A review by perfectlystill
In the Woods by Tana French

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I loved this. About 60% of my way through reading, I realized that I really, really liked these characters, which is honestly something that almost never happens in books for me. Interested in their lives! Their nuanced, complex, contradictory humanity! Want to know more, more more. I did not expect my heart to be racing as much it did, and I did not expect to cry so hard I needed to get tissues. At one point I put the book down to silently scream. Found it to be such a devastating, heartrending story in the end. 

We lay very still. I could feel the air around us changing, blooming and shimmering like the air over a scorching road, My heart was speeding, or hers was banging against my chest, I'm not sure. I turned in Cassie's arms and kissed her, and after a moment she kissed me back.

I know I said that I always choose the anticlimactic over the irrevocable, and yes of course what I meant was that I have always been a coward, but I lied: not always, there was that night, there was that one time.

I genuinely felt, you see, although I'm unclear on the process by which my mind arrived at this conclusion, that I had been wronged in some subtle but unpardonable way. If she had hurt me, I could have forgiven her without even having to think about it; but I couldn't forgive her for being hurt.

I watched her on the stand in that unfamiliar suit and thought of the soft hairs at the back of her neck, warm and smelling of sun, and it seemed an impossible thing to me, it seemed the vastest and saddest miracle of my life: I touched her hair, once.