Kool-Aid with Karan

Rating: Soft Recommend

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The God of the Woods is about an inspector trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a wealthy teenage girl while at a sleep-away camp in Upstate New York, Camp Emerson. The teenage girl, Barbara Van Laar, is the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the land upon which Camp Emerson sits. The strained relationship between Barbara and her parents, along with the family's troubled past in those very woods, leads investigator Judyta Luptack on a journey to not only find Barbara, but unlock the mystery haunting the Van Laar family.

The past plays a significant role in this story. A majority of the story is told through flashbacks with a number of different characters, each providing pieces to the larger puzzle of the central mystery. The book was 450 pages on my e-reader, which is quite long for a mystery book in my opinion. Often with a mystery I find there is a lot of clue-finding and theory crafting that takes up a bulk of the plot. In The God of the Woods, I found the meat of the story was less about the mystery and more about the Van Laar family and those unfortunate enough to be caught in their orbit.

The characters divulged so little about themselves in the present (Upstate New York, 1975), that it felt like the only way to learn about them and their motivations was through their eyes months, years, or even decades earlier. Between the length of the story and the numerous flashbacks, I often felt myself losing momentum and putting the book down after the fourth or fifth flashback. The characters themselves were mostly interesting and complex in their own way. But boy oh boy were some of them insufferable. In my opinion, the weakest link in this story was the character Alice Van Laar. Alice's helplessness and lack of even a sliver of a backbone was utterly infuriating. It didn't help that she is so central to the core mystery as the mother of missing teenager Barbara.

Overall I did enjoy my time with The God of the Woods. Aside from Alice, the large cast of characters were all unique and interesting. They felt like they belonged in that world and when the story stayed in a single time frame long enough, I was immersed and engaged. I enjoyed Liz Moore's writing style and how each character had their own voice, each making a distinct impression as we learned how they ended up at Camp Emerson on that fateful day.

If you are looking for a slow burn, heavily character driven mystery novel, this book might be right for you.