What the Woods Took
Author: Courtney Gould
Narrator: Lindsey Dorcus
To Be Published: December 10, 2024
Audiobook: 12 hours 28 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 19-24, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Description:

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they’ve all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn’t be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.

Jessica’s Review:

I was intrigued by this novel when I saw there was a comparison to Yellowjackets and Girl Interrupted, so I had to read it, or listen to it in my case. I have never seen Girl Interrupted but love Yellowjackets, so there we go! What the Woods Took is a coming-of-age tale with survival added in the mix. The teens don’t go Lord of the Flies (Poor Piggy!) or forced into cannibalism like in Yellowjackets, but it is a fight for survival against literal monsters.

What the Woods Took starts with an intensity with Devin being taken against her will and it was delivered in just a way to pull you in and keep you interested.  We have a small group of five at risk teens who are ‘enrolled’ in a wilderness therapy program without being told and two counselors not much older than them. This group made up of three girls and two boys with a variety of backgrounds and personalities that show through.  This is not a spoiler as it is mentioned in the book’s description, but once the counselors go missing the teens are left fend for themselves and survive together. 

This book was something. Gould did a very good job bringing the story and characters to life: She could pull the reader into the story with the descriptions: Everything could be pictured and she also gives a sense of heightened urgency.  And these teens: As they come together as a group, you could see how they grow as individuals. 

The biggest thing for me that frustrated me once the counselors had disappeared was that the group decided to continue forward on the trail. I found myself saying “Just turn around! You know what to expect that way! Going forward is totally unknown!” I mean they would have found civilization at some point sooner rather than later.  But then if they had done that then we would not have had this story and the direction it went.

The narrator Lindsey Dorcus did a great job with her narration.  I was pulled in and wanted to know what was going to happen and reach the ending.  This was despite the chapters being longer than normal for a YA book. 

Overall, a good book that teens will enjoy.  Yes, there is the starting of a lesbian relationship, but it is a smaller detail as the main focus is the teens working to survive. 

Many thanks to the publisher for granting me an advanced copy to listen to and review.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK