The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

496 pages

Published July 2024 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

My Thoughts: 

This is one of those books that's gotten so much buzz in the last few months that I'd almost convinced myself not to read it, knowing there was no way it could live up to that hype. But I'd read and loved Moore's Long Bright River in 2020 (a series adaptation of which is set to premiere March 13th on Peacock) and knew that she could write a book that would make me want to stay up late reading. So as soon as I thought I could manage a 500 page book, I checked it out. 

I tried to give my husband a quick summary of this once I was done and he felt it sounded like one of those movies where there is just too much going on, too many characters, too many terrible things happening. You know the kind of movies I'm taking about, the kind where the character's phone runs out of battery just as her car dies on a dark road with a killer somewhere on the loose nearby. And I get that. There are a lot of characters, the book bounces back and forth in time, there are a lot of relationships that play out different ways over time, there actually is a mass murder on the loose, and we're getting the narrative from a lot of different perspectives. Not many people could make it work. Liz Moore does. 

"A long novel that at first is hard to put down. By page 200, impossible." —Stephen King

I couldn't have said it better than Stephen King (well, of course I couldn't!). I got into work later than usual every day last week because I couldn't put this one day once I started reading it while I ate breakfast. The hubby had to pitch in to make dinners because once I sat down to read after work, I couldn't be bothered to cook. It all worked for me and the closer I got to the end, the more I could justify letting the wet laundry sit in the washer a few hours, the dirty carpet go unvacuumed. 

If there is a flaw at all, it's that some of the rich male characters are a little too stereotyped. But most of the characters in this book are so well developed, particularly most of the females (whose points of view are the ones we get most of). The area the story is set in comes alive: the woods, the camp, the danger of the area, the struggle of the locals once the only factory around shuts down. 

I'm pretty darn glad that this one is on my book club's list for 2025. I can't wait to discuss it with them, even if that is months from now. This one is going on my Best of 2025 list, where it will likely remain at the end of the year.