never see coming.

When Jen Monroe hears her father's remains have been found, she returns home to disprove his death, only to find the forests of rural Washington are hiding horrors beyond imagining.

Seven years ago, Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business that runs their small town, vanished seemingly into thin air. She vowed never to return...until she gets a text from her estranged mother. Her father's remains have been found.

It seems impossible to Jen who has always believed her father is still alive, and she returns home, determined to find out what really happened. When her ex-boyfriend proposes a camping trip into the woods in her father's memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen had been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth.

But what she finds lurking in the ancient, impenetrable forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. And it has no intention of letting her leave.

Deeply unsettling and thoroughly creepy, this is feminist horror for those who have always known there's something waiting in the woods."

Does everyone know to fear the woods?

Unfortunately had to dnf this. I found the FMC insufferable at times and she would not stop going on about her dad. And when she compared him to her ‘lover’ I found that so odd. This book was just not for me I’m afraid.

Review: Nature, Nonsense, and Finnish Magic
This book was not for me.

We open on a horror tinged mystery: our protagonist's father (presumed dead for six years) body has just been found. Naturally, the next step in processing this trauma is… to have an affair with a married professor (which has been going on for awhile), who then disappears from the plot entirely except for his wife showing up to confront our heroine. Instead of reflection or growth, the protagonist reacts with irritation and petty misogyny. Not a great start.

Back in her hometown, she reconnects with her ex (who treated her terribly), yet somehow everyone is rooting for them to rekindle the flame. She also reunites with her best friend, who hates the new girl, Sammy because she’s pretty. And Finnish. This is mentioned a lot. Sammy is the object of simultaneous envy and attraction. Our protagonist both resents her for her beauty and wants to “smash” (her words, basically). The boys all swoon over Sammy, who just… likes trees.

But remember, we’re here to recover a dead body.

That’s right, the whole reason for this wilderness adventure is to retrieve her father’s corpse. A perfectly normal setup for flirtation, competition, and existential whining, right?

Things get weird. People go missing. Some are found dead. There’s one chapter where the protagonist literally runs for her life—from nothing. She just runs because... vibes? Then, after falling and hurting herself, she’s magically healed by Sammy. Why? Because she’s Finnish. Of course. No one questions this.

By this point, I was hate reading but then, somehow, the last 10% hits a groove. We finally tap into some genuinely creepy, nature-witchy, Midsommar vibes. Unfortunately, it’s far too late to redeem everything that came before.

The only reason this gets two stars instead of one is because I was entertained, just not in the way the author probably intended.

Thank you to NetGalley, DAW, and the author for letting me read this arc!

3.5 ⭐️— I really liked the plot and the supernatural elements of this book. I never would've predicted those! the story drops hints here and there that something is very, very off, and I very much liked the way it all came together at the end. I do have some mixed feelings about the characters and the fmc. I really didn't like the male characters. they were all pretty misogynistic, and the whole todd and engagement situation was really weird to me, too. the fmc is on the one hand a really smart woman studying forests and ecosystems, but on the other hand, she acts like she has no brain (especially when she remeets chaz). the whole professor situation at the beginning felt out of place to me, and it didn't add anything to the overall storyline.

if you're looking for a mysterious, horror book related to forests and missing people, then this is definitely for you. just mind the annoying male characters!

When I first started this book, I felt a little unsure of where we were going with the story, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It drew me in quickly, I enjoyed the themes, writing and the forest setting really gave me that unsettling vibe. I overall enjoyed the pacing and characters as well.

This was a very captivating book, hard to put down. Did a great job being creepy and interesting. But my suspension of disbelief completely vanished with the walking trees and satyrs. Oh, and the creepy sexuality with the creature that was sexually involved with your own dad vibe was off putting.

This was a great atmospheric thriller that hooked me almost at once. The story was entertaining, solid plot, and I liked the cast of characters. This was an easy to get through book and I definitely recommend it.

They Fear Not Men in the Woods is Gretchen McNeil’s adult debut. It follows Jen Monroe, a woman who returns to her hometown after her dad’s remains are located. But when she arrives there, not everything adds up so Jen and a group of her friends go into the woods to try to uncover the truth.

I enjoyed this book for the most part but not as much as I wanted to. It takes a really long time to get going. The first ten percent of the book felt like it didn’t add much to the story but once it starts picking up, around 30 percent, the rest goes by quick!

I think the horror elements were really well done. I think the author leaves plenty of clues so nothing is super shocking but it doesn’t take away from anything. The friend group as well as the main character are pretty unlikeable and there is some drama between all of them. If you aren’t a fan of petty drama, this book may not work for you.

I would recommend this to fans of drama, unlikeable characters, and some pretty gory horror. If you aren’t a fan of any horror movies where a group gets stuck in the woods, this feels very close to that. I think the writing style was really compelling and that’s what kept me reading at the beginning when I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

My first recommendation is to give this book about a third of the way through before making any decisions. This, of course, makes me pretty biased against the first part of the book, which is a fairly long setup with little pay off. About a third of the way through the book, however, you start to get to the important parts.

Once you get past the inconsequential setup and the story really starts, there's some fairly decent suspense and story building. Having finished the book I would have loved if the writing had further capitalized on the horror by setting up more sinister hints throughout the first part of the book, to connect better to the latter half, rather than the mystery elements it plants. Furthermore, as you would expect, there are obvious eco-warrior overtones that unfortunately get a little preachy, but the text doesn't offer many resolutions or explanations which diminishes the effectiveness of the discussion.

While the idea of what was going to happen was fairly predictable, there were a few twist and turns that were interesting. However, I'm not sure they were "worth it", and I wish we had spent more time with the actual horror elements that are revealed at almost the tail end of the story, if only because most of the characters are truly insufferable and are there for the vast majority of the story. The main character and narrator, unfortunately, is included amongst the count of insufferable characters, though I feel this had little to do with her personhood, which is shallow and empty, and more to do with the writing of her voice which is extremely grating. While horrible people often make for interesting horror stories, here it is used to a devastatingly negative effect because I simply don't care about any of these people and didn't want to spend as much time as we did with them. The most likable character is rarely present in the story at all, and is most likely only likeable because of that fact.

Overall this could be an interesting story, with extremely unlikeable characters, if the writing style works for you, especially since it is first person throughout. It is also a low horror style approach to the genre with some good suspense and little gore for those who can't handle much horror. This book was not quite my style, but worth a chance if readers are looking for some entry level horror that won't stay with you for very long, and won't give you nightmares.

Thanks to Netgalley and DAW for the pre-release copy of They Fear Not Men in the Woods by Gretchen McNeil. Below is my honest review.

Having only ever read Gretchen McNeil's young adult book Ten, I've been meaning to pick up more of her works, so when I saw she had an adult horror debut coming out, I had to click Request. And I'm really glad that I did.

I want this one to be made into a movie. Or maybe a limited series for one of the streamers. (hint hint, Amazon).

The tension built in this one in a perfectly paced way. Just enough slow burn at the beginning to set the stage, but not so much that it felt like it was dragging. Then when they get out there into the woods, the proverbial you-know-what hits the proverbial fan HARD and it hits it FAST. One by one, the party shrinks, and they begin to realize that the woods might be a much more dangerous place than they ever thought possible, and that they might not make it out alive.

Highly recommended for horror fans. Five stars.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Seven years ago, Jen’s father went missing in the woods. She receives a call from her mother informing her that his remains were found. But theres no way he’s dead. So Jen returns home to find out what really happened to him and ends up venturing into those same woods with a group of friends.

The premise was good but it didn’t deliver. Nothing really happens until halfway through the book, and I was tempted to DNF multiple times. The atmosphere and gore were good though. I just wish we had gotten more of that and less of the drama within the group. I kept thinking whatever in these woods needs to off these people already. This book will have you looking at the woods differently. 2.5 stars rounded up.