Welcome to Litsy!

I recently told @JamieArc & @TheKidUpstairs that I‘d pick this up soon. Not even I knew that “soon” meant “before the day is done.”

Ah, the life of a mood reader. 😉

thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book & found it absolutely gripping & the best thriller I‘d read for along timehowever the second half not so muchIt felt like the vast array of characters had just been thrown in, perhaps this is to steer the reader away from guessing what really happened to Bear & Barbara It also started to slide for me when the “poor” girl was arrested because of the say so of a rich girl/boy but with no hard evidence.

Take a family that only wants sons named Peter and there‘s bound to be issues. The reputation of the family and especially the sons is more important than anything. Well, that‘s just a recipe for all kinds of not good. The secret at the heart of this book will cause an explosion in the Van Laar empire. Liz Moore is so good with the family drama. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After a long waitlist, diving in

The best thriller Iv read for a long time & loving the short different character narrative chapters 😊

While I didn‘t love this as much as many of you, it was still an engaging story that kept me hooked and was a good way to pass time on my flight.

A mostly interesting book/story.

Read for reading prompts.

3.75/5

Wow. This was unputdownably excellent. Lives up to all the hype, and I truly didn‘t know how it would come together until the last moments. Absolutely loved it. #BOTM

It‘s the perfect morning in Mississippi today! Beautiful, quiet, wind chimes, birds, and 64 degrees! Perfection! 🌞 and now breakfast on the porch with my hubby 💛

Happy Sunday!

#LitsyLove

“It was funny, she thought, how many relationships one could have with the same man, over the course of a lifetime together.”

It was a perfect morning for porch reading! Cooler with a breeze! Now I have to adult 😫😫😫

#LitsyLove

31 Aug-4 Sep 24
A great read, which I tore through surprisingly quickly.
A girl goes missing from summer camp in the Adirondacks. The twist is the camp is owned by her extremely wealthy parents and is the same location from which her brother went missing almost two decades before. Woods tells the two stories simultaneously and from different viewpoints, a format I always seem to find compelling. Touches on coming of age, wealth and privilege.

I had a hard time getting into this one, but around the halfway point, it really kicked in for me! A good mystery, lots of atmosphere, and I wasn't able to predict the ending, which is always a bonus! I'm not sure it completely lived up to the hype, but it was still enjoyable and well worth the investment.

The God of the Woods was a middle of the road read for me. I didn‘t love it and I didn‘t hate it. It‘s definitely slow burn. There weren‘t really any shocking twists and the pace stays steady throughout the entire book. But I did enjoy the investigation aspects and the family secrets that came to light. It had enough intrigue to keep me interested and I did enjoy my time reading it. Overall, I would say it was a three star read for me.

Updated #2024ReadingBrackets:
August was a productive month, with 13 books completed – thanks in large part to an enforced period of time on the couch after my knee surgery as well as several events that involved hours of travel to get there. Eight of the books were FICTION. Of those, I gave the nod to “God of the Woods” by Liz Moore as the top pick. Great read, but it's no match for “Stoner“ -- which moves on into the semifinals.

#WondrousWednesday
@Eggs (thanks for the tag! 😘)

1. taking care of Kate and Pippa
2. knowing I'm loved
3. Tagged: THE GOD OF THE WOODS.

Play? @ThePageShifter @Librarybelle @AmyG

#UnpopularOpinion ‼️ I just can‘t. The writing is just not doing anything for me. I‘ve made it to page 58. I don‘t care about the characters. I‘m not sure if it‘s because I‘m reading the book right before it‘s due back at the library and I really want to read something else or if it‘s just the writing

Soft pick. This was more of a police procedural than I was expecting and I think the hype monster might have got to me. Serious Jane Harper vibes with this one.

I am at summer camp in the Adirondack region of upstate New York! I love when books have maps 🗺️ Starting this one today!

#Whereintheworld
#Whereareyoumonday

🖤 🌳 ⛺️

Spent most of the day reading this. No regrets.

🎃Hello Spooky Season🎃

Are you reading anything spooky today?

It‘s definitely a pick but I was a bit underwhelmed by it. Definitely a lot to like about it but there were a bit too many characters, storylines and timelines. Two children from the same wealthy family go missing in the Adirondack woods years apart from each other and you learn the stories of the children, their parents, the investigators and those who care about each one of them. (Not sure why I can‘t make this picture straight!)

August wrap-up from StoryGraph! Tagged is my favorite (non-re-read) of the month. Honorable mention to the 2 sci-fi novellas I devoured yesterday: Sisters of the Vast Black and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars. Also: the “pages read” graph fascinates me this month, with those two big spikes! ⤵️

I finished 8 books in August. My favorite was definitely The God of the Woods.

I can‘t put this book down!!

Fair warning, once you start this one, it‘s hard to put down. Fantastic setting, eclectic cast of characters with plenty of people to love and/or hate, secrets & lies, a horrific tragedy & its lingering fallout—it all comes to a head when a young camper goes missing raising the ghost of a past crime. Told from multiple POVs, this one moves quickly, the tension building from the first page as Moore keeps you guessing at the truth. Recommended.

#readingbracket2024
Thanks for the template, @Catsandbooks! 🤗

#readingbracket2024
Thanks for the template, @CSeydel! 🤩

#BestBookOfTheSummer
Thanks for the tag, @julieclair! Sorry I'm so late!

Hands down, this one. And thanks for getting it for me for my birthday, @Princess-Kingofkings!!! 🤩😘🤗

This is really, really good.

I‘ll join my voice to the choir signing this book‘s praises. Fantastic read takes you like a summer blackfly buzzing around hearing family and community secrets when a child‘s disappearance in the same woods years after her brother‘s disappearance sets everyone on edge.

I loved Moore‘s The Unseen World (but have yet to read Long Bright River)—so when I saw this new release, I was immediately excited. And it did not disappoint! It takes its time establishing both past and present, shifting between characters and timelines as two disappearances are slowly revealed. I was impressed at how well Moore fleshed out so many different characters, while carefully concealing or revealing just what was necessary. ⤵️

A couple of weeks ago I fell off of our back door steps and broke my left leg and right ankle. My first concern was the baby but after thorough checking she is perfectly fine so that‘s a blessing in itself. Now that my pain has started to ease up I‘ve picked up The God of the Woods. Does anyone have any thoughts on it? I know it‘s slow burn but I haven‘t made it very far in.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fantastic mystery set in the Adirondack Mountains. My only critique would be the amount of characters and time jumps throughout this story, but without a doubt easy enough to stay on track. Highly recommend for anyone who loves an atmospheric read.

What struck me most about this book was the style of writing. Each chapter is the name of one of the pivotal characters and underneath the name, a menu of years because this novel takes us from the 1950s-1975 at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains where the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the camp goes missing. The short chapters and need for me to keep the characters and dates together kept me ripping through those pages. ⬇️

In my head, this was a serial killer book. That is absolutely not the case. It‘s much more of a character-driven investigator book with a big dose of family drama in the same vein as Jane Harper & Tana French. I‘m so glad I read it. I loved it! Combine summer camp, the Adirondack woods, class complications between the rich and the locals, and gender politics in the 1970s and you‘ve got quite a plot. Plus the tension of a missing child, so good!

This was a fascinating, slow build, literary mystery. The time jumps and multiple POV‘s make this a challenging read at times, but the unraveling of the mystery is worth it. Making this a period piece -taking place between the early 1960‘s and mid 1970‘s- also helps set the scene. A great summer read! 4.5⭐️ only because I did guess the mystery!

#Two4Tuesday
1.Wine,craft beer,cocktails make me too sleepy to read!😁
2.tagged The God Of The Woods
Everyone play !🍷

I‘m in the minority here, but I found this book very underwhelming after reading so many great reviews. It was too long and a tad boring. Just an average mystery.

I mean, given what everyone else has already said, it‘s no surprise that this was so good.

What I loved and didn‘t really expect: it‘s more like 4 mysteries, rather than just 1; it‘s pretty literary, and not really thriller‘y, and really well done; it is and it isn‘t what you expect. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Also started Steeped in Secrets for #SeasonalCozies and started this audiobook that … probably someone here recommended. 😁 it‘s intense! 🫨

Not to jinx myself, but 75 pages in and I think this one will break my reading slump 💪

I enjoyed this book very much. I did figure out what happened to both children. Not the who did it but the what happened. In Barbara's case I knew who helped. But it's still a wonderful book. Great characters for the most part.

Several timelines and POVs. But it's not hard to keep straight. Well written. I now know the purpose of that “pink paint.“

4.5 star

Full review: https://lsmoore49.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-god-of-woods-by-liz-moore.html

This is such a well written piece of fiction focused on a camper, the daughter of the camp owner, who disappears at camp many years after her brother disappeared in the same location. It is a bit of a mystery and family history but with lots of incredible complex characters, particularly all the women and locals. Liz Moore must know 1-camps and 2-the Adirondacks because it is all incredibly described. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A pick, for sure. One that is extremely propelling and riveting and maddening - the kind you just want to read and read and read; sad that it is over. However, I must temper any expectations! Because, I did have tiny middling issues with a few things that aren‘t relevant to the mystery but enough to detract from the highest rating. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Perhaps, I expected perfection. I do remember that I adored Heft and now have this author as a must read.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. The solution is mildly underwhelming, and I really don't like how often Moore uses the adverb "lowly" to mean "quietly" (I know it's an acceptable use, I just don't like it), but aside from that, I found the mystery gripping and the characters rich, complex, and mostly consistent within themselves. Turns out I picked up a signed copy, too, so that's kind of fun.

4 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Liz Moore goes deeper than the typical mystery/thriller, helping the reader get to know multiple characters. Here she looks at a girl going missing from a summer camp whose wealthy family has some complex backstory. Really good, though I liked her previous book better.

I was invested in the many characters, over the different timelines. The main action happens in 1975 at a summer camp owned by the wealthy Van Leers. A camper goes missing and several perspectives emerge. Flashbacks to an earlier disappearance in 1961 leave us to wonder if the two are connected. Excellent storytelling weave these threads together. I wasn‘t prepared for how downright sad this is; Moore hit me in the motherhood feels.

Really liked this read. The hype was correct. Good characters, a timeline for every chapter, summer camp, and rich people‘s way of life. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 loves that it was set in 1975…girls had it rough. We all know this! Good mystery with two kids missing in a scary wooded area. 🫣🌲

Does anyone else get a weird feeling when reading a book that centers on a character who shares your name? 😆 I don‘t often come across characters with my name!