The God of the Woods

A Novel

By: Liz Moore

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A NEW YORK TIMES "BEST THRILLER" and "BEST CRIME NOVEL" OF THE YEAR

PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR

ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE”

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S “100 MUST-READ BOOKS”

“Extraordinary . . . Reminds me of Donna Tartt’s 1992 debut, The Secret History . . . I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

“This expertly paced thriller …has the kineticism of a well-crafted miniseries.” —The New Yorker

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.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF that contains a map from the book.

Okay just okay

Long Bright River is one of my all time favorite books. Unfortunately The God isn’t the same. Tragic family story but leaves characters unfinished and has lots of side stories then has a simple ending that leaves other characters unfinished. I am sad to leave a negative review.

Okay mystery

Excellent reader, but I found it to be a bit scattered in terms of development of the characters. Some of the plot-lines seemed hackneyed to me.

Cover art is awesome. And great title

I was very excited to read this book. There was a lot of suspense and build up but then kinda fizzled for me. I wanted to love it based on all the hype but I only just liked it.

Overly Praised Mystery

I listened to this one due to all of the "best of the year" nominations and quite frankly was disappointed. Firstly, it takes a long time to get going and unfortunately the characters aren't interesting enough during the slow beginning. Once the main story finally kicks in, it does so with a whimper and never ramps up. If you are going to have a slow burn of a novel, the main characters better be damn interesting and, other than the female detective, none of them were. By no means is this a bad novel, it is very well written, but I just don't get all of the hype for what turned out to be a very "basic" missing person story. To me, All the Colors of the Dark is still the one to beat.

Choppy and Disjointed Storytelling

I almost didn’t finish this book and had to restart listening to it several times. The author used multiple points of view and jumped back and forth between different time lines in a way that I found very distracting and hard to get into. I ultimately finished more out of curiosity than any real interest. Rich people can live miserable lives and bad things happen. No great insight there. It’s not the worst book I’ve listened to but it wasn’t very satisfying. I can’t recommend it.