The God of the Woods - Book Review — Lulu's Little Bookshelf

the god of the woods lies striking against cream bedding and pillows — Genre: Historical fiction | Thriller | Mystery | Literary fiction
Author: Liz Moore
Year: 2024
Pages: 478

After a string of introspective literary fiction books, I was craving a good old-fashioned murder mystery. It’s definitely one of my biggest reads of the year at nearly 500 pages (I get a bit overwhelmed by books more than 400 pages…), but don’t let the book’s size deter you - The God of the Woods is an engrossing, compelling read from start to finish.

In the vast Adirondack Mountains lies Camp Emerson, a children’s summer camp owned by the wealthy Van Laar family.

In 1961, eight-year-old Bear Van Laar vanished without a trace. 14 years later, his sister Barbara Van Laar also goes missing.

What happened to Bear? And what happened to Barbara?

The God of the Woods features multiple timelines and character perspectives, which I usually find overwhelming and disengages me from the story. This wasn’t the case with this book however; the colourful cast of characters and writing was really engaging, and it was a real struggle to pry this book out of my hands!

Because of the size of the book, the story actually became quite genre-bending, with some characters making the story feel like a crime-thriller, while other parts of the book were reminiscent of a coming-of-age story and literary fiction.

Not only is it a great summer read (one I was constantly recommending to customers when I worked at my local bookshop), The God of the Woods is also a solid mystery-crime-thriller story; I’d definitely recommend this book to those that like Kala by Colin Walsh, another great literary thriller. Some of the twists and turns definitely took me by surprise, as did the ending!

The God of the Woods is a brilliant book, very nuanced and complex, and one I’ll definitely read again.

★ ★ ★ ★.5 stars