Book Blog #376: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

 

Title: The God of the Woods

Author: Liz Moore

# of Pages: 478 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

Review: This was more of a slow historical drama with some underlying mystery than a page-turning mystery-thriller.

In fact, it was so NOT paging turning that I kept putting this book down because I was frustrated/bored. There's a few reasons for this:

- There's time skipping (between 1950s to 1970s) AND third person POV switching, which wouldn't have been a huge issue except Moore decided to switch between a billion side characters (some of which aren't super relevant and who's perspectives are never seen again later in the story). It's super painful because right when I'm getting into the story from one person's perspective, Moore switches to another person in a different time period which breaks the immersion. 

- Since there's so many characters, there's a lot of chapters spent on telling the reader about their backgrounds which made the story progression very slow. 

The writing actually was very good (4 star worthy), but the storytelling was painful (2-3 stars) because of the above points. 

This is also one of the mysteries where I couldn't guess what happens because there's possible red herrings everywhere (make the reader appreciate the work investigators do and how hard it is to get to the truth). The ending is actually unsatisfying because it felt like it came out of nowhere rather than looking at the hints reader's received throughout the story with a different perspective. 

On a completely different note, this book reminded me of The Great Gatsby in that there was strong messaging that rich people sucks, and the games they play with other people's lives is both self-serving and deeply destructive.

Overall a good but not great slow read. I don't regret reading but do think it is too slow-paced for me to recommend it highly.

Book Blog #375: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

Title: Atmosphere

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

# of Pages: 341 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis:  Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

Review: If there's one thing I learned from read Atmosphere; it's that I don't have it what it takes to be an astronaut. 

I'm not particularly interested in science and space, so seeing this was about NASA's space shuttle program wasn't a selling point for me. However I do enjoy reading Taylor Jenkins Reid books, so I knew I would give it a try eventually. After reading the whole Game Changers series (smutty gay romance with a hockey backdrop) I was excited to dive into something completely different, expecting to learn a lot about this space program in the 1980s.

But I slowly realized this was in fact NOT a space book. So much for reading something different; it's first and foremost a lesbian love story (although definitely not smutty like the Game Changer series) with a backdrop of space and science. 

Honestly, the book's marketing selling this book as a space book rather than a romance book is what made this book not meet my expectations. I was not looking to slog through secret women x women romance development when I was already exhausted from doing this for previous reads 6 times over. 

The story might start with a gripping space mission-related disaster, but it time skips into the past to introduce the reader to the characters and of course the romance, which actually made me care about the romance even less because I just wanted to get back to hearing about how they were going to fix the disaster. Without spoiling it, I actually was not a fan of the ending and how it relates to the romance either; if it went the other directions, it might have actually tipped the scales enough to give this book 4 stars because it would have been more impactful.

The space aspects were actually quite readable, and I really enjoyed learning about the struggles women had breaking into the space program. There's also a subplot that explores Joan's relationships with her family that I actually was very interested in but was underdeveloped in terms of creating multi-dimensional characters. 

While this could just be a case of reading this book at the wrong time, I do think Reid tried to tackle too many topics (women's struggles/feminism in 1980s, family, and LGBTQ) and was not able to put enough attention on each one in 341 pages. If you're interested in reading a lesbian love story, I'd recommend this book but not so much if you're looking for a space story.