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A review by liralen
What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott
2.0
1) Yup. Saw that coming.
2) Things I Do Not Recommend: reading a hiking murder mystery because you're wondering about heading off into the woods for a few days.
3) I was low-key on board with the book until the end, when both the killer (who I'd guessed) and the motive were revealed. None of the characters is terribly likable, unfortunately—I'm reminded of [b:Starry Eyes|35297469|Starry Eyes|Jenn Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1497542946s/35297469.jpg|56664282], which I also read recently and where it's so obvious from early on that the 'friends' are not really worth keeping around. But I do like reading about people going off into the woods, so...in general, it was pretty passable. Except then there's the ending:
4) Let's go deep intothe woods spoiler territory, okay?
Oh. While I'm still in a spoiler tag, I'll say that it did take me a while to figure out that it was Penelope—it was pretty clear that either she or...the other girl...oh. Lissa. That either she or Lissa would die (assuming that neither the love interest or the protagonist would die or be the murderer, because this is YA), so when Lissa died, it was clear that the killer would be either Penelope or Ted...and Ted didn't seem likely because Penelope would be more of a ~twist~. (Yes, Lissa's boyfriend also showed up, but he had Red Herring written all over him, so.) Clearly I a) have read too much and b) think too much about these things.
2) Things I Do Not Recommend: reading a hiking murder mystery because you're wondering about heading off into the woods for a few days.
3) I was low-key on board with the book until the end, when both the killer (who I'd guessed) and the motive were revealed. None of the characters is terribly likable, unfortunately—I'm reminded of [b:Starry Eyes|35297469|Starry Eyes|Jenn Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1497542946s/35297469.jpg|56664282], which I also read recently and where it's so obvious from early on that the 'friends' are not really worth keeping around. But I do like reading about people going off into the woods, so...in general, it was pretty passable. Except then there's the ending:
4) Let's go deep into
Spoiler
The 'twist' at the end is that one of Callie's friends, Penelope, is the murderer, and her motive is an unspecified 'whole list of mental illnesses' (255). And I hate this. It's not a new twist, of course (in how many murder mysteries does it turn out that the friend/lover did it because they're secretly crazy?), but I'm left with the impression that Penelope's problems are unnamed because the author didn't want people saying 'hey, this is unfair to people with ___; most people with ___ aren't deranged murderers'. But instead I'm sitting here saying 'for crying out loud, 99.9% of people with mental illness are not deranged murderers. You can do better than this'. I'd be a little more okay with it if there were any more benign (for lack of a better word) depictions of mental illness in the book, but...there aren't. There's just mental illness = irrational murderer.Oh. While I'm still in a spoiler tag, I'll say that it did take me a while to figure out that it was Penelope—it was pretty clear that either she or...the other girl...oh. Lissa. That either she or Lissa would die (assuming that neither the love interest or the protagonist would die or be the murderer, because this is YA), so when Lissa died, it was clear that the killer would be either Penelope or Ted...and Ted didn't seem likely because Penelope would be more of a ~twist~. (Yes, Lissa's boyfriend also showed up, but he had Red Herring written all over him, so.) Clearly I a) have read too much and b) think too much about these things.