“We Went to the Woods” reminded me of Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History,” which is my favorite book. Five young, idealistic but naive people try living off the grid, sustaining themselves in an old utopian enclave by farming and trading, and trying to fight the neighboring industrial farm who is encroaching in their land. It was a bit of a slow burn of a novel, with revelations delayed but I didn’t mind the pace or the slow, mysterious reveals. It did make me question my desire to retire and move to a small cabin in the woods - living off the land sounds rewarding but exhausting. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

2.5/5 Some books have slow burning plots and that's perfectly all right because the characters are brilliant. Some books have poorly flushed out characters, but enough happens to keep you engaged. I kept trying, but I found it hard to connect with this book. I didn't find any of the characters to be likable or engaging and I wasn't really invested in their lifestyle experiment. I kept waiting for something big to happen, and when it did, I was just really sad and wondered what the point of it all had been.

Thanks to the publisher, Random House via NetGalley, for an e-review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is an up-to-date version of a commune with five young adults wanting to live off the land and forsake the world as it is today. Mainly they were protesting corporate America, the 2016 Presidential results, and the usual things many young, privileged people decide to abandon because they have never wanted for anything and have no idea what hardship is.

The protagonist is Mack, a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology who narrates. She is trying to hide from social media because of a blunder of her own making while participating on a reality show. The blunder was constantly referred to but I had no idea what she did until half-way through the novel. By that time, I didn't care. I was also getting tired of the endless descriptions of clearing land, planting crops, rationing their food, bad weather, etc.

There were too many story lines and secrets among the five residents and member of another group of people with the same lifestyle living a few miles away. It was a slow read and hard for me to understand their morals with swapping bed partners, revenge against a neighboring farmer, and sexual abuse of young girls. I didn't like any of the underdeveloped characters. Sorry I can't give this novel more than 2 Stars.

I can remember back to my Hippy days, when I had crazy idealistic views. Well, add 50 years to that and it brings us to the millennial generation. I had a little bit of a struggle getting into the book...way too much thinking going on in Mack's head; I found it distracting. Once I got into it, it was good. The story hints around about a lot of different stuff, without ever really coming out and cementing any ideas. The characters were all enjoyable, and quickly let me categorize them into people I liked and people I didn't. I didn't love any of them...but they were all suitable for the parts that they played. All in all, it was a good read. It drew me in, and made me hurry back to it if I was called away. It was a good length...not too short, not too long.

Mack is going through a rough time, tired of being in the spotlight. The reader learns that Mack is infamous for all the wrong reasons (virtual reality show scandal!!! Gasp!!!). Mack moves back in with her parents and tries to find a job. She winds up meeting these friends and somehow winds up joining their commune (and poly-amorous lifestyle). Trying to set up a homestead, the group of five friends start to learn how to clear land so that they can farm and to fix up their place. I was intrigued more with the process of homesteading and living off of the land than with the story line itself.

As the group of millennial struggle for survival and for their place in the world, the layers of secret start to unravel. Their neighboring commune makes life more interesting and dramatic. The diary that Mack finds was also fascinating..

Overall, a decent read but one with such a slow, slow pace that the reader would have to be really committed to finishing.

Five twenty-somethings step away from the lives they know and move into the empty buildings on what was, a century ago, a failed commune. Their story is told by Mack and we know from the first pages that whatever happened at The Homestead ended badly.

Mack knows little about her new companions, but she's hoping to escape her own past so she doesn't ask a lot of questions. The residents of The Homestead are really just playing at living off the grid. They're not going to starve if they don't grow enough food or freeze if they run out of firewood. These aren't the sort of people I'd want to spend any actual time with, but they were intriguing to read about and I've always been a bit curious about communes and cults.

The promotional materials that motivated me to pick this one up compared it to The Beach and maybe it was that comparison that had me expecting a much darker ending than the book delivered. I liked this one a lot. It's more literary than most of what I've been reading lately and has a slower pace. I found myself stopping now and then to look up the details of the Oneida Community and some terms I hadn't previously stumbled across like "complex marriage" and "male continence." That sent me down some rabbit trails that I plan to follow deeper.

I thought this book was going to have horror/thriller aspects to it and it wasn't really what I thought it was going to be. That is my fault, I suppose, for assuming that is what this book was. It wasn't a terrible read just not what I was expecting.

I’ve always jumped up and down to read novels about the hippy years of the ’60's and ‘70’s: free love, off-grid, hate the Man, hate industry, and hate manufactured items. As they say, everything comes around, and that era is creeping up on us again.
Caite Dolan-Leach has brought to life and vivid color the attempt of five young adults to go off-grid in 2005-06. They move onto an abandoned camp with the main house and a small cabin for each tenant. The detail the author goes into to describe their efforts at planting, irrigating, cooking, collecting wild edibles and berries from the woods is entertaining but also educational. Her creation of each character, their nuances, attitudes, tempers, and their unified refusal to buy and use manufactured foods, clothing, electricity, and simple pleasures creates such a realistic landscape.
The writing style is captivating; we’re listening to Mack; at numerous points, she alludes to an abrupt and unwelcome end. You really want them to be successful, though, to make this work, to grow and learn and prosper together.
I was enthralled throughout this book. There were no slow spots, no confusion, and no eye-rolling on my part. The entire story is enveloping, believable, and heartbreaking.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks so much to Random House and NetGalley for making it available.)

I received a copy of this book from netgalley in return for my honest review. This book was so good. It kept my attention and really kept me guessing!!!! I never knew what was going to happen next!!!! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery!!

5 young adults decide to leave their lives and live together in a remote woods in a life they think will be sustainable and correct for them. Needless to say, it didn’t turn out quite like they expected.

Millennials living off the grid in the woods is an interesting premise and I was intrigued by the synopsis of this book. For some reason I thought there would be more mystery elements in the story, but it was still an enjoyable read. Some might find it a bit slow, as daily life in a commune isn't all that exciting, but I understand why this book is described as a book that fans of The Secret History will love. I think a lot of people can relate to wanting to get away from the real world for a while and will enjoy this book.

We Went to the Woods says it's similar to The Secret History and The Immortalists, two books I really enjoyed and so I thought I'd like this one. Spoiler alert: I was let down.

To sum it up: a bunch of pretentious twenty-somethings decide they are fed up with our society and they believe they can do better creating their own society. We know they are doomed to fail because the prologue tells us so and are supposed to be compelled enough to find out what happened. I was intrigued and kept reading but it was roughhhhhh! All of the characters are unlikeable as fuck and none of them know much about homesteading, but they've read Walden by Thoreau and so they think they can do it. They spend lots of time pulling weeds and wandering about reading Thoreau, drinking their homemade mead and fucking eachother and lamenting about how much better off they are for this experience.
La di da. Very slow pacing and I was bored and hating everyone, but I skim read a bunch because I wanted to find out what "bad thing" the main character did on a reality Tv show that made her want to seclude herself in the woods. Well, finally it was revealed and yup, she's fucking awful and she sort of knows it. Then they slowly get a bit more involved in the other local commune (this is in the Ithaca area of New York, so it's all wine snobs, communes and hippies wanting to be in communes) and some eco-terrorism and everything goes to hell as you'd expect.
I give this book a shrug.
It was okay and I liked how characters from the author's previous book Dead Letters are also in this book, but other than that I hated everyone and i rolled my eyes a lot. Solidly 2.5 ish stars.

This story is all about painting an ominous picture of what's to come. You'll have no doubt that this story you're reading--this utopia that these five people trying to build--will end badly.

The story sets that up for you by beginning during a long, cold winter and progressing during the seasons leading to what you assume will be another long, cold winter that will test our characters somehow. Interspersed within the narrative about the five people on the Homestead are excepts from letters about the history of this land, a tale that is similarly ominous in tone (I would have loved more of that story layered into the present day one.)

However, I think it's likely a testament to the books I read that I got to the end and didn't find anything about this book too terribly shocking. For me, that was a bit of a let down. I think this book did a great job of pulling you in and setting you up for a particular kind of ending. The one it delivered just didn't really do it for me personally.

Apart from that though, I did enjoy this book. I though the descriptions were lush and the characters, (while a tad unlikeable) were interesting. I was intrigued by what drew each person to the Homestead and the details of how they attempted to make a life for themselves there. I think if this book was marketed as a character study about people trying to create a utopian society, it would be more successful than trying to position it as a thriller.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very slow-moving book for me and I had a hard time caring what happened. I didn't like any of the characters - they seemed like pretentious, entitled hippie-wannabes playing a game.

The writing is decent but it takes so long for anything interesting or exciting to happen that I had lost interest by the time it did.

An intriguing, character driven novel that explores the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of five young adults trying to live off the grid. Each of them have skeletons in their closet and varying degrees of transparency about their pasts.

This book was compared to The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and one thing I can tell you is that this is a guaranteed way to get me to read something due to my love for that book. This did not disappoint.
After a very public incident chases Mackenzie back to her home in upstate New York from Manhattan, she finds herself looking for a way to hide even further from the reality of her mistake. An answer appears when she meets a group of men and women preparing to create a commune-like home in the woods. It seems to Mack to be the perfect escape, a way to find meaning and purpose in her life once again. She soon finds herself infatuated not only with the lifestyle at the Homestead, but also with those with whom she's engaged on this pursuit - mysterious Beau, strong and confident Louisa, quiet and knowledgeable Jack, and Beaufort and dreamy Chloe.
I, too, find myself falling in love with this idyllic setting and lifestyle - clean living, hard work, enjoying simple pleasures...though I was less optimistic about where this journey would take Mack and the others, and rightfully so. Despite my overall distaste for a number of the characters, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would absolutely recommend it to those who enjoyed A Secret History 💕📖

What to expect when five young people move to an abandoned farm with hopes of rebuilding it and living off the grid?

This is the second book I've read this year about a modern-day commune. The first was The Ash Family. Usually what communes have in common is a charismatic male leader who draws in young females and subservient males.

This tale is a little different. The narrartor, Mackenzie, is a disgraced anthropology PHD candidate, who meets a young woman named Louisa while working for a caterer. Louisa and her 3 friends, Beau, Jack and Chloe, have an idea to live a self-sufficient life on a piece of property her father owns in upstate NY. The farm has a main building plus 5 one-room cabins. Mack is invited to join them.

Of course they have lots of ideas but not much practical experience. We know from the start that things don't work out as Mack begins telling the story of their failure. Mack is keeping her own shameful secret so perhaps that is why she doesn't seem to ever really question anyone else's past.

There is another commune nearby that has been successfully running for about 5 years and it's obviously that both Beau and Louisa have a history with these people. Little by little Mack learns what it is and it changes the course of their own efforts at living off the land.

Mack finds a journal from a commune that was on this land a hundred years earlier and ever the anthropologist, begins jotting down ideas for a book, comparing all three, even doing a little research at the library.

The story is interesting but the pace plods a little. I often wished that Mackenzie would just ask her friends some pointed questions instead of working in the dark. And be more forthcoming herself! In this day and age, most everything can be learned on the internet with a Google search so so much for secrets.

Another thing both books I've read about modern-day communes have in common is their desire to dabble into some 'civil disobedience' ala Henry David Thoreau. Inevitably this leads to problems. Louisa is upset to learn that the farmer next to their property is encroaching on her land and using chemicals. What can they do when legal efforts don't seem to get them anywhere?

i can't really say that I cared for any of the characters. Free love is always part of these lifestyles, right? But can people really handle that when emotions come into play? The descriptions of working the land were interesting--it's certainly lots and lots of time-consuming, backbreaking work! You'd have to be pretty dedicated and not just dabbling with the whole idea of living off the land to really make it work. I didn't think this book added much to our understanding of communes or human relations, for that matter.

I received an arc from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was just okay for me. The synopsis sounds really intriguing yet it just seems different from what i imagined. I think its safe to say that many will enjoy this book but I'm probably not the right reader for it.

I’m having a hard time picking up this book. So far it’s boring and there’s nothing pulling me to read it. I’ll keep reading to see how far I get however I’m not hopeful that I’ll finish it. I don’t like writing reviews like this and I was really hoping to like this book.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this book and provide my honest thoughts.