The Woods Are Always Watching

Okay I hated this book. (No, it was good) but TERRIFYING. because, this is a horror book, but it is not supernatural in anyway, it is… very easily a real story. And that makes it so much more terrifying than anything else. I loved the depiction of the girls’ friendship, all the complexities that came with it. And this book only further solidified my desire to NEVER GO CAMPING. TO NEVER GO TO RURAL WILDERNESS ALONE. EVER EVER. god. Men are horrible. Horrible violent creatures when they are full of hate. This is not for the faint of heart, and I hated a lot of my time reading it because I was anxious and terrified but I WANTED THIS GIRLS TO LIVE AND BE OKAY AND I WAS GOING TO STAY THERE WITH THEM TO BEAR WITNESS IF I HAD TO. fuck. I show more need to go read something far more magical and whimsical now. show less

One for those who want to be scared. Two girls Josie and Neena decide to go camping and all they are initially worried about in the woods are bears although they do remember stories of people going missing. Their first day doesn't turn out well as they end up putting their tent up in the dark and basically arguing the whole time they are walking through the woods to the point that when they go to bed they aren't speaking to each other. When one gets up in the night to go to the toilet in the bushes, she has the strangest feeling that someone is standing very close to her breathing heavily in the dark...is it a bear, or something worse?
The next day, they miss a detour off the trail but maybe someone tampered with the markers and then show more Josie falls into a hole in the ground that happens to be covered in branches.
Super creepy book about predators and survival, that will seriously put any teenage girl off camping in the woods by herself ever! Think worst case scenario times TWO and you get the picture.
I like how the author builds anxiety and tension for the reader and then provides relief only to snatch the reader's sense of security away from them again when they get comfortable.
One for older readers due to the intense adult themes. show less

Maid is the true story of Stephanie Land, a woman who found herself pregnant by an abusive boyfriend. With no support from anyone in her life, Land takes on a physically grueling job as a maid in order to provide for herself and her daughter.

I have a lot of issues with this book. Actually, I only have a FEW issues with it - it is an excellent portrayal of the struggles that lower class Americans face - but I do have a lot of issues with the reviews of this book. I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly frustrated I am to read about how people thought this book was "terrible" based solely off of Land's decisions. This book is a retelling of her life. Do not judge her based off of your own privilege. It's shameful to discredit her show more experiences because you think that you would've acted differently if put in her circumstances.

My one major issue with this book is the way that it was marketed. It is absolutely nothing like Evicted, in the sense that it is not nearly as researched or scholarly, rather it is a very personal account of one woman's struggles and how she puts up with society's rash judgement of her low socioeconomic status. I went into this thinking I'd be learning a lot more about governmental assistance, but I was a bit thrown off when I was reading about Land's encounters with her family and the various houses that she maintained. While it was a very readable book, it's promotional efforts were completely misleading. show less

The Woods are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins is meant to be a horror thriller but unfortunately there were just too many holes in the plot and twists that one could see coming from miles away to be in any way believable or realistically frightening. Two girls go backpacking in the woods, they have never even camped before yet off they go. The trip is their farewell to summer and to each other as one is leaving in a few days for university in California.

I actually found the first part of the book when it was just the girls suffering through the hike with blisters and heavy backpacks and feeling uncertain as to the route, or how to set up a camp site more interesting than the later part of the book when their stalker made himself show more known to them. Josie and Neena had been best friends for years but this trip had them fighting and arguing as they hiked. Neena felt guilty about leaving, Josie felt she was being left behind and abandoned. With their constant whining and bickering their friendship is strained to the limit. Of course all that goes out the window when a couple of random psychos appear on the scene.

The Woods are Always Watching is a fairly short book that I think should have been longer so that the author could have developed her characters more fully. The plot felt very cliched and overdone. I was disappointed that this story didn’t give me the chills in any way, instead I was left feeling frustrated and angry about the time I wasted on this book. show less

Thriller-wise not bad, but suffered from a severe lack of motivation on the villain's part. Why were they evil? Unclear. I was not impressed with the Bear Ex Machina. in addition to the human horrors this book was horrifying from a camping safety perspective. The girls were far too inexperienced to be doing a hike like this, and the fact that an experienced camper like Josie's brother let her go is unbelievable to me. Even without the introduced hazzards of humanity the trip alone was already putting them in mortal danger. They went to sleep wearing the same jeans they had hiked in (never get into sleeping bag wearing sweaty clothing, much less cotton sweating clothing), they werent drinking enough water, they didnt follow bear show more protocols, and they were relying on their phones to keep a charge for gps...the list goes on. I know its easy to judge the actions of others when Im not in the situation myself but Im still gonna judge. show less

Neena and Josie are two best friends who bonded over being outsiders in high school and are now are facing a future without each other, as Neena travels to the West Coast for school, seperating them by 2000 miles. Desperate for a last-minute bonding trip together, Neena and Josie decide to take a three day hike and camping through the Pisgah National Forest. What starts off as an innocent and rather inexperiencedly planned trip, suddenly turns into something far more terrifying than wither one of the girls could have possibly planned for and soon the girls are fighting for their very survival.

Both Neena and Josie are the kind of quirky, eccentric teenage protagonists outcasts that make them likeable and relateable. You can feel the show more tensions in their friendship as they fight to save it whilst camping in the woods. AS a reader, you feel for them and you want them to pull through to the end. Which is done throught some excellent character development on Stephanie Perkins' end.

The novel is well written and easy to follow, told through alternating viewpoints and in seperate chunks--while the characters are "together" and "apart". Which makes for an interesting read and timeline that will keep you on pins and needles from start to finish.

The story is gripping, intense, chilling, and fascinating--though not for the faint of heart. show less

4.5 Stars
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I’m not an outdoorsy person, but this just about seals the deal that hiking and camping are off the list permanently.
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I wasn’t sure I would love this at first— I mean, it was really annoying the way these girls acted towards each other for the first third of the book. I get that friends bicker and that these girls were going through a change with their friendship, but I didn’t enjoy being along on a journey where they basically hated each other.

After stuff started going down, this book got good!! I had to finish it at that point because I did not want this stuff in my head for a prolonged period of time.

I wished the ending was longer. I wanted to know what happened with everyone.

Definitely recommend to horror lovers- show more it is really graphic and scary, so do not read it if you don’t like that stuff. show less