Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - El dios de los bosques

This book is both a thrilling mystery and a chance to reminisce about childhood summers spent at camp. I was impressed by Liz Moore’s ability to weave multiple timelines and perspectives into one coherent story. I did feel that some sections could have been cut or shortened. Nevertheless, the back stories and tangents don’t interrupt the plot, but rather enhance it. Overall, this is a very good story and well worth the time it took to read it.

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onelly3's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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annegrenier_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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hwurst21's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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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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