by Casey DiBari

This year, my New Year’s resolution is to try and read one book within the timeframe of one month; if I can fit two books into this time, even better. It’s my attempt to retrain myself to read at the speed I was able to even just two or three years ago. My plan is to use this site too as my own personal Goodreads, where I give everyone a quick summary of what I’ve read, give it a number out of five stars, and give my review of it.

So, with the parameters of my little book corner explained, let’s get into my January book, What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall.

The Summary: “They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison . . .
They were heroes . . . but they were liars.

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.”

My Rating: ★★★★☆

My Review:

I was, obviously, a big fan of this book. I went into this book just last week figuring I knew where this book was going to go, just based on the summary. And if you read it, you probably have your own immediate thoughts as well as what is really happening. I won’t go much into detail on this though, because I do want to keep the surprise for those who want to read it. I will say there are a few places this book went where I didn’t see the story going, and some that I figured as much.

However, no matter what, I would very much say the journey to the end of the book was a fun one. There was really no point where I ever felt bored, though I will say there were points where small dropped plot points did annoy me. Seriously, why did we care so much about the fire at the mill if that wasn’t going to go really anywhere? Small complaint, but what did Naomi do about the engagement party she was supposed to photograph before she was “mugged”?

Naomi as a protagonist is a really good one. She’s unreliable simply because she doesn’t totally remember what happened the day she was attacked, and says a few times that her memories might just be things she filled in since the trial. Her troubled home life and her being an outsider in Chester are also interesting, even if they’re a bit too heavy-handed at times. Ethan as well is an interesting secondary protagonist, and he was a character I didn’t expect to like as much as I did. And Naomi and Ethan’s team-up and interactions are almost refreshing, actually, and the similarities between them are interesting: two outsiders with complicated home issues who are trying to dig into a secret that the town is hiding is something that’s always going to keep my interest.

There are a few more characters that I do wish we spent more time with (Olivia, Bishop) and some who I skimmed the few times they were brought up (Oscar, Cody, Cass), but overall all the characters were very well rounded and still interesting in their own ways. As I said, the plot might seem predictable, but this is a book where you’re still going to have a hard time putting it down until the end.

If you have any suggestions for the next book I should read, feel free to message me on my Instagram!