A review by alexawkelly
The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

2.0

Another Very Solidly Okay Car Audiobook. Genuinely spooky and more gory/violent/just generally icky (I usually don't expect sadistic murderers threatening lots of sexual violence in my YA, and this kinda knocked me out with it), but I thought that the ending was kind of cartoonish, and, just like I criticized with Horrid, there was no real sense of resolution at the end! I read a fair bit of YA horror, and I think there's a difference between letting an ending dangle just enough to leave you feeling unsettled and not wrapping up all the plot threads you planted. This definitely felt more like the latter to me. Props on being appropriately spooky for spooky szn tho (I also started this a few weeks after I got into the podcast National Park After Dark, so coincidentally, it tied in really nicely. Would have liked it better if the bad guy turned out to be Mothman, though.)

Also props for one (1) author being willing to talk about the very obvious but rarely acknowledged tonal shift that took place with the Berenstain Bears books.