A review by theaceofpages
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Oooh this was a good book. I was a little bored and uninterested at the start, but once the plot started I was hooked. Naomi was attacked in the woods when she was eleven and very nearly died. She remembers nothing of the attack, but her two best friends tell her that they know who the attacker was so she helps send him to prison. Naomi returns home to see them after she hears of her attackers death. After
one of them dies under mysterious circumstances in the very same woods that she was attacked in
, Naomi decides to look into the past and try to piece together her own memories of that day. With the help of a podcaster who came to town to interview the Naomi and her friends, she starts to uncover far more than what she bargained for.

The author is very talented at building up suspense and evidence. She slowly builds up a logical argument and quickly breaks it down again. While I did see one or two of the twists coming, this book managed to surprise me more often than not. I appreciated the deeply flawed characters and our clearly unreliable narrator. The latter definitely contributed  lot to the mystery and intrigue of the story. While I didn't find any of the characters to be likeable (most of them annoyed me actually and I would have wanted to throw something at them more than once if they were people I knew in real life), they were well-written and believable - something that is definitely more important than likeability in a good story. It was very frustrating that nobody seemed to want to go to the police, but that they would rather do it all themselves. I also loved that the author touched on the issues of confirmation bias and corruption as these are definitely real issues in the legal and criminal industries. I feel like she has built and ingrained these in the story in an incredibly effective way (even we become guilty of it multiple times).

I can definitely recommend this book if you are interested in a small town mystery full of questions and twists with an unreliable narrator.  Once the plot gets started you are in for a crazy ride as you dive into the past with Naomi.

Some notes on some of the content warnings (all are spoilered individually so you can only look at those you are interested in)
 
Mental illness: 
Naomi struggles with PTSD nd Olivia, one of her friends, is also mentally ill
 
Gaslighting: 
Naomi's friends and the media have muddled up what she actually remembers and what she was told happened. Trying to disentangle this is an important part  of the story.

Sexual assault/violence/pedophilia/adult-minor relationship: 
Nearly exclusively things that happened in the past. For example, Naomi was sexually assaulted as a child. Her ex also tries to come onto her but she pushes him away.

Medical content: 
Naomi's treatment
 
Cancer: 
The man accused of being Naomi's attacker died of cancer.
 
Xenophobia: 
Anyone from outside the town is seen as lesser. This impacts the treatment of the new police chief, who is just tryin to do her job.
 
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