Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - What Lies in the Woods

This was engaging, well-told, and fascinating. I waited with bated breath for all of the mysteries to finally unfold themselves. I was however very frustrated with our main character, Naomi, on multiple occasions for not just going to the police! But I suppose that would've ended the book very quickly and differently.

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d0505's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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haleysversion's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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tifftastic87's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

OMG this BOOK! I am obsessed.

Naomi, Liv and Cass have been friends since they were five and Cass decided they would all be friends. The summer when they were all eleven everything changed with Naomi near fatally stabbed and her and her friends putting away the serial killer that did it. The story jumps forward to Naomi, now 33, still dealing with her trauma and returning to her home town and her friends. We unpeel the layers slowly and go back in time to relive that summer and experience what really happened through Naomi's eyes. Small town drama, PTSD, and lies stacking on lies shape the tale we experience.

Without spoilers this was the most twists in a book I have experienced in a while. I thought I knew what was happening and then I thought I was wrong and then I thought I was right again and then it turned out I was half right. I hit a point where I would have died or killed for Naomi. The story was constantly moving to the next plot point but still giving us a full feel of the characters involved. It was a perfect balance that I really enjoyed.

Trauma and PTSD were handled really well and with care. I appreciated how themes were discussed in a way that wasn't self-indulgent or just straight up trauma porn, actually Marshall seemed to call out authors who are solely focused on that through the use of Naomi's boyfriend in the beginning. We get this sentence, among others about him, that allowed me to instantly know who he was.

The trouble was he’d mistaken drama for virtue and suffering for art, and felt impoverished by his own good fortune.

He, Mitch, spends his spare time writing stories using Naomi's trauma as the center of the story. He is convinced she needs to use her trauma to sell her art instead of photographing weddings and this results in some pretty heated arguments. She says he was an asshole, she knew he was an asshole and so did he. But she was only comfortable dating assholes, someone she could never attach to - been there girl. But when she goes home to gather her things in the middle of the book there is a scene that reveals his true nature, and some of hers.

What the hell just happened? I should have just fucked him so he could feel like he was helping.

When she doesn't allow him to sleep with her, he kind of loses it and kicks her out. After he promised her he wouldn't try anything. So, he's also that kind of asshole. One of the best parts, for me, was her overcoming these choices. She never shies away from it being why she does it:

Every man I’d slept with had been a mistake of one kind or another. The mistake was the point. You couldn’t let someone in without it breaking you, but you could choose the way you broke.

But she seems finally ready to move on from that. It just kind of made the story for me. We got so much of the character development inside this twisted story where you never know who is good and who is bad and the main character herself is morally gray and unreliable.

Hard recommend, but check the content warnings first.

Some more thoughts on little girls being absolutely feral forest goblins: https://youtu.be/AMY_324xjfQ?si=d5ABP_BHxWypgJOs

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meeklovestoread's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I've seen this book all over bookstagram with rave reviews on how good and twisty it was and it was plumped with a lot of my favorite thrillers so best believe I was excited when I finally got my hands on it. Well, sadly this book fell flat for me.

It took until we got pasted the first 100 pages for me to actually get excited about what was going on.

aka Noami they found that Liv died and now she's trying to pick up where Liv left off

After that, that's when I think the story actually picked up. And I was pretty interested. I was finally seeing what people were talking about, but that feeling was later shot (no pun intended considering what happens 😂) the last 50-ish pages.

The twist that it had been Liv that stabbed Naomi was very underwhelming and quite frankly made me upset. I thought we were past stigmatizing mentally ill people as violent psychotic potential killers. I'm glad the author later corrected this assumption.

I also, guess many of the twists.

I wasn't surprised when we found out that Ethan was AJ and that Cass was involved in the end, and that she manipulated Liv into stabbing Noami and then took it upon herself to finish the job. I do have to admit I didn't guess that Cody would be involved and that he accidentally killed Jessi.

This usually isn't a factor in how I rated books. I don't really care if a thriller is predictable as long as I'm having a good time and the suspense is good, however, due to how much this thriller was hyped I was expecting the twists to be mind-blowing so I was highly disappointed which made for a not-so-good reading experience in the end. Lowkey felt like the author added these twists for the sake of their being a big twist. I just don't think it correlated with the story well. I also felt like the ending was a bit rushed.

Now, I didn't hate this book by any means. It has a lot of entertaining components and a decent amount of suspense to make you want to know more. However, if you read this I don't want you to go in expecting anything crazy or phenomenal. I feel like if you're looking for a basic thriller with a decent amount of suspense and a not-so-crazy plot twist then you may consider giving the book a try.

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chasingpages1's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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