I am not really sure I cared for the characters in this novel. They are “millennials” who are drop outs and have formed a five person commune in NY where three women and two men lived together off the grid and pretty much as the hippies from days gone by. Some were also involved with a more volatile group who lived nearby in a the Collective. These were people who did protesting and civil disobedience. Two members of the Homestead were fringe members of this group also. The story takes the readers through a number of seasons there. Mack, the narrator and observer, is the protagonist and most nearly fully developed character. The novel was written with great thought and always made this reader ponder the who and the why. Thanks to Net Galley and Random House for an ARC for an honest review.

Sorry, I've tried to go back to this one a few times and I just can't get past about 25% in. Thanks for the opportunity!

I think if this were streamlined a bit, it could have been better. But there’s a few things happening that don’t really connect, that seem important like there’s a build up to something. But then the something doesn’t seem to have merited all that build up.

I kept waiting for the big crescendo but it never really happened.

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be about the external WOAH but the internal journey of the narrator? But so bland, you never get a sense of who she is or what she stands for, and spent all her time looking out, cataloguing everything going on, that it didn’t feel like much of a internal WOAH story either.

I’m not even really sure what the message is either. Does the author believe in what the characters were doing, was this in support of their grand notions, or is this a critique on this kind of ideology? Neither assertion really lands.

I could not connect with any of the characters so it was hard making it though this story. I loved the idea of a commune at this day and age but I feel like it was missing the mark. Mack's mysterious shunning from the big city had a bunch of build up but then it never really goes anywhere and it didn't seem like that big of a deal to cause such a hatred backlash. The only thing I really enjoyed about this was the bit of drama at the end. The rest read very slow.

Full Revew to post: June 6

Thanks to Caite Dolan-Leach, Random House Publishing, and Netgalley, for providing me with a digital advance copy of this novel. I was so excited to begin this novel! It has an interesting premise and the writing is quite good. Unfortunately, it did not hold my interest enough for me to finish it — I read about half of it, then began skimming before ultimately giving up. Others may have a different experience but I had trouble connecting with the characters and with the story.

I found We Went to the Woods to be a good, two and a half star read. I'm a big character person, and it's usually difficult for me to read books with characters who are (I think intentionally) unlikable, but this one wasn't too much of a challenge for me to get into. Though I disliked the characters, they were not intolerable, making the book much easier to read. I struggled more with this book's plot. I felt like there were quite a few different plot lines happening, and not all of them were well-developed. Mack's plot was convincing for me, however, the plot line involving Matthew for me felt underdone. Similarly, Mack's research into prior communities felt like it had the potential to be super interesting, but was never fully realized for me. I think if this plot line had served as the book's anchor, perhaps even as the reason Mack's first experience with communal living ended poorly (i.e. she went in as a researcher, and her intentions were discovered, leading to her removal), the book would have felt more cohesive. As written, it felt like there were maybe too many plot lines and most of them were not really incorporated as I'd have liked. I also felt like the ending was a bit of a let down for me. The book built to a seemingly intense ending, however, when I got to the ending, I was a bit disappointed. It almost felt like I'd climbed a mountain, only to encounter no view at the top. The book certainly was not unpleasant, and was an enjoyable read, but was not as enjoyable to me as it could have been. That being said, I'm sure this book will be an excellent read for many people. Fans of Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings should definitely check this one out.

I must admit firstly that I was initially drawn to read about this book because of the quote that states, "For readers of The Secret History and The Immortalists..." Both of those books are ones that I adore and think about quite a bit, and so I read on. The premise of the book intrigued me - a young woman finds a group of other dissatisfied twenty-somethings and they all move to attempt to live on their own, off the grid.

Parts of the book felt somewhat slow-moving. This book is not for everyone, of course, but I did enjoy it. I think it took me longer to read than a book of its length might normally have because of the way the story moved.

I found the characters intriguing, and the language and flow of writing quite lovely to read. It was disturbing, but in an interesting way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the chance to read this novel!

Five new-found friends go to the woods to lead a sustainable, off-the-grid lifestyle. But each one of them comes to the adventure with a different agenda - not all of them peaceable. Told through the eyes of Mack, who is trying to escape a mess she made for herself and is so hungry for friendship that she ignores the warning signs around her, we learn how our past and our politics color everything we perceive. Skillfully written, with complex characters and a believable plot, WE WENT TO THE WOODS is a great read for anyone who was once young and idealistic.

After suffering a public humiliation and being skewered by social media, twenty-something Mack Johnston retreated to her parents’ house in Ithaca, New York, returning to her high school catering job. Isolated and disillusioned, Mack was searching for connection, and she found that in Louisa, Beau, Chloe, and Jack, a foursome with easy camaraderie and undefined physical boundaries.

When Louisa suggests they move to a one hundred acre plot of land in a nearby rural area, the group quickly rallies around the idea of challenging capitalism and promoting environmentalism though building a self-sufficient community that they call the Homestead. They each pay Louisa’s father $10 to rent the land for a year and begin the process of preparing the rundown structures, planting the garden, and collecting firewood for the winter. Although filled with enthusiasm, only Jack has any farming experience, and the perils of an upstate New York winter are more dangerous than they expected. They also became embroiled in a feud with a neighbor using pesticides on his crops, charging that their use would harm the shared water table. Additionally, the pull of a more militant nearby group, the Collective, strained the relationships of the Homestead group.

Internally, the members of the Homestead, too, were less united than they realized. Far from having a collective vision, their individual goals overlapped but didn’t always correspond, and their secrets threatened to destroy the trust required for living in such close quarters. The loose sexual relationships, too, fomented jealousy and competition.

Mack learned that Hector, the city where the Homestead was located, had long ago housed a group that split from the Oneida Community. Diving into research, she resolved to learn as much as she could about these other communes to determine what went wrong--and to keep it from happening at the Homestead--unless, intentional communities were bound to fail.

In the first few chapters, before the group moved to the Homestead, I found the characters, especially Beau, and their manner of talking completely insufferable and didn’t know if I could handle an entire book filled with such pomposity. However, either I became used to it, or, when they moved to the country, these tendencies were diminished.

We Went to the Woods is packed with information, from Mack’s social media disgrace and our reliance on technology, to environmental dangers like pesticides and fracking and the legitimacy of efforts to curtail them, the possibility of free love (or complex marriage in Oneida terms), the danger of charismatic and controlling leaders, the extent to which the past plays out in the present, the possibility of running from pain, mental illness and psychiatric medication, and, of course, the viability of intentional communities.

While all of these ideas are important and valid, having them in one novel made it difficult to determine their relationship. Furthermore, some of these motifs, by the nature of their quantity, were not developed. These things combined made it difficult for me to fully understand Dolan-Leach’s purpose in including them, if not just for verisimilitude.

I shouldn’t make it sound like I didn’t like the novel, because I did, quite a bit in fact. Actually, I live in Hector, where the fictional Homestead is located. (As far as I know we aren’t swarmed with communes, but anything is possible!) I felt like I was reading the journal of a real person because the setting was so accurate, such as Ithaca with the pretention of Cornell-associated professors and students and the suicide risks of the gorges. Watkins Glen did indeed have a Wildflower Cafe, though it recently has been turned into an overpriced prohibition-themed bar. Wineries line Highway 414, and the Finger Lakes National Forest is over 16,000 beautiful acres.

Very sympathetic to the Homestead’s concerns about the environment and income inequality, I’d hoped for their experiment to succeed, and felt dread as their decisions seemed to pull them further and further apart, putting them in dangerous situations leading to inexorable paths. Still, the novel ended on a hopeful note for Mack and for those with a dream of doing things better.

A good book that builds as it goes. This is not my typical book choice but I love the outdoors and was happy to receive a copy of this book after reading the description. The book features Mack, a disgraced member through some reality show who looks to get back to her roots in nature and randomly meets a group of people who invite her to join a small movement of people who will live off the land and live life in a much simpler way. As the drama builds from their choices, I grew more invested. It eventually ended for Mack but she left in a much different frame of mind then when they entered the homestead. A good book you will enjoy if you wonder what living off the land and fending for yourself is like.
Thank you Netgalley, Caite Dolan-Leach, Random House Publishing Group - Random House and Random House for the ARC for my honest review.

Great second book from this author. I loved her first book "Dead Letters". Unfortunately this book reminded me a little too much like "The Girls" from Emma Cline. This book starts out with five characters wanting to go off on their own and out of the world and start their own "homestead". It dragged a little slowly through the middle and picked up speed about a quarter way to the great ending. Would still recommend. Loved the connection with the diary and the history.

We Went To The Woods is a remarkable novel from start to finish. The narrative follows Mack, a young woman who falls in with a small group of twenty-somethings hoping to start a new life together, using their marked privilege to live a more sustainable life — and escape their unsatisfying pasts. Together, they build a home and a sort of weird dysfunctional family. As usual, things don’t go as planned — and things are not as they seem.

This story has more questions than answers, which might frustrate some readers, but leads to an immersive experience that leaves you guessing, hoping, longing for the characters within. It also helps set the tone of a story with building tension and twists that make your heart sink and soar, not knowing what could be waiting for Mack and her group.

I’m always tempted to pick up books that are compared to The Secret History, Donna Tartt’s modern classic, but this one truly earns the comparison. I have to admit, this narrative structure is designed for a reader like me, but Caite Dolan-Leach’s writing is also flawless. Beautifully constructed characters leap off the page and immediately become lovable, complex, and heartbreaking. I wanted to read it everywhere until I finished it, on the train, in the waiting room, late into the night. I’ve truly not enjoyed a novel this much in quite some time.

I gave up on this one after reading about 10% of it. It just didn't interest me enough to keep reading. The characters didn't work for me.

This book was not a favorite of mine. I found it difficult to get through, partly because I just didn't like any of the characters. Mack Johnson, after a social media failure decides to try homestead living with a few other people. They live off the land, and I did learn about farming but this novel just didn't grab my attention. I was not sympathetic towards any of the characters.
Thank you NetGally for allowing me to read this book.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

HIPSTERS ARE SCARY AND EVIL AND WILL SPIT UPON YOUR GRAVE

Now that that’s out-of-the-way, I don’t really know what to say about this book. It can’t really be considered an entertainment. And absolutely none of these people are remotely likable. Even the sad sack narrator is a horrible TERF. Of course, the most passionate revolutionary are entitled spawn of hyper capitalism. This book is fable, and it could be important, but it really wasn’t that much fun

It was a relief to finish

Mack Johnston escapes to rural NY after a botched failed social media experiment. She goes to live on the Homestead a type of communal farm with Beau, Louise, Jack and Chloe. The 5 battle the weather, and other farmers to try and live off the land. A lot of interesting dynamics between the characters and some suspense whether the Larson family of farmers have been trying to destroy their farm with pesticides. Also a current of discord with another communal farm nearby called the Community.
I found the book to be interesting and learned some things about farms and beekeeping, and the relationships between all the main characters to be interesting and at times suspenseful.

"So many accumulated scraps of words," says one of Dolan-Leach's characters toward the end of the book, "and that's what we build our lives on."

There's so much to unravel in this book that it feels almost like a disservice to write about it. There are obvious Big Themes herein: the ravages of late-stage capitalism, the banality of social media, the privilege of those who are comfortable/financially stable enough to choose living off the grid...But it's the sneakier undercurrents that really dragged me into this book. This idea that we can become trapped by the stories we weave from our lives--these tales we tell ourselves that often turn out to be wrong--is so compelling to me. At its heart the book is about Mack's descent into her own mythology; once she's built this great, labyrinthine story in her head to explain what's going on around her, she's unable to find her way back out.

Having read Dead Letters and We Went to the Woods within the same month, I recognized a few characters that Dolan-Leach carried over into both books. For instance, beautiful, maddening Zelda makes an appearance here, almost like the author couldn't bear to let her go just yet. Most of her characters are written this way; they're treated with love despite their great shortcomings, and the way that everyone connects to one another gives you the sense that Dolan-Leach has her own web of stories she's constantly wandering through. Stephen King does this a lot too--little character cameos that connect the books in his "world"--but with this author it feels more organic, like she followed a thread on a lark and found another group of intriguing people to write about. (I hope she'll find more threads to pull from this group, as I'd now gladly read ten more books about upstate New York despite never having cared about that region before.)

I should probably say something about the plot, right? Basically there's a group of young people who move into a neo-hippie commune out in the woods together. Sex, drugs, and sustainable farming ensue, plus a lot more that I won't spoil. There is much talk of crops and compost, but despite all the quiet observation and wide-eyed description of nature--things I usually can't stand too much of--the book is simply unputdownable.

CDL writes dread very well. She imbues her stories with this horrible tension that alternately thrills and unsettles you. You know it's going to end badly. The characters know it's going to end badly. You all participate in the narrative anyway.

Okay, I could probably write a thesis but I'll stop here. Suffice to say, you should read this book. Read it, let it haunt you for days, briefly wish you had never downloaded it onto your Kindle...

...And then sigh as you settle back in to read it again.