In the Woods

May 15, 2019
Something mysterious lurks within the Oklahoma woods. Maine resident Chrystal has been planning on summering at the lake with her friends or visiting New York City with her mom and stepfather--anything but indulging her amateur cryptozoologist father's Bigfoot obsession. But after a bloody incident occurs in Cherokee County, Oklahoma, Chrystal is packed off with her dad and finds herself heading toward the dark woods to investigate. Once there, Chrystal meets Logan, the cute farm boy who witnessed the attack. The presumably white teens grow close as they investigate the monster and the attacks increase in number and bloodshed. Presenting chapters narrated from Logan's and Chrystal's perspectives, the authors create engaging teen protagonists and a solidly structured mythology for the monster. There's a promising start with some good character development and smartly constructed scares. The problem here is a lack of judicious editing: At about 350 pages, the horror story's atmosphere and spookiness slip away, leaving long patches where information is repeated, and the characters aren't given enough opportunity for further exploration. There just isn't enough meat on the bone to justify this length. The monster's terrorizing presence is blunted over time, and readers who are trying to figure out the who and why of this mystery will be plenty disappointed. A good idea with promising characters scuttled by too many pages. (Thriller. 12-17)

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July 19, 2019

Gr 8 Up-When her mom heads to Europe for the summer, 17-year-old Chrystal is forced on a road trip to Oklahoma with her monster-obsessed father, who believes recent incidences in a small farming community might lead to Bigfoot or even a werewolf. Chrystal ends up spending most of her time with Logan, the clean-cut farm boy who first saw the monster and who has the kind of solid family she has always wanted. The creature escalates from killing livestock to killing girls and starts to stalk Chrystal specifically. Town people try to hunt the monster but some of them may be just as dangerous. While her father tries to prove his theories, Logan and Chrystal work to stop the werewolf and save its victims, including Logan's father, from turning into one as well. But Chrystal's heritage may tie her to the werewolves' curse and require her to make the ultimate sacrifice. Told in alternating chapters by Chrystal and Logan, the dialogue between virtually all of the characters is improbable and certainly unrealistic for most teens. The author has saddled Logan with an obsession with poetry whereas Chrystal repeatedly refers to her love of Kierkegaard and her bass guitar, which she hardly picks up. Her character is more relatable than Logan's whose overemphasized wholesomeness comes across as naiveté. The self-declared cryptologist father is depicted as a manic Dr. Who type who speaks in an oddly formal yet overly animated manner. While the plot is certainly implausible, the most unbelievable aspect is how casually, almost offhandedly, the characters accept the growing menace. Witness Chrystal blithely cleaning blood off the walls after Logan's mother shoots and kills two men while Logan then plays video games. VERDICT Skip in favor of Lish McBride's Hold Me Closer Necromancer or Maggie Stiefvater's "Wolves of Mercy Falls" series.-Lee De Groft, Jamestown High School, Williamsburg, VA

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 Seasoned supernatural horror authors Jones and Wedel (After Obsession, 2011) team up again to delight genre fans with a novel that is equal parts murder mystery, supernatural fantasy, and romance. Chrystal finds herself reluctantly spending her summer in a remote town in the Ozark Mountains when her cryptozoologist father is drawn there by rumors of a bigfootesque beast abducting livestock. When they arrive, they are taken in by the first person to witness the monster, Logan, and his family. When the monster's violence escalates from killing livestock to murdering local girls, the whole town is on high alert. This book has the veneer of a murder mystery, and constantly keeps readers second guessing the supernatural and folklore elements until the refreshingly brazen conclusion exposes the villain. The coauthored book offers two very distinct characters in alternating chapters, each with their own unique voice. An essential purchase for any supernatural romance genre fan.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)