e-Audio, 07:09:02
Narrated by: Reena Dutt
Release Date: August 31, 2021
Published by: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Read from: September 9-13, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Library (Libby)
TW: Broken bones, gun violence
For Readers Interested In: Thrillers, Realistic Fiction, Horror, YAA companion to There’s Someone Inside Your House.
Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods.
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.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I love Stephanie Perkins, but I just cannot get into her horror books. I tried reading both of them and neither worked for me. This one even less so. As a person who watches horror all year long and watches the classic 80’s slasher movies on repeat during October, this upset me so much.
Neena and Josie spent so much time being in the outside of all the popular kids and only kept to themselves. Now they’re leaving high school and want to spend the last couple days before they have to break apart, together. So they go on a hike into the Pisgah National Forest. But just as they begin to think they have it down, things start to get weird…. In a horrifying way.
As someone who loves horror, before things start getting scary, the author (screen writer?) puts some creepy things in there to kind of keep up the momentum. Or at least all the ones I’ve watched/read. But this book did not do it. And because of that, the plot suffered. This book already isn’t that long. (Only about 240 pages in the physical copy according to Goodreads) so not having anything really happen in the first half of this book really made it suffer to me. I was anticipating the creepy part and all I got in return was a girl fight and lessons on using the bathroom in the woods.
And when things finally did get started, it was like a blip on a scale. They hardly fought the villain. It was really abrupt. And then the ending made it seem even shorter. I was not impressed. I think if it had a little more umph in it (especially after help the book having nothing happen) I would have liked it more.
Unfortunately I didn’t even really like the characters. Like WHY would you go hiking AND camping when you know nothing about it? You couldn’t just do one or the other? Like come on. And then you hear there’s been surprise bears out there? Like NO go home! But that’s just me. Maybe it’s just me? lol
Nothing about this really worked for me besides the narrator. I only kept listening because I liked her and I was able to speed it up and hurry to finish it out. The narrator was easy to listen to and did great with changing her voice in the different situations. I think there was even a part where she like sniffled when the character was crying and it felt real. Like it didn’t sound forced or anything. I love when narrators can do things like that. It makes listening to the book more like an experience.
I was so looking forward to this book, but unfortunately nothing about this really worked for me. I wanted to be scared to go to the woods or to use this to get excited to get ready for October and all the creepy I want it to bring. And I got none of that with this. I still liked the narrator and of course Perkins’ easy writing style, but for the most part, this didn’t work for me. I know this will be well received with others, so I hope you all enjoy it 100x’s more than I did!
Overall, I give this,
