lou's library

Back in spring, I decided to go on a hunt for the perfect summer book. The kind that is the perfect companion for the sticky days of heat, where anything other than lazily turning the pages of an addictive book is too much to ask. My best friend (hello, love you <3) and I tried to find it for our buddy reads, and while we did read some very enjoyable books, they weren’t perfect. So the search continued and now is the time for me to thank my close personal friend Taylor Swift for pointing me in the right direction. She truly always knows best.

A while ago, during her Eras Tour documentary, Taylor Swift talked about how she would listen to audiobooks while on tour to distract her. The internet sleuths then did what they do best and figured out that the book she was listening to in the documentary was The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore. Now, Liz Moore has been a popular author for a long time, but shortly after that documentary episode aired, The God Of The Woods was everywhere. Eventually, also on my TBR shelf.

And boy, am I glad this book has been brought to my attention because it truly is a flawless summer read. It’s a thriller, a genre I’ve been gravitating to more than usual this year (what does that say about my mental state, I wonder) and the premise is incredible. It’s 1975, we’re in the Northwest of the US at a summer camp for rich kids and Barbara, one of the campers, goes missing.

Now, I was slightly worried that I was going in with too high expectations. I really wanted this to be the kind of immersive read that is impossible to put down, and that would keep me guessing what would happen next. I wanted the writing to be smooth and addictive, the characters to be layered and flawed, and the setting to be lush and threatening and gorgeous. I was basically setting myself up for disappointment, except I didn’t because Liz Moore DELIVERED. The God Of The Woods is exactly what I wanted. I love when that happens!!!

Now, I obviously cannot tell you anything about the plot without risking spoilers, so I shall have to be very vague. As I said, it’s about the disappearance of a girl from summer camp, and as the police tries to figure out what happens, we get to experience the situation from multiple perspectives and jump around in time a lot. This is done so expertly that it never is confusing, but always addictive. Every single character, no matter how minor, feels like a fully fleshed out person with their own interests and agenda, and at multiple points I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone.

I wouldn’t call this a classic whodunnit, the kind of story where you try to guess who committed the crime with the various clues you get given throughout the story. While you definitely get given clues and the story slowly turns into a bigger picture, for me it was much more about the different dynamics and what the incident revealed about everyone involved, rather than just trying to find out what happened to Barbara.

Also, I loved the setting. For one thing, the fact that this all plays out decades ago means there are no smartphones involved, and something about that always helps me truly get lost in a story (anyone else feel that way?). Summer camp also just is an immaculate vibe, even though I’ve never been to one myself. It’s up there with my favourite settings of all time, perhaps right after boarding school. And then there are the woods of course. As the title suggests, they play a major part in the book, as the camp is set in the Adirondack Mountains region and borders on a massive forest that the kids are continuously being warned about. Very atmospheric and threatening, we love that stuff!!!

But The God Of The Woods also does a great job of highlighting the social issues of the time. One of the perspectives we get to take over and over again is that of a young female police investigator. She is being belittled and not taken seriously more times than I can count on both hands and the same is true for Alice, the mother of the disappeared girl. Similarly to gender, class also plays a crucial role in the story. The summer camp is for rich kids, and Barbara is from an extremely wealthy family. But with that sort of wealth comes a layer of pretence and secrets that must be kept, and the difference between the rich family and their staff is striking. I found it highly satisfying that while The God Of The Woods is extremely entertaining, it does not neglect deeper societal issues and weaves them into the narrative in a superb way.

The God Of The Woods made me yearn for the summers I experienced as a kid, for memories that are not mine, and for a decade I was not even born in. Summer is an integral part of the book, and I would urge you to read it while it is hot and you have endless hours with no obligations ahead of you. Because believe me, once you have started reading this book, you will not want to put it down. I read the final 350 pages in one afternoon, because I simply had to know how it would all end. Then I instantly regretted it because now I will never get to read this book for the first time again and wish I had taken my time with it. But I just couldn’t. The God Of The Woods is just too good.