The God of the Woods

• Author: Liz Moore
• Genre: Mystery
• Publication Date: July 2, 2024 
• Publisher: Books on Tape

When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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.

There was a lot of hype about this book last year, but it took me a while to get around to reading it. Now that I have, I can’t help but wonder why I didn’t read this one sooner. It’s a mystery set within two different timelines—one in the late 1950s to early 1960s, and the other in 1972.

I read the audiobook version of this book narrated by Saskia Maarleveld. She’s an outstanding narrator, and she never disappoints. Her range varies from believably portraying adults, teenagers, and even children, and she has become one of my favorite narrators.

There are some books that work better in one format or another, and this is a book that would have worked better for me as a print or ebook. To start with, there are a lot of perspective characters, and the timeline jumps around a lot. There are seven main narrators, and they cover a lot of the major things to know about the central mysteries. I often found myself losing track of who was who, especially with the characters who aren’t as familiar through the story. 

The book is labeled as a mystery, but it doesn’t have the same thrilling tension and fast pace that I have come to expect from a good mystery. Instead, this one felt like a combination of historical fiction and a coming of age story, and while the mystery is prominent, it doesn’t dominate the read.

Barbara Van Laar is the 13 year old daughter of the Van Laar family and is allowed to go to the sleep away camp her family owns. The groundskeeper and camp director, TJ, goes way back with the Van Laar family, and manages all aspects of the camp year-round. But the plot thickens almost immediately, when we learn that the Van Laar’s son Bear (Peter IV) also went missing from the area more than a decade ago and was never found. However, the camp is in a huge preserve owned by the Van Laar family and full of nature.

The story jumps back and forth between the two different timelines, and I found it really confusing to keep track with the audiobook. A print format might have made it easier for me to keep track. I did have to write down all of the POVs at first to keep track of them, since new narrators appeared one after another. Additionally, the story was fairly slow until the last quarter of the book, when things happen quickly and felt almost rushed. There shouldn’t have been any need to rush at the end if the pacing was a little faster throughout, especially since it was a longer book.

I quickly found myself absorbed in the story of a young girl’s first summer away from home and the disappearance of not just one child, but two children from the same family. Barbara doesn’t come across as a likable character at first, but seeing how her mother, Alice, thinks and acts, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the family setting to blame for at least some of the issues that Barbara and her mother had. Once Barbara got to camp, she came out of her shell and was much more of an enjoyable character. 

When I was younger I went to sleep away camp, so I had a pretty good understanding of what to expect—sneaking out of the cabin, playing tricks, even a few stolen kisses. There are issues of affluence and privilege, family dynamics, secrets, substance use, and trauma, which are explored throughout the book. A lot of it felt like a chain of events: Bear disappears, and Alice turns to alcohol and prescription medication to cope with her grief. This dynamic also impacts Alice’s relationship with Barbara, and it almost felt like she pulled back from Barbara to avoid getting close to another child. It’s also clear that Barbara is very intelligent, stubborn, and she becomes the family’s squeaky wheel. However, Barbara grows up in an emotionally neglectful environment, and previous family experiences are a huge part of this. 

Contrasted with the wealth of the Van Laar family and the families of the other campers, who can pay for their children to spend a summer away from home is the family of Louise, Barbara’s counselor. She lives in a small town upstate, and is not only responsible for her own needs, but she takes care of her younger brother as best she can since her mother is unable to work and deep into her own addiction. Louise is an especially responsible young woman, and does everything she can to earn enough money to have her brother live with her. She’s also engaged to an affluent young man from a family that is close to the Van Laars. 

Class and privilege is something that shines through the story, with Louise’s socioeconomic status contrasted with that of the Van Laars and her fiancee, John Paul McLellan Jr. Trauma, neglect, family secrets, and addiction also pop up throughout the story, and while I found the Van Laars to be an emotionally closed off family that wasn’t likable either, I did find myself worrying about Barbara. However, there were other characters who I found really intriguing, such as Louise and TJ, while the Van Laar family wasn’t as interesting to me. 

The title of the book threw me for a loop. I was expecting there to be some paranormal, magical realism, or some other element involving the God of the woods, yet the title simply refers to Pan, which is where the word panic stems from. I did like how things ended, though. The ending is not as fully structured as I was expecting, and is somewhat of an open ending while still providing resolution to the questions in the story. I also loved the local lore that popped up with a local named Jacob Sluiter, nicknamed ‘Slitter’ after being convicted of multiple murders in the area. When I went to camp, Cropsey was the local lore we all used to scare each other, and it made me feel a bit more seen in the story.

Ultimately, this was not anything like what I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed the read. I found myself just as curious about what happened to Bear as Barbara, but I also wanted to know what happened with Louise and some of the other characters. The story was a bit more slowly paced than I like until the end, but I found myself liking the story once I had adjusted my expectations. If you are looking for a fast-paced page turner, this isn’t the one. But if you like your mysteries couched in family dynamics and plenty of red herrings while staying slower paced, this might be the book for you.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase through my links.