ARC Review: “The Woods Are Always Watching” by Stephanie Perkins

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

Publishing Date: August 31, 2021

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Fiction, YA

Page Length: 320 pages (electronic review edition)

Synopsis:

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.

Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare … and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

Stephanie Perkins, the bestselling author of There’s Someone Inside Your House, returns with a heart-stopping, gut-wrenching novel about friendship, survival, and navigating unmarked paths even as evil watches from the shadows. (description from Goodreads)

Review:

This is the first book I read by Stephanie Perkins. I always enjoy a good spooky read and the title and synopsis alone really got my interest picqued for this novel. The story follows two best friends Josie and Neena who are about to split up for the first time in their life. Neena is going away to California to college and the Josie is staying back at home. Before they separate they decide to go on a trip and camp in the woods. Right from the beginning and you can see even with all their practice Josie and Neena are not skilled campers at all which is an immediate red flag.

While they go on their nature journey the two grapple with feelings of having to be separated and know that they’ll not be able to spend time with each other like before. It also puts a strain on their relationship as they start to nitpick each other about water or carrying supplies. But the reader knows from the very start of their trip that something’s just not quite right.

As the trip becomes more intense their friendship is so strained that they grasp at straws to see if can even be repaired at this point. This book reminds me of all reasons I personally don’t like camping in the woods but I could appreciate the beauty of their surroundings of nature but also was aware that something could go bad in an instant. The unfamiliar terrain of the setting creates an eerie feel to the whole book. You know something is supposed to happen but aren’t sure when.

Reading The Woods Were Always Watching was similar to watching a horror film that takes place in the woods. The book was very formulaic and there was nothing about it that made it stand out among other horror stories of the same nature. It was very predictable and I think the heavier focus on the novel was the friendship aspect between Josie and Neena and dealing with change and story survival. I actually felt a little bit underwhelmed by this book and I was hoping it would be a bit better but I feel like the most climactic part was the last very last chunk of the book.

All in all, this was just an okay read for me. I think there are some aspects of this book on that could have been done differently on the horror scale of things. But it still manages to be a suspenseful read with a very spooky atmosphere.

Final Verdict:

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.