Guys, why did I think this was a sasquatch story? Why did I spent at least two thirds of this book waiting for a sasquatch to show up? I swear I remember reading this in a blurb or review somewhere but I obviously got it mixed up (or vastly misunderstood).
So, let’s be clear: there are no sasquatches in this book. The solution to the central mystery (or mysteries) – what happened to each of the Van Laar children who disappeared in the woods – has a prosaic, real world answer.
Barbara Van Laar goes missing from the camp that her family owns. Which is a tragedy made even more bizarre by the fact that before Barbara was born, her brother Bear also vanished from the same camp.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I found myself wanting to push through and keep reading. There was good momentum and I wanted to find out what happened. I feel like I need to state that I liked God of the Woods because most of my thoughts about it are actually kind of negative.
The book is longer than it needs to be. It’s over 400 pages and I felt like it could have been cut down by around 100 with little detriment. This is largely due to my other opinion, which is that there are far too many POVs in this book. It feels like we get a POV from almost every possible character. From Barbara, from her mother Alice, from a girl Barbara goes to camp with, from the detective who searches for Barbara, from a guy from the town who helps search for Bear. And on and on and on. It’s confusing because it means we have a lot of characters to keep track of and, at the beginning, it’s hard to tell who is important. Tracy, it turns out, really is just a girl who befriends Barbara at camp. Her perspective and her burgeoning crush on a boy at camp really has nothing to do with the plotline. On the one hand, Moore creates intricate backstories and lives for all her characters and this helps them feel like real and complex people. On the other hand, it’s just too much. As a reader, I felt spread too thin to truly care about Barbara’s camp counsellor’s little brother and I was never sure why I needed to know anything about him.
Because the book is set in the 1970s and because it deals with the intersection of social and economic classes, there is an interesting conversation touched on about the roles of women in this society. Alice Van Laar, Bear and Barbara’s mother, is limited due to her role as the wife of a wealthy man. Judy is a police detective but still unsure of her place, largely due to being a woman in what is seen as a male career. Barbara is only 14 years old and pushing against the walls she feels closing in on her. This is a place where I actually wanted more from the book. The answer we are eventually given feels neither realistic or complete.
Karissa Reads Books 
What you wrote about there being too many POVs made me think perhaps this book was written more like World War Z. You get ALL the POVs in that book because it’s set up as a history of the war as recorded by a journalist. However, readers know that going in, so you read each story carefully and not wonder which one is “important” like we normally do with fiction. Sounds like Moore needed a better framing device.
In a book like World War Z, I think all those POVs make sense because there actually are so many stories being told. Here there is essentially one. So many POVs didn’t add enough to justify their existence.
that’s funny – I seem to recall you writing a blurb about this book with a possible sasquatch mention? LOL
I hate when books are too long, and I feel spread too thin. It seems to be happening more and more with established writers, and it’s a trend I resent as a reader.
It does seem like established authors are not always as well edited. Or are given more freedom, which can be great or can result in something like this that feels unnecessary.
100%
Okay, reading this again after having read the book. I know what you mean about really liking the book but only having negative comments about it. While Tracy had little to do with the disappearance of the children, she was my favorite character because she felt so familiar to me as a girl who didn’t want to go to camp in the first place but met a cool girl who took her under her wing immediately. I assumed the point of Tracy was to make us like Barbara, who seemed prickly without Tracy’s point of view. However, the whole part when Tracy got lost in the woods was just a waste of paper.
I liked Tracy too but I definitely agree with you.