What the Woods Took - Courtney Gould

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction - one everyone but Devin signed up for. She's shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she's dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways - and survive a fifty-day hike through the wilderness - they'll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She's also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there's something strange about these woods - inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves - and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they'll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other - and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive."

 📚📚📚

I've commented many times on here about how I'm not a horror person, but after reading a spate of horror and horror-adjacent books recently (thanks, I guess, Owlcrate), I might have to revise that to say that I'm interested in horror, but only a very specific sliver of the genre. I don't even know what that sliver is, though. Maybe more thriller than horror? Psychological? Whatever subgenre it is, this falls into it. I could not put it down, ended up finishing it in about a day.

For starters, the whole premise of a bunch of teens sent to an ill-fated (aren't they all) wilderness "therapy" retreat hooked me immediately. I used to know someone who worked for one (🤮) and I knew someone who, uh...benefited isn't the word...from being sent to the same one. As far as I heard, neither of them experienced anything supernatural on their retreats, but even hearing about them back then I found the whole concept off-putting. This really cemented that impression.

I mean, for starters, who sends a group of "troubled" teens out into the wilderness for fifty days with adults as outnumbered as these two ill-equipped counselors were? You have five teens, at least one of which was sent there for her "violent outbursts" (are my sarcastic air quotes doing enough work here? I'm not sure), and only two early-20s counselors? Excuse me while I laugh my ass off. I truly don't think Ethan could have held his own against a group of sixth graders, let alone whole-ass teens, so that was an interesting choice. One "counselor" and one "wilderness guide" is in no universe adequate - and perhaps that's one of the many reasons why these retreats fell so out of favor (although they absolutely still fucking exist, I drive past the HQ for one every day on my way to and from work).

Anyway, yeah, premise, strong. Character development? So solid. Starting off, everyone is pretty heavily stereotyping each other, but it's clear from the jump that there's so much we aren't seeing below the surface, and I loved the way those deeper parts of each character came out as things progressed. It was done so naturally, it never felt forced, and the way the characters bonded as more was revealed about them felt very real. I thought it was so well done, letting things unfold together the way they did.

And finally, the inhuman faces appearing in the woods...MY GOD. Psychological warfare, seriously. Things that make the reader question reality is such a tricky line to tow (toe? Fuck, I don't know.). I'm sure some people love being so thoroughly gaslit by the media they're consuming that they have no idea what's up and what's down anymore, but that's not my thing. I do enjoy not being sure what's real and what isn't, but it often goes way too far for me to enjoy. This book?

Truly, just the right amount of questioning reality for me without putting me off of the story. It was enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and make it impossible to put the book down because I had to get to the bottom of things, but not enough for me to give up and decide I didn't care what was happening because it was all too obfuscated. If I didn't keep my nails cut super short for climbing, I would have been biting them off through at least the last half of the book. Masterfully written.

2024 Readcap

Yeah, I've used that portmanteau before, I know. It's stupid, but I like it.

Outside of Read Harder, I really only had a few reading goals. The first, which isn't really a hard and fast thing, was to read at least 100 books. Final count? 111. How very Bilbo of me.

First book of the year, The Mirrorwood by Deva Fagan. Last book, For She is Wrath by Emily Varga. I didn't review For She is Wrath, but it's a reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo, in a Pakistan-inspired world, and it was pretty good! I also reread seventeen books - bet you can guess a few, and I'm rereading one of them again now - and I DNFed two books, which is a huge victory for me.

My last reading goal was to prioritize reading the books I bought this year and be more intentional with which books I purchased. I think I did pretty well with being intentional - most of the books I bought were for Read Harder, my book club, or were from my monthly book subscription boxes. This year, I'm going to try to use the library more for Read Harder challenges, or pick books from my TBR backlog. And speaking of my TBR backlog, it did not grow this year because I finished ALL the books I bought in 2024! So proud of myself.

Now, what should my 2025 goals be? I've got a monthly mystery read from my TBR shelf thanks to my sister, so I'll be reading those (knocked January's out on the 1st - #SoFat #SoBrave by Nicole Byer, SO good!), and my sister and I are also making Very Hungry Caterpillar scarves with different colors for each genre we read. Those aren't really goals, they're more...fun book-related things...so, what else should I throw into the mix? Read 112 books? Reread 25 books? Read one non-fiction book a month?

The world is my oyster.