Scan barcode
bluemaiden's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
fictionfan's review against another edition
4.0
"If you go down to the woods today..."
A group of scouts and their leaders go off for a camping weekend in a forest in Owasippe, Michigan. But while there, something happens that makes them all commit suicide, often in bloodily horrific ways. One of the scouts was the friend of young Sparky Wallace, a 12-year-old with Asperger’s (hasn’t every fictional child these days?), who becomes obsessed with the need to know what caused the tragedy. So his father Jack starts off on a journey that takes him from Owasippe to the Kampinos Forest in Poland where Jack’s great-grandfather had died in similar circumstances during the war.
This story is firmly based in the supernatural so it’s necessary to leave your inner sceptic at the door. As the story unfolds, we become aware that there is something living in our forests that has the ability to drive people into such panic that they would rather kill themselves than wait for the horrific death they fear awaits them. Sparky seems to know more than he’s telling and uses his (remarkable) knowledge of astrology to see what future lies in the stars for himself and the other protagonists. Unfortunately he rarely tells them, so each time one ends up dead, Sparky rather annoyingly says something like ‘I knew that was going to happen.’ (I found I was developing an unfortunate but overwhelming desire to slap him upside the head as the story progressed.)
The book is well written but a little over-stretched and repetitive which prevents the tension building as much as it might have done. The characterisation is quite strong with both Jack and Sparky coming over as credible and well-rounded, despite Sparky’s supernatural tendencies, which get stronger as the book goes on. But these are integral to the story, and in that context work well.
It would be easy to pick holes in the plot, since some of them are pretty glaring – but really the book is more about creating an atmosphere than trying to tell a consistent story. If I have to accept that mysterious wood-spirits have been lurking in our forests for aeons, then I can surely also accept that Jack is the most gullible and easily confused man who ever existed. The aforesaid mysterious wood-spirits are quite effective as spooky creations go, although the author tries to fit an environmental message into their story which doesn’t really work. It’s all a bit hazy as to whether they’re really filled with good intentions towards humanity or just particularly nasty evil creatures – but on the evidence of the number of gore-splattered bodies that mount up during the course of the book, I’m going with the latter. Having said that, the gore isn’t excessively done – there are only a couple of incidents where it’s directly described and overall I found it more giggleworthy than gruesome.
I do have one serious objection about the story, which is that the author has incorporated into the plot a real massacre that took place in Kampinos Forest during WW2, and that struck me as pretty tasteless and entirely unnecessary.
Otherwise I found this a well-written and reasonably enjoyable supernatural romp – not to be taken too seriously. I can’t say I found it terribly scary but there were places where the author did build up an effective atmosphere. Recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Severn House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
A group of scouts and their leaders go off for a camping weekend in a forest in Owasippe, Michigan. But while there, something happens that makes them all commit suicide, often in bloodily horrific ways. One of the scouts was the friend of young Sparky Wallace, a 12-year-old with Asperger’s (hasn’t every fictional child these days?), who becomes obsessed with the need to know what caused the tragedy. So his father Jack starts off on a journey that takes him from Owasippe to the Kampinos Forest in Poland where Jack’s great-grandfather had died in similar circumstances during the war.
This story is firmly based in the supernatural so it’s necessary to leave your inner sceptic at the door. As the story unfolds, we become aware that there is something living in our forests that has the ability to drive people into such panic that they would rather kill themselves than wait for the horrific death they fear awaits them. Sparky seems to know more than he’s telling and uses his (remarkable) knowledge of astrology to see what future lies in the stars for himself and the other protagonists. Unfortunately he rarely tells them, so each time one ends up dead, Sparky rather annoyingly says something like ‘I knew that was going to happen.’ (I found I was developing an unfortunate but overwhelming desire to slap him upside the head as the story progressed.)
The book is well written but a little over-stretched and repetitive which prevents the tension building as much as it might have done. The characterisation is quite strong with both Jack and Sparky coming over as credible and well-rounded, despite Sparky’s supernatural tendencies, which get stronger as the book goes on. But these are integral to the story, and in that context work well.
It would be easy to pick holes in the plot, since some of them are pretty glaring – but really the book is more about creating an atmosphere than trying to tell a consistent story. If I have to accept that mysterious wood-spirits have been lurking in our forests for aeons, then I can surely also accept that Jack is the most gullible and easily confused man who ever existed. The aforesaid mysterious wood-spirits are quite effective as spooky creations go, although the author tries to fit an environmental message into their story which doesn’t really work. It’s all a bit hazy as to whether they’re really filled with good intentions towards humanity or just particularly nasty evil creatures – but on the evidence of the number of gore-splattered bodies that mount up during the course of the book, I’m going with the latter. Having said that, the gore isn’t excessively done – there are only a couple of incidents where it’s directly described and overall I found it more giggleworthy than gruesome.
I do have one serious objection about the story, which is that the author has incorporated into the plot a real massacre that took place in Kampinos Forest during WW2, and that struck me as pretty tasteless and entirely unnecessary.
Otherwise I found this a well-written and reasonably enjoyable supernatural romp – not to be taken too seriously. I can’t say I found it terribly scary but there were places where the author did build up an effective atmosphere. Recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Severn House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
mazza57's review against another edition
1.0
for about 25% this seemed to be a workable horror story but the rest was just rubbish. I could not suspend belief enough to feel that someone would take a 12 year old into these circumstances and events. It was just rubbish
grammarchick's review against another edition
1.0
Read some mythology. Go watch The Happening. Throw in some Polish. Voila - you're basically experiencing this book.
jenniferlwatson's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sistermagpie's review against another edition
1.0
This book unfortunately really annoyed me. It starts out with an interesting premise, with boy scouts committing mass suicide for unknown reasons. Unfortunately, the mass suicides become repetitive--and when the reason is revealed the "forest ghosts" commit the ultimate sin of not just not being scary but being smug and annoying. They make pompous lectures about how this is all about how people are so terrible for not taking care of the environment, and we'll be sorry now because they're going to leave us. It's never clear exactly what service they've been performing up until now--there's talk about how much they "love us" and "protect us" from ourselves etc., but they don't seem to do anything except either drive people to suicide or rip them apart limb from limb even if they're pro-environmentalist. Also, peoples' souls gets stuck in trees when they die and that's why you shouldn't cut them down. That's supposed to sound beautiful but unfortunately made me think of farts in a couch.
The main character, Jack, also becomes tedious. He lives through several of these suicides but always gets saved himself at the last minute, which wound up making me just resent him. Why is he always spared after leading group after group into the forest for yet another panic attack/suicide?
His son Sparky (why oh why did the author give him this distracting name?) does star charts that always turn out to be completely true, yet as in all things, his father spends most of the book tediously saying they can't work. The reader is always several steps ahead of Jack in just excepting the premise, so you just want Jack to accept it too--even though having everything predicted before it happens kills suspense. This is especially frustrating when Sparky's clearly been possessed and Jack doesn't seem to notice. (Not that Sparky was very likeable to begin with to me.) There's a lot of conversations where Sparky just says the same thing over and over in response to Jack's protests.
Of all the suicides the one that annoyed me the most was the death of Sally, a police woman and friend of the family. She's introduced early with Jack telling us that he's considered her as a love interest (he's still in love with his dead wife whose been dead 2 years) but it probably wouldn't work and then he'd lose the friendship. Sparky then tells him he'll fall in love with a woman they're going to meet in Poland--and since his prediction are always just true, you just accept it. Plotwise this means Jack spends a lot of time carefully noticing his soon-to-be-true-love's clothing choices and going through the motions of really mild romantic interest because it's in the script. There's nothing about the two characters that make them a particularly good couple, they're just designated as such. What's annoying is that when Sally, the policewoman dies, it's hard not to think that this is yet again lucky for Jack because she wasn't the woman for him and is therefore expendable.
Then there's one scene I have to mention because it almost made me stop reading. Jack and Sparky go to see Jack's mother. Jack explains that although the woman was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she talks "like a immigrant." And he's not kidding. She can't get through a single line without some non-English construction like "Your sister no call." She's almost like a cartoon immigrant. Jack claims this is explained by the fact that her immigrant parents spoke Ukrainian at home and then after she married she spoke Polish with his father (no explanation of where the Polish came from that I remember). So we're supposed to believe that unlike millions of American children of immigrants, his mother bizarrely insists on speaking English like this. She must be quite committed to this affection to have not been contaminated by any of her friends growing up or her teachers, or everyone on the street or all the media she'd have consumed since birth--unless she's supposed to have only ever spoken to her parents and her Polish husband. I found myself imagining her showing up to school in 19th century Ukrainian peasant attire just to go all the way. This is not how language works.
The main character, Jack, also becomes tedious. He lives through several of these suicides but always gets saved himself at the last minute, which wound up making me just resent him. Why is he always spared after leading group after group into the forest for yet another panic attack/suicide?
His son Sparky (why oh why did the author give him this distracting name?) does star charts that always turn out to be completely true, yet as in all things, his father spends most of the book tediously saying they can't work. The reader is always several steps ahead of Jack in just excepting the premise, so you just want Jack to accept it too--even though having everything predicted before it happens kills suspense. This is especially frustrating when Sparky's clearly been possessed and Jack doesn't seem to notice. (Not that Sparky was very likeable to begin with to me.) There's a lot of conversations where Sparky just says the same thing over and over in response to Jack's protests.
Of all the suicides the one that annoyed me the most was the death of Sally, a police woman and friend of the family. She's introduced early with Jack telling us that he's considered her as a love interest (he's still in love with his dead wife whose been dead 2 years) but it probably wouldn't work and then he'd lose the friendship. Sparky then tells him he'll fall in love with a woman they're going to meet in Poland--and since his prediction are always just true, you just accept it. Plotwise this means Jack spends a lot of time carefully noticing his soon-to-be-true-love's clothing choices and going through the motions of really mild romantic interest because it's in the script. There's nothing about the two characters that make them a particularly good couple, they're just designated as such. What's annoying is that when Sally, the policewoman dies, it's hard not to think that this is yet again lucky for Jack because she wasn't the woman for him and is therefore expendable.
Then there's one scene I have to mention because it almost made me stop reading. Jack and Sparky go to see Jack's mother. Jack explains that although the woman was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she talks "like a immigrant." And he's not kidding. She can't get through a single line without some non-English construction like "Your sister no call." She's almost like a cartoon immigrant. Jack claims this is explained by the fact that her immigrant parents spoke Ukrainian at home and then after she married she spoke Polish with his father (no explanation of where the Polish came from that I remember). So we're supposed to believe that unlike millions of American children of immigrants, his mother bizarrely insists on speaking English like this. She must be quite committed to this affection to have not been contaminated by any of her friends growing up or her teachers, or everyone on the street or all the media she'd have consumed since birth--unless she's supposed to have only ever spoken to her parents and her Polish husband. I found myself imagining her showing up to school in 19th century Ukrainian peasant attire just to go all the way. This is not how language works.
More...