We thought it would be fun to do a book review together and for my 100 New Book Challenge Steph suggested I read her Book Club books. I did read January’s book Britt-Marie Was Here and I loved it! Going forward we will do a joint post for the book club books.
For February the book club decided to read a mystery novel. We hadn’t read a mystery in quite some time and we try to diversify our genre’s. In The Woods by Tana French, book one in the Dublin Murder Squad, was our choice. I really enjoy murder mysteries as a general rule. Sometimes you just need to sink your teeth into a really good detective story. And let’s be honest Dublin Murder Squad is a great series title.
I did like that it was based in Ireland I do enjoy a good accent. Why don’t you summarize cause I’m not so good at that and you like to talk.
Rude! That’s not a nice thing to say. I can’t help it if I have interesting things to say. Sheesh. In The Woods was the winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. It is a mystery about two detectives trying to solve the murder of 12 year old girl. 22 years prior to the novel’s events Adam Ryan and his 2 friends failed to return home after an evening playing in the woods (hence the title), also don’t worry I’m not giving away any plot twists. Adam is the only survivor to come out of the woods and the unsolved mystery of his friends disappearances haunt him into adulthood. Adam now goes by his middle name to avoid the media and has worked his way up to detective in the Garda murder squad.
The main plot of the novel circles around Ryan (Adam) and his partner Cassie struggling to solve the murder of a 12 year old girl, whose murder takes place in the same woods where Ryan’s friend’s disappeared. Chilling right? Stac? Chilling?
Yeah you’d think that wouldn’t you. It took a bit for me to get into the story. It’s in first person and I don’t love that writing style. Also I felt like no matter how much I read I wasn’t getting very far in the book. I really liked Ryan’s partner Cassie as for Ryan? The more I got to know him the more odd I found him and not necessarily in a good way. Speaking of things being odd the book was a little odd. It was not what I was expecting at all and sometimes that’s really enjoyable. This time? It was just odd for me.
Ok I’ll go there with it being an odd book. The writing was fairly descriptive with points of foreshadowing which never really came to fruition. I enjoyed the character development even though I didn’t care for Ryan so much either. Especially by the end. I don’t know that I can say I enjoyed the book itself. However, I didn’t want to stop reading it. I really wanted to know how it would end. Also I do have to say I’m an excellent mystery novel solver. It takes a good story to get past me. I knew who was involved in the murder but the details and some of the characters involved ended up surprising me which was nice.
I agree about wanting to finish it. Even though I didn’t love this book I had to know the end. I don’t know that I’ll want to read the entire series but I do want to read the next one.
Part of the fun of a book club is being able to discuss the book with others. Stac and I almost always read the same books because we love to talk about them. I don’t know that I would recommend this book to someone, if you’re looking for a good mystery I think I’d go to a different book, but for a debut novel Tana French really came out swinging.
That is true I keep forgetting that it was a debut novel. I guess one of the main things that bothered me was it was a little jumbled, she had good descriptions but poor segues. I think I liked it more than you did. Wouldn’t you say? I really would.Yeah it happens. None of the ladies at book club loved it but we all had lots to say about it and had a great discussion. There really are things to be said about this book and so if you do decide to read it please please let us know what you think.
Next month we’re reading The Gentleman from Moscow, my friend Alyssa loves Russia and this is her pick. I’m excited to get into it! I don’t know that Stac is all that excited about this next one…. I wouldn’t say I’m not excited. I’m more looking forward to reading something else out of my reading comfort zone because I really don’t think this is a book that I would just pick to read. Hopefully it will be a good experience. That’s all the people want! It is! I love stepping out of my comfort zone and loving it. Well good job finishing In The Woods, it was long. It really wasn’t that long but it felt long. Dude, it really did but I finished before the end of the month. Bam! But you didn’t finish before book club. I’m just saying. That’s a thing. Okay you have got to get over that. I did not realize it was a thing considering I can’t actually go to the book club. I’ll try harder next month. No promises. No you can do it. I might be busy. No you’re definitely not busy.
Anyway! Happy reading.
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