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vacantbones 's review for:
The Woods Are Always Watching
by Stephanie Perkins
This website is so dramatic.
I say this, admittedly, as a self-professed There's Someone Inside Your House defender (just the book, not that questionable movie adaptation). But there truly is some good to be unearthed in the pages of The Woods Are Always Watching. It has delightfully disgusting gore, forest-dwelling killers, and a trap hole. You can't go wrong with a trap hole! I think that this one has a relatively strong second half, Perkins' writing pulling us through to a satisfactory conclusion. Some seem to dislike the length or a perceived lack of motive for the brutality - I liked the shorter story, and the horror genre is so over-saturated with an obsessive need to explain the bad guys that this approach worked for me.
Now, let me be clear - it's a damn shame that the entire first half of this book just consists of two teenage girls arguing. It makes sense from a story standpoint that the background here is rooted in tension: best friends Josie and Neena are days away from starting college on opposite coasts, and this primal fear of loss is manifesting in all of their unspoken resentments being released during an amateur backpacking trip in the mountains. But Perkins is almost *too* good at writing teenagers, and the petty, childish arguments should not take up over 100 pages. It sets the stage for the rest of the book, but it made me want to tear my hair out. At one point, the girls have decided that their friendship is over so, naturally, the camping trip continues. HUH????
So here I am, once again, defending a Stephanie Perkins horror novel despite its weaknesses. I just don't believe that these books are nearly as bad as Goodreads would have you believe, the author being a competent writer who can build a story (which is more than I can say for some of the other books I read this year). Also, the TRAP HOLE! Come on!
I say this, admittedly, as a self-professed There's Someone Inside Your House defender (just the book, not that questionable movie adaptation). But there truly is some good to be unearthed in the pages of The Woods Are Always Watching. It has delightfully disgusting gore, forest-dwelling killers, and a trap hole. You can't go wrong with a trap hole! I think that this one has a relatively strong second half, Perkins' writing pulling us through to a satisfactory conclusion. Some seem to dislike the length or a perceived lack of motive for the brutality - I liked the shorter story, and the horror genre is so over-saturated with an obsessive need to explain the bad guys that this approach worked for me.
Now, let me be clear - it's a damn shame that the entire first half of this book just consists of two teenage girls arguing. It makes sense from a story standpoint that the background here is rooted in tension: best friends Josie and Neena are days away from starting college on opposite coasts, and this primal fear of loss is manifesting in all of their unspoken resentments being released during an amateur backpacking trip in the mountains. But Perkins is almost *too* good at writing teenagers, and the petty, childish arguments should not take up over 100 pages. It sets the stage for the rest of the book, but it made me want to tear my hair out. At one point, the girls have decided that their friendship is over so, naturally, the camping trip continues. HUH????
So here I am, once again, defending a Stephanie Perkins horror novel despite its weaknesses. I just don't believe that these books are nearly as bad as Goodreads would have you believe, the author being a competent writer who can build a story (which is more than I can say for some of the other books I read this year). Also, the TRAP HOLE! Come on!