*spoilers ahead*


In 1961, when Bear Van Laar went missing near his family’s campgrounds in the Adirondacks, his body was never found. Fourteen years later, The God of the Woods opens to the sudden disappearance of his younger sister, Barbara. Immediately, everyone begins wondering the same thing: are these cases related? Told in an intensely gripping narrative involving alternating character perspectives, the search for Barbara digs up harrowing secrets that begin disintegrating the seemingly perfect portrait of the Van Laar family.

At once haunting and sorrowful, The God of the Woods is easily one of the best thrillers I’ve read. While it follows conventions of the genre—cliffhangers closing subsections, a cast of suspicious characters, red herrings aplenty—it is also charged with many unexpectedly tender moments between certain characters. What makes it “literary” is its sharp presentation of what an unhappy family can look like, along with its nuanced approach in exploring gender roles and class structure, such that every character serves a meaningful purpose. It also presents an array of moral dilemmas without attempting to be didactic, allowing the story to develop honestly and organically.


“To be a human is complex, and often painful; to be an animal is comfortingly simple and good.”


The imagery in Moore’s writing is both textured and thematically relevant. The repeated mapping of character traits to animal traits blends the border between human nature and the environments they inhabit—in this case, the environment aligns with the natural world itself—to showcase facets of nature and nurture. Bear, for instance, gets his nickname from his resemblance to a baby animal; his innocence is first ascribed to physical traits, yet as he grows older, it translates into something earned—the time that he spends around T.J. and Vic shape him into a kind person, making him different from the rest of his family. Additionally, when Judy questions the elder Peter, Bear’s grandfather, she notices the way he bares his teeth like an animal: enraged, and perhaps guilty. While Peter does, indeed, play a major role in Bear’s disappearance, his harsh temperament dates back to his youth; we don’t know if Peter might have been kinder if his father had shown him the same love he showed Vic, but it is clear that circumstances intrinsically alter the way that people think and behave.


“It’s the Van Laars, and families like them, who have always depended on others.”


Ultimately, the disappearances of Bear and Barbara are the result of the Van Laars’ selfishness and lack of empathy toward others, and among themselves. While Alice and the elder Mrs. Van Laar marry into the family, they are neglected, pushed away unless their presence becomes convenient. Their family is built on isolation, on ignoring things left unsaid. It is thus unsurprising that Bear’s death doesn’t change them; each one grieves in isolation—their collective memory of him becomes erased in the process.

The Van Laars’ greatest pride is their house called Self-Reliance, which sits on a high ridge above the camp. Within this upstairs-downstairs layout, it is interesting that the only person who truly becomes self-reliant in the novel is Barbara, who resents everything the house stands for yet gains popularity because of who she is. Instead of reveling in the privileges that come with her last name—like John Paul, who lives above Louise at the top of Hunt Mountain that summer, does—she becomes well acquainted with the people who work for her family. Even though many of them struggle with financial hardships, their resilience lends them the integrity that the Van Laars lack. These are the people who truly run Self-Reliance. If the physical structure of this novel is to be thought of as a mountain, then the Van Laars, who reside at the top, would collapse without everyone else populating the base below.

One of my favorite things is when book covers embody the themes being written about in the story. Essentially, this novel is about cover-ups and their consequences. Bear’s death was rewritten as an abduction. Barbara’s mural was covered up with pink paint. The name “Self-Reliance” is an outward facade for how dependent the Van Laars are on others. While we see pink paint dripping down from the top edge of the book cover, the painting of the woods takes up a majority of the page—eventually, the truth emerges despite the narratives that the Van Laars carefully engineer to protect themselves.


“You’re safe now, she tells her brother, in her mind.”


While the story ties together the threads of Barbara’s disappearance through a perspective from Barbara herself, there were some questions I had that remained unanswered. Did Barbara ever find out how her brother died? What happens to Alice? I think the ending could have benefitted from a couple more chapters—perhaps from the perspective of T.J. after she dropped Barbara off at the cabin. However, I still loved the way it turned out; the ultimate scene of Judy watching Barbara from across the lake was absolutely stunning.