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A review by pikasqueaks
The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman
4.0
I have a soft spot for books set in boarding schools. I know they’re not always the most realistic, and it’s not like I ever went to one. But the idea of high school kids having the kind of freedoms and interactions that college kids have makes for much more interesting, and sometimes “grown up” conflicts that you don’t get with young adult books all the time. Except that typically, the kids are all rich. That brings it down just a bit.
Calista Wood starts at St. Bede’s academy, and she doesn’t immediately fit in. She’s come half-way through the year, and that was a special exception for two reasons: her test scores were phenomenal, and years ago, her sister went missing there. So she has a connection to the school that she doesn’t quite understand yet, but all signs point to: go. One thing that sticks out is that Cally’s test scores were high, so I expected a deviation from the standard teenager. I’m not sure what I got was what I was looking for -- some of the words that Cally uses don’t always make sense in the context she puts them. Is that a mark of a girl thinking she knows more than she does, or is it a mark against the writing?
People start off by trying to make friends with her -- her roommate’s sister, two best friends in one of her classes, and then the roommate. Cally still feels a little lost at the school, and then the parties start. They’re those epic parties where all kinds of things are supposed to happen, except... Cally goes to bed instead of socializing. Okay. So maybe she isn’t the social butterfly, that’ll work just the same, right? Except as the story progresses, she seeks out and picks ways to alienate herself. She hooks up with someone, despite knowing that it’s going to hurt a lot of people in mix.
I’m not sure how to feel about Cally. She’s smart and intuitive, and she really wants the answers to her lingering questions. But in the ways that she’s still very much a teenager -- the desperate need to stand out so people notice her with her haircuts and weird clothes -- she gets frustrating. This front doesn’t exactly tell us all that much about Cally, aside from the fact that she’s definitely not emotionally stable through most of the book. And when she could be making smart choices, it’s never really clear what her intentions are.
I don’t read a lot of mysteries, so I can’t tell you if this one would stand out among a sea of others. But I know that YA mysteries in boarding schools are some of the coolest books I read, and I appreciate them in the genre. As a mystery itself, I think we see the culprit right out. But that’s the reader, and the thing about The Little Woods is that it’s more important for Cally to come around to the revelation on her own.
However, the romantic side plots in the book were straight up terrible. Cally not only finds a boyfriend who is completely wrong for her (and gives her flack about the weird crap she does to her hair?), but proceeds to cheat on him. I’m totally sick and tired of seeing cheating played out like it’s no big deal in YA, or just something you shrug off, but the reactions some of the characters had to what happened was just weird. These characters are all just very weird, and I don’t know if it’s the woods, or boarding school, or what, but it was really bizarre.
The Little Woods is a book I’d definitely recommend you find at the library and check out, but not one I’d keep forever.
Calista Wood starts at St. Bede’s academy, and she doesn’t immediately fit in. She’s come half-way through the year, and that was a special exception for two reasons: her test scores were phenomenal, and years ago, her sister went missing there. So she has a connection to the school that she doesn’t quite understand yet, but all signs point to: go. One thing that sticks out is that Cally’s test scores were high, so I expected a deviation from the standard teenager. I’m not sure what I got was what I was looking for -- some of the words that Cally uses don’t always make sense in the context she puts them. Is that a mark of a girl thinking she knows more than she does, or is it a mark against the writing?
People start off by trying to make friends with her -- her roommate’s sister, two best friends in one of her classes, and then the roommate. Cally still feels a little lost at the school, and then the parties start. They’re those epic parties where all kinds of things are supposed to happen, except... Cally goes to bed instead of socializing. Okay. So maybe she isn’t the social butterfly, that’ll work just the same, right? Except as the story progresses, she seeks out and picks ways to alienate herself. She hooks up with someone, despite knowing that it’s going to hurt a lot of people in mix.
I’m not sure how to feel about Cally. She’s smart and intuitive, and she really wants the answers to her lingering questions. But in the ways that she’s still very much a teenager -- the desperate need to stand out so people notice her with her haircuts and weird clothes -- she gets frustrating. This front doesn’t exactly tell us all that much about Cally, aside from the fact that she’s definitely not emotionally stable through most of the book. And when she could be making smart choices, it’s never really clear what her intentions are.
I don’t read a lot of mysteries, so I can’t tell you if this one would stand out among a sea of others. But I know that YA mysteries in boarding schools are some of the coolest books I read, and I appreciate them in the genre. As a mystery itself, I think we see the culprit right out. But that’s the reader, and the thing about The Little Woods is that it’s more important for Cally to come around to the revelation on her own.
However, the romantic side plots in the book were straight up terrible. Cally not only finds a boyfriend who is completely wrong for her (and gives her flack about the weird crap she does to her hair?), but proceeds to cheat on him. I’m totally sick and tired of seeing cheating played out like it’s no big deal in YA, or just something you shrug off, but the reactions some of the characters had to what happened was just weird. These characters are all just very weird, and I don’t know if it’s the woods, or boarding school, or what, but it was really bizarre.
The Little Woods is a book I’d definitely recommend you find at the library and check out, but not one I’d keep forever.