Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

El dios de los bosques by Liz Moore

26 reviews

literary_liv's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75


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gwenswoons's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is very good, but I did not enjoy it. I think somehow the literary thriller thing veered into something so slow that it often felt preachy and pedantic, endless, often incredibly pretentious somehow. The writing is good: the setting is definitely captivating and vivid; the characters are compelling, even as they are basically all pretty awful. I guess for me a cast of totally awful characters (whether in books or TV shows) never feels satisfying — so I may simply not be the reader for this. But I will say that this book felt interminable to me, almost from the beginning (I definitely should have DNFed, but it’s gotten so much praise from people I trust that I expected it to turn around into something miraculous! It did not, for me). The pace is so unbelievably slow, the timelines and POVs so sprawling — these are things (even a slow pace!) that I actually usually love in a book, but that felt like such a drag here, I think because the motivations of every person aroused so little sympathy and investment. Certainly others may not feel this way.

I will say that I somehow loved the ending, and found it so beautiful, with such a light touch — odd after this book that felt so heavy-handed to me. It was absolutely not worth it for me but I somehow was still quite enchanted by it even as I was so ready to be done. So the writing is definitely remarkable in some way, even though for me this is not going to be a writer I return to again.

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startjpw23's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A wealthy family, the Van Laars, have a summer mansion in upstate New York in a heavily forested area. The mansion is adjacent to a summer camp. The two children of Peter Van Laar the third and his wife Alice disappear at different times. Their eight-year-old son Bear disappears in 1961, and their 13-year-old daughter Barbara disappears n 1975. The story is told with multiple POVs and multiple timelines. The book is part mystery with law enforcement trying to figure out what happened to the two children. It is part thriller as there were a lot of tense scenes in the book. We learn the backstories of the characters whose POVs are told. There was a lot of misogyny from the male characters towards the women, from the women to other women, and from some of the women to themselves. One of the men brutally beat one of the women. The misogyny and the beating were hard for me to read. There were some scenes where law enforcement appeared to be trying to pin crimes on innocent people so wealthy people wouldn't be held accountable. This made me angry. Overall, I liked the book. I didn't have too much difficulty with the multiple POVs and timelines. It never was boring to me, but I did feel it was a little too long. I recommend the book to anyone looking with a good mystery thriller. Be cautious if the issues I described are troubling to you.

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wickedlyethan's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this a lot, but I do think there's too much of it – a book with a hundred fewer pages could have amped up the tension and incorporated more of the titular woods, but instead we get a lot of treatise about how most of these people are terrible or have done terrible things. The pacing makes up for that, and the conclusion brings it all home admirably.

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crags617's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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infusionofviolets's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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amesgeliebter's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

This book completely consumed me. I was planning on giving out less 5 stars on StoryGraph vs my reviews on Goodreads but this book deserves it. 

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teatunesandtales's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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kimveach's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this historical mystery.  It's always odd to think of the 1960s and 1970s as historical, as I lived during those years.  The camp setting reminded me of my time at camp, even though I only ever went for a week at a time.    This story has everything I want in a good mystery.  There are characters to love and hate, a great setting, and a division of class between the working people and the wealthy who visit.

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lilawsahar's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I couldn’t put the book down. I wanted to know what happened to Barbara and Bear.
I suspected the grandfather for Bear and that Barbara ran away. I was right about Barbara. I was wrong about Bear. Bear’s death was even more tragic when you find out it was the mother.  The one person who loved him more than anything. He was her only purpose for living. I feel bad for Alice: her husband is a controlling monster, her sister is messing around with her husband, and her son is dead. That doesn’t mean that her neglect of Barbara was justified though. I’m glad Barbara was able to get away. I’m glad that Carl’s name was cleared, the rich people were held accountable, and people like Louise were able to get out of the cross fire.


Lastly, I loved the multiple povs and jumping time lines. I wish it was a little more structured but I loved it all the same. 

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