A review by faithtrustpixiedust
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The God of the Woods was a disappointment. While it had me gripped at many junctions, with many possible avenues all equally fascinating to explore, the actual resolution was less than satisfactory. Maybe I’m just a bit of a cynic, but I found the ending (with Barbara living alone on an island) kind of stupid. I also really didn’t like that all of the little threads were tied up—I wouldn’t have lost any sleep over Scary Mary. Ultimately, the book, while interesting, was a bit of a flop. I’ve thought, in the few days since finishing it, more about how I wish it had been better than about the things I’d originally liked about it—the spooky New England setting, the impact of class divisions, Alice. Everything good was forgotten in just how mediocre it all ended up. Perhaps if there had been fewer characters, I would have enjoyed it more. The sheer number of irrelevant backstories weighed down the narrative.
Despite my love of (tasteful) true crime and obsession with all things gothic or otherwise mysterious, I’m starting to think that I just don’t like mysteries—or to be more accurate, mystery-thrillers. Or to be even more accurate, I don’t like popular mystery-thrillers. Or some unpopular ones. Or I’m just very picky, as it turns out. This book reminded me of a terrible amalgamation of many of the other books I’ve read of a similar genre: namely, Little Darlings by Melanie Golding (hated this one), Black Chuck by Regan McDonell (really liked this one), Penpal by Dathan Auerbach (meh), Sadie by Courtney Summers (it was good!), Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (I love this book!), and A Divided Mind by M. Billiter (haven’t been bothered to finish it for almost 3 years now).
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore felt like it had the setting of Penpal with some Sadie thrown in for good measure, maybe a hint of Black Chuck, populated with some Sadie and Black Chuck teenagers and A Divided Mind and Little Darlings adults. The conclusion—down to a swim in a large body of water—felt like war flashbacks from Little Darlings. By the end, I felt like I’d already read it before, in better (and infinitely worse) versions. While the latter 20thcentury setting was unique in comparison to all of these, it was hardly relevant to the actual plot, other than the presence of a prison escapee (very 1970s of Moore). It lacked the distinctive features of the mysteries I have liked, like the eeriness and uncertainty of Alias Grace.
From reading this book, I have realized that, while it is good to stick to genre conventions for marketing purposes, they should not be included at the expense of the narrative. What made Alias Grace so amazing to me wasn’t its vintage setting, nonlinear timeline, or unconventional female protagonists—it was the depth of the small cast of characters, the little mysteries that were never resolved, the unmatched beauty of the prose, and the tight plot—all things that The God of the Woods lacked.
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