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cmwilso3 's review for:
The Woods Are Always Watching
by Stephanie Perkins
I mulled on writing this review for a few days after completing my reading of the book. After reflecting on it, I changed my review from two stars to one star. There were several things that caused this decision. First, I truly do not believe that the character of Josie would have survived the ordeal. She was injured and almost incapacitated from the injury to her foot and leg, then survived having her hand blown off by a shotgun (with surprising accuracy and no other damage to her body). I'm not a medical expert, but I think that a person stuck in a hole with a foot that is almost completely ripped from their body and a stump from a gunshot wound would bleed out and die in the hole. I think that there is no way that she would have survived that.
The journey back from the campsite and hole at the end of the book is insanely fast, particularly when you consider that one character is slowly bleeding to death (despite her superhuman abilities it seems). The whole first part of the book talks about how the girls were taking forever to get to their campsite, but we are expected to forget that and believe that with the heinous wounds that Josie has, not only does she pick herself up, climb out of the hole, walk through the woods, and make it to safety after being attacked AGAIN? It's completely unrealistic.
The third issue I had was the psychic connection that the girls had with their assailants. It came out of nowhere and was very jarring. One of the men forcibly kisses one of the girls, and suddenly she sees his entire life story before her eyes. All of his pain and suffering. A similar experience happens between the other victim and assailant.
Also, the fact that Josie survived it all AND was able to drive them away from the forest is just too far gone for me to believe.
I don't know why the author seemed to dislike Josie so much. It was apparent that after her father died, she was neglected by her own mother and was terrified of being abandoned by her best friend because Neena was moving to Los Angeles. The author chose to brutally maim Josie, reaping all of the horrible things that occur in the book onto her. Neena, on the other hand, has asthma. I can see that after this book, Neena will still go off to LA, leaving Josie and that trauma behind. The entire premise of the book is that they are best friends who are about to lose each other. IMO, Neena's character has nothing to lose now by abandoning Josie after this trauma. Josie will be abandoned, left without a foot and a hand, while the exact thing that she feared will happen. But we don't get that resolution. The author basically screws Josie over, reaping pain after pain on her about her father, her mother, her former best friend, her brother and his girlfriend, her best friend leaving her, not going off to college, and THEN ups the ante by having her lose a foot and an arm??
Edit: I had to come back and finish this review because I forgot about the most outrageous part of the story. For no reason, and with perfect timing, a BEAR saves the girls? Despite the fact that bear attacks are extremely rare ("The ATC claims nearly 3 million visited the [Appalachian] trail this year, this means that nearly 1 in a 24-30million chance you will be involved in a fatal bear attack"), a bear happens to come along and attack the two men and kill them despite the fact that a small, blood-soaked Josie was sitting right there for the taking. The girls assume it was because one of the men urinated, but surely, the bear would have smelled Josie's blood over urine. Not a bear expert, but a random attack on two grown men by a single bear makes no sense with the situation described.
The journey back from the campsite and hole at the end of the book is insanely fast, particularly when you consider that one character is slowly bleeding to death (despite her superhuman abilities it seems). The whole first part of the book talks about how the girls were taking forever to get to their campsite, but we are expected to forget that and believe that with the heinous wounds that Josie has, not only does she pick herself up, climb out of the hole, walk through the woods, and make it to safety after being attacked AGAIN? It's completely unrealistic.
The third issue I had was the psychic connection that the girls had with their assailants. It came out of nowhere and was very jarring. One of the men forcibly kisses one of the girls, and suddenly she sees his entire life story before her eyes. All of his pain and suffering. A similar experience happens between the other victim and assailant.
Also, the fact that Josie survived it all AND was able to drive them away from the forest is just too far gone for me to believe.
I don't know why the author seemed to dislike Josie so much. It was apparent that after her father died, she was neglected by her own mother and was terrified of being abandoned by her best friend because Neena was moving to Los Angeles. The author chose to brutally maim Josie, reaping all of the horrible things that occur in the book onto her. Neena, on the other hand, has asthma. I can see that after this book, Neena will still go off to LA, leaving Josie and that trauma behind. The entire premise of the book is that they are best friends who are about to lose each other. IMO, Neena's character has nothing to lose now by abandoning Josie after this trauma. Josie will be abandoned, left without a foot and a hand, while the exact thing that she feared will happen. But we don't get that resolution. The author basically screws Josie over, reaping pain after pain on her about her father, her mother, her former best friend, her brother and his girlfriend, her best friend leaving her, not going off to college, and THEN ups the ante by having her lose a foot and an arm??
Edit: I had to come back and finish this review because I forgot about the most outrageous part of the story. For no reason, and with perfect timing, a BEAR saves the girls? Despite the fact that bear attacks are extremely rare ("The ATC claims nearly 3 million visited the [Appalachian] trail this year, this means that nearly 1 in a 24-30million chance you will be involved in a fatal bear attack"), a bear happens to come along and attack the two men and kill them despite the fact that a small, blood-soaked Josie was sitting right there for the taking. The girls assume it was because one of the men urinated, but surely, the bear would have smelled Josie's blood over urine. Not a bear expert, but a random attack on two grown men by a single bear makes no sense with the situation described.