ARC BOOK REVIEW: What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould

REVIEW: 

Thank you to netgalley and Wednesday Books for a free copy of this book.  I am leaving this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own. 

A group of 5 teenagers are sent out to the woods for 55 days of wilderness therapy.  No one is happy to be there. After the 2nd night the counselors disappear and the kids are left on their own. At odds with each other and not wilderness savvy they all feel this is an odd way to start the trip. Soon factions form and as things start to get weird trust starts to erode. 

When they start to realize they are being hunted they need to come together to survive. However trust is not an easy thing when you are broken. Then imagine your worst nightmare come true, and tracking you trying to beat you down to take your body.  Yikes.  

Haunting and atmospheric this YA horror story takes off and has you staying up all night and making pledges to never go camping in the woods. Seriously, this book had me routing for these kids and freaked out by things that go bump in the night. 

Publication Date: December 10, 2024 Format: Kindle  Genre:  Horror

Publisher: Wednesday Books Length:  336 pages Buy: Kindle | Audio

SYNOPSIS:

 

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction―one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways―and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness―they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods―inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves―and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other―and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.