What The Woods Took by Courtney Gould (2024)
Scary. Heartbreaking. Breathless. Gasp-inducing. And an incisive examination of five troubled, broken young souls, thrown into unimaginable horror.
"What the Woods Took' manages to pack all of this into one page-turning package. After a relatively slow start, author Courtney Gould pits her five distressed teen characters against a terrifying mixture of every horror movie trope you've ever shivered through.
Devin, Sheridan, Ollie, Aiden and Hannah, all given up on by exasperated parents and guardians, find themselves forcibly dragged into a wilderness survival program in the backwoods of Idaho. The guide-counselors in charge, barely older than their unhappy campers, are tasked with taking the group through a 50 day hike,.......presumably to instill self-reliance, self-worth and lose their bad attitudes.
But things go, as we all knew they would.....horribly awry.
Something's slightly 'off' about this neck of the woods and when their two guides disappear, the group's left to fend for themselves. Even as they squabble and wrestle with their long held inner demons, they become more aware that they're not alone in these woods. And whatever might lurk behind the trees doesn't have their best interests at heart.
Author Courtney Gould creates perceptive, emotional portraits of her five characters, particularly, the two leads - angry free-with-her-fists Devin and sarcastic, bullying (but terribly vulnerable) Sheridan. The girls at first despise each other on sight and your heart aches for them as their own troubled pasts and current dangers serve to slowly but surely lower their guards with each other.
One of those rare books that takes you on a frightening thrill ride but never forgets that its best special effects don't come from what creeps out from the dark, but from the humans you come to care about and fear for. I'd recommend buckling up and take the ride.
5 stars (*****)
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