Nothing about After the Woods was particularly groundbreaking and I guessed the 'twist' fairly early, but that didn't detract from how much I enjoyed it. One thing that frustrates me about books of this ilk is that they try too much to hide the twist so it's surprising, rather than crafting a journey that's enjoyable whether or not you knew the end. It's more a psychological thriller than a straight up crime story. In some ways, it owes a lot to Gillian Flynn's [b:Sharp Objects|18045891|Sharp Objects|Gillian Flynn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1370630413s/18045891.jpg|3801], its spiritual predecessor.

Julia Spunk was a great character to read. She's damaged, sarcastic and fastidious, suffering from flashbacks and nightmares, her growth and healing slow but there. Julia's PTSD, her struggle, is fascinating, particularly the way she separates herself from other girls her own age. I loved her complicated relationship with her best friend Liv; the comparisons between them worked well. Julia's got an overprotective, media-hating mother that insists she goes to various therapists. Liv's mother is an attention-seeking momager that cares little for her daughter's well-being and is, in many ways, a subtle, pervasive secondary villain.

There's a little hetero romance, but it's minimal and takes a backseat to Julia's relationships with her mother and her best friend, while still advancing Julia's story.

Rating: 8/10
Gay-o-meter: 1/10 ( )

Another 5 Star 2016 book!! I am having good luck with books released this year. This one was equally creepy, addicting, and cerebral... So cerebral.

I've been having the best luck with books released in 2016. Especially debuts! This book got me hooked right from the start. Julia and Liv were running in the woods when a strange man attacked Liv. Without even thinking, Julia sacrifices herself to save her friend. Now it's been a year since Julia escaped her captor and left the woods but things are more messed up than ever. There's Liv who has NOT acted like a friend, a reporter who isn't going away, and now there's a dead girl that has been pulled out of those woods.

This is a complicated story. And I had so many emotions reading it: disgusted, MAD, sad, fustrated.

Julia is such a smart character. She has all these feelings about what happened and she's suffering from a pretty severe case of PTSD, but she's also able to be so clinical when it comes to investigating her case. Well, it's more fact-gathering than it is investigating, but she's so detached while she's getting all this information together that it made her such an interesting character. She was serious and scientific about her fact-gathering, but she had this snarky, funny, vulnerable side also. She was an excellent main character-- and just everything about her, I couldn't get enough.

Not to give anything away, but the abduction turned out to be so much more than just a random sicko trolling for victims. As much as I love those stories too, I really LOVE when something out of the ordinary happens. And what happens in this book is seriously messed up. Like almost [b:Dangerous Girls|16074758|Dangerous Girls|Abigail Haas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1356513050s/16074758.jpg|21869436] messed up.

There's a mild romance in this book and I definitely liked it. I usually wouldn't, but this relationship wasn't what made Julia whole again. I don't think anything makes people who have been victimized as she has "whole", but the love-interest to me just gave her the confidence to allow herself to FEEL. I also really enjoyed the secondary friendship with Alice. I could have read scenes with her and Julia in them forever.

OVERALL: Such a top shelf debut!! I would put it in the Must-Read Category. After the Woods was so much more than a kidnapping book-- it's a book about friendship and secrets and what it is to be a survivor-- it was twisty, haunting, and so very cerebral. I SO recommend this book!

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“How can something so bright be so cold?”
― Kim Savage, After the Woods

I thought this was going to be a DNF but I finished it tonight. It is a pretty short book.

So this book is YA literature and the plot, which I will not spend a long time on, involves two girls who go jogging in the woods and encounter a deranged killer. When he holds one girl at knife point, the other girl Julia, rushes him, saving her friend. Julia basically takes her friend's place. But her friend, Liv, just..leaves. Runs away.

Julia manages to escape and is having serious PTSD, has become emotionally closed and has partial amnesia. She is in therapy but can't talk to anyone about her experience because the one person she really wants to talk to..the girl who was with her..Liv..refuses to discuss it and tells Julia she must move on.

When a body turns up in the woods, Julia starts remembering things and also realizing her "friend" may know alot more then what she seems to.

So..that is the main plot. I have very mixed feelings about this book. I can not say I was wild about it all that much but I liked the concept. I am going to list what I liked and did not.

Liked:

Great plot..started with lots of tension from the beginning.

I liked Julia. Very much.

The romance that bothered many people somehow worked for me in this book.

Character development was for the most part good and the attacker's mother just came to life. I wish she could have had her own book.

I LOVED the way the media is eviscerated. It is so accurate..the writer did that so well..it may have been my favorite thing in the book.

The atmosphere..author is so good with the descriptive writing, completely capturing the isolation and bleakness of being alone in the woods. That was riveting.

Now..what I didn't like and what almost caused me to rate this book lower :

The execution of the plot: it starts with a sizzle then..nothing for pages and pages. There was much I did not understand and chapters would end with one thing and start with something completely different and take forever to reference the prior chapter and how the prior conflict was resolved.

Liv.. to much of a cardboard character for me and to unfinished. I did not feel like I ever knew her. I think the author did great with all the character development..except Liv. Plus I could not stand her but that is not really the writer's fault.

SPOILERS:
The motivation..this is a tough one because I am unsure if I have the ending right but the motive just seemed crazy to me..almost unbalanced. I seriously could not buy into it. Seriously.

But also..through the whole book there is a feeling leading up to a big confrontation, a big explosive all out scene . That never happens. Never ever. I felt cheated by the ending. I felt like we were building up to..what exactly? It did not make sense.

I would recommend this because I'd love to know others opinions. It is a strange book and I do not mean that negatively. It is not one of my favorites of the year but it is a good book for a discussion and/or book club. ( )

TWISTY. DARK. EMOTIONAL.

I'm not sure where I thought this was book going, but it sure didn't end up there, and that's fine. Great YA thrillers are difficult to find, and this one holds its own with most (and betters quite a few) of the adult crime novels I've read this year. A fast read, but a deep read.

Julia was a snarky and believable narrator, and her process in dealing with her PTSD was heartfelt. It made for an uneasy read at times, but not a heart-stoppingly uncomfortable one like ALL THE RAGE.

Perfect crossover appeal for adult crime readers as well!

I see Savage has more mysteries headed our way, and I definitely can't wait to get my hands on them.

*I'll probably expand on this once I've mulled it over a bit more.

(ooooh, and thanks to Macmillan and FSG for the DRC!!) ( )

When sixteen-year-old Julia and her best friend Liv went for a run in the woods, a man attacked Liv with a knife. Julia rushed to her rescue and he broke her ankle but, instead of helping her, Liv ran away. That first night, when her captor fell asleep, Julia managed to escape. Despite her broken ankle and bruised, bleeding body she spent two terrified days putting as much distance as she could between them, until she was finally rescued.

Hailed as a hero because she was able to escape and lead police to her captor, Julia instantly became a media darling. However she couldn’t understand why Liv never wanted to talk about it, insisting she needed to move on. Julia wanted to know more about her captor, especially when the body of a young girl was found in the woods. Eventually Julia plows her way through a tangled web of deceit before she finds out the painful truth about her best friend.

I thought the book had potential, given its “I’m captured by a crazy guy and now have a broken ankle” scenario. However readers don’t get a survival story about Julia’s time in the woods dragging herself away from a captor used to hunting game in those same woods. Instead the author flits about from storyline to storyline, doling out dribs and drabs of Julia’s experiences through memories, amounting to about 3 of the novel’s 294 pages.

I got whiplash from the different storylines, and was not a fan of the ending. Though I didn’t like this book I will leave it up to you teen readers to decide if You want to Read it or Not.

Book review link: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/after-the-woods-kim-savage/ ( )