Title: The Dead Woods

Author: Christian Francis

Release date: May 1st, 2023

Huge thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for approving me for a copy of ‘The Dead Woods.’

The cover and the synopsis had me hooked. I was excited to dive into this one and, as a huge fan of coming-of-age, creatures in the woods novels, thought this one would be right up my alley.

I also didn’t mind going in that this was marketed as YA Horror. YA Horror can be some of the most fast-paced, emotionally devastating books, while also scaring the pants off of the reader. So, knowing that, I dove in.

What I liked: The story follows a group of kids trying to find out what actually happened to their friend who disappeared one night. They know he was going to the house where, just a short time prior their own son had disappeared, but when their friends bike and bag are found far from there, they know something is up.

From here, Francis takes his time in setting up a creepy story where there is an obvious desire from our characters to stay out of the woods. As more of the truth gets revealed, it becomes and inevitable task, that the kids will need to enter and we get some really great creature scenes and some well done tension.

The coming-of-age aspect wasn’t as prominent as I expected, but the group of kids work well together and do what they can to survive and attempt to put an end to the evil.

What I didn’t like: This one just didn’t click with me, unfortunately. I didn’t care about any of the kids, and because of that there was no emotional connection between reader and story, which meant when anything happened, I just didn’t care.

It also took a really long time to ramp up. Even by the 50% mark very little actual progress had been made, which meant by the time anything of woodsy note occurred, it felt rushed and not expanded upon.

Why you should buy this: This was good, just not great for me. It had some really fun moments and had enough going on that I wanted to see what happened, but it wasn’t as fast-paced as I would’ve hoped considering the middle range page count.

Overall, a decent entry into the creature-in-the-woods genre but one that won’t appeal to those who stay away from YA.

3/5