The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

Why I Picked It Up

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So, funny story about this one. I actually had a slight heart attack in July 2024 when I saw it announced as a BOTM pick; I started my "summer camp book" back when there were only a few on the market, and I was terrified about oversaturation.

The title and premise—girl disappears from a summer camp bunk—seemed at first glance in alignment to my genre, and Liz Moore is obviously a much more significant name than I am.

It turns out that The God of the Woods and Mountain Sounds (title to change) are actually very different, but there are certain "parallel creativity" overlaps that made us use it as a comp title during [redacted book process.] Plenty of people gravitated towards it for the camp element, and it could also be spooky. Part of me just wishes that title were still available...

Because I read so widely, I've often read any comp titles we use. If I haven't, I'll seek it out. I definitely view doing so as a crucial part of the "author" job, within a reasonable capacity, and I think it helps me navigate the landscape somewhat better: knowing where to situate myself, and hopefully what to bounce off of.

I just ended up being particularly superstitious about The God of the Woods, and didn't touch it until now because I was worried. What if I loved it? What if I didn't? Would it freak me out too much to read something close (or not) that has been so undeniably successful?

It turns out my book and The God of the Woods have a couple of plot scaffolding similarities:

• A class differential within a summer camp and the laborers.
• A Centennial celebration.
• And oddly enough—a subplot centering a fugitive loose in the woods, which was actually an event inspired by my own summers as a camp counselor in which there also was a fugitive loose. We were all hilariously chill about it. Is that a rite of passage for camps now?

I was prepping my own manuscript today to share again, and wasn't feeling focused enough to dive into the text—so felt like reading a "homework"-type book would go a long way to appropriately calibrate me.

About the Book

In terms of anecdotal response, I have friends who adored The God of the Woods and others who couldn't stand it. I don't necessarily think it's a great idea for me to actually break down my precise response to each craft choice or element of the book the way I normally would, as it is a comp and relatively adjacent, but I do think I can reasonably describe who will like it best.

The God of the Woods starts with the terror of a counselor finding a camper missing, and then works backwards into the family history to unravel the dynamics at play behind the camp itself. I was initially surprised that the present day only occupied maybe forty pages before 150 went into the flashback, but it worked for the plot.

Although the camper disappearance is undoubtedly "thrilling" as an event, I think it's best to approach the book as a complicated mystery. There's a dash of "rich people behaving badly" (a popular premise), two descending timelines, and a whole lot of character POVs.

Each chapters is made up of a series of moments; you jump in and out of heads frequently. The book itself is divided into a lot of chapters with a lot of narrators, so feels very sprawling.

Some find this to be slow-paced. I personally felt there was always some fascination for me to grip on, even if at the beginning I wondered what the purpose of all these disparate stories were—so your response will just depend on how centralized or propulsive you need your stories from the get-go.

A lot of people have also cited The God of the Woods to me for having fantastic camp atmosphere, whereas surprisingly, I think I got more "manor in the Adirondacks" than "summer camp." Although there have been more camp books in the last few years, there's still domain to explore, as each can be so different. The camp was more of an afterthought to the family that kept it running, so I don't see it as having much relevance other than set dressing. Still, it didn't feel superfluous either, as it provided the site of contrast. I'm hopeful the TV show will carry that atmosphere. I'm also deeply hoping the show's timing release is beneficial to me—for reasons you will eventually find out.

I liked The God of the Woods a lot. It structurally reminded me a little of Beartown, and Liz Moore can weave a good yarn. Plot-wise, it reminded me a ton of HBO's Mare of Eastown, which I loved at the time it was unfurling.

It's multigenerational, so it starts with Barbara's disappearance and then flashes back to the parents meeting and courting each other in the 50s. We go through the years before Bear, the years of having Bear, the years after Bear's disappearance, the beginning of the summer with Barbara, and then the aftermath of her disappearance.

All in all, there were a lot of relationships and complexities to track and I found a lot of them compelling although the structure meant I wasn't necessarily attached to particular characters. For the last 150 pages or so, I eagerly flipped pages because I wanted to know what happened to both children (and who did it!)

Based on the title, I'd truly expected a paranormal or supernatural hook when first encountering the book in the wild, but cultural momentum carried me through here. By the time I got around to it, I knew it was a steadily unfolding mystery that was centered around the family rather than anything involving superstition.

I definitely understand why we're using it as a comp, and would use it depending on who I'm tailoring for. Most chapters switch both narrators and timelines, which some people don't prefer stylistically. I'm cool with it in the right hands, and my curiosity kept me invested throughout the book. My opinion on who the potential culprit frequently changed, which I appreciated; normally, I'm too familiar with plotting to even "be surprised by the twist." Definitely brace yourself for mystery instead of thriller.

Liz Moore's voice is more distant, and her class descriptions were posh. The prose feels almost old-fashioned, which fits the plot. She was more likely to use a ten dollar word where she could, and her vocabulary occasionally reminded me of Melissa Albert's in that way i.e. I noticed when a particular word fit her singular voice. There was a sense of remove that I associate with literary fiction (smoothed down edges) so I understand how it appeals to both lanes—solidly book club fiction. My older sister loves Long Bright River, so I hope to pick that up shortly.

For fans of:

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart; The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff; Mare of Eastown (TV); Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley; The Counselors by Jessica Goodman; etc.