The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Amy    

mystery, historical fiction

A wealthy family sponsors a summer camp on their property in the Adirondack Mountains every year. It’s 1975 and the 12-year old daughter of the family, Barbara, is the first in her family to attend the camp. One night near the end of the summer, she disappears from her camp cabin. The God of the Woods covers Barbara’s family history, including another tragedy similar to her own disappearance, and introduces us to some of the other people who are at the camp along with some of the investigators. The mystery around the double disappearances in their small town, 13 years apart, is the main storyline.

I was a 1970s summer camp attendee when I was about the same age as Barbara. So this novel drew my quick interest. Liz Moore successfully wove multiple points of view from different time periods together to gradually allow the reader to understand the full situation. There were some fairly slow-paced sections which dragged a bit, but the underlying mystery of what happened to the missing children was gripping.

The deeper dives into several of the characters’ lives served to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions—often different from the conclusions drawn by characters in the book. It was compelling. And I loved (and hated) the people of this book. It was a fun read.

I couldn’t help but notice the parallel stories of Louise and Jesse vs. Bear and Barbara—both pairs of siblings born many years apart. Both were largely neglected by their parents. But the two pairs were at different extremes of the wealth spectrum. The 1970s setting highlighted the discrepancies between men’s and women’s societal expectations. But it showed off the gumption and intelligence of several women.

The audiobook narrator was Saskia Maarleveld. I’ve heard her narrate many books. She was great. As usual, my complaint was the voice she always uses when speaking as the narrator, as opposed to the amazing voices she adopts while voicing characters which really show off her awesome acting and her impressive vocal repertoire. I just wish she’d speak more naturally as the story narrator and not make every sentence end sounding like trouble is coming. I’ll give her an A-.