Book Review: Into the Woods

Occassionally, I don't do anything on weekend day or weekday night but finish a book I've been reading.

This Sunday, I was a hundred or so pages into: Into the Woods by Tana French, when I unconsciously decided to complete it. I spent about 7 hours reading and it was glorious.

Into the Woods takes place in Dublin and sets the stage by telling the reader about a mystery event that happened in the woods.

One summer day three children entered the woods and only one was found alive, traumatized, with blood soaked sneakers unable to recall the events before he was found.

Fast forward several years later and the found child, going by the name Robert Ryan, has become a dectective on Dublin's Murder squad and by some unlucky coincidence- takes on a case originated out of the very same wood.

The double who-dun-its kept me reading as much as Robert Ryan's relationship with his partner, Cassie. They have a brother-sister relationship that goes deeper than most siblings and yet has a bit of edge to it.

There is also an overwhelming sense of foreboding throughout the whole novel, a sense of Dectective Ryan's life unraveling that also strung me along and in the end, I felt a sense of reading this novel before. Because the hero, or anti-hero, reminded me of Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway and The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield- some Irish modern day version because as Ryan tells you in the very beginning- he lies.

Rec:

Although at times I found French's writing/description a bit wordy or too hard to follow occassionally (there are others that may disagree because sometimes I like it when an author tells a bit more than show, show, show), I highly recommend this novel if you enjoy intense mysteries with complex characters. French writes in haunting prose that provokes the reader to really think about what they are reading while simultaneously engrossing them in the novel's proceedings.

To read more reviews:

By Presenting Lenore
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