*I was provided an early copy for review from the publisher for an honest review.*

The Woods Are Always Watching is a fast paced read that keeps you on the edge of your seat with a creepy feeling that just won’t go away. This book is an excellent thriller and reads like a cinematic experience.

Before they go their separate ways after high school, best friends Nina and Josie decide to have an adventure. Neither feel like they’ve had the typical high school experience. Unlike their classmates they’ve never went to parties in the woods. Nina wants to take a hiking trip into the Pisgah National Forest before she leaves for college and wants some more bonding time with Josie. Josie reluctantly agrees even though she is sure they’ll be attacked by a bear.

However a trip to bring them closer starts to tear them apart. Their friendship is tested in ways they never imagined. Ready to go their separate ways, they start to head out of the forest. Soon though they have to come together or they won’t survive the night.

I would highly recommend this book to any fan of thrillers. It’s a quick read with twists and turns throughout. The Woods Are Always Watching is available now wherever books are sold.

Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but they’ve always had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they want to have one final hangout to mark this milestone. They decide to take a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Immediately tensions are high as both ladies realize they’re not prepared for the hike and have some bitter feelings regarding each of their college plans. They’re so blinded by their own bickering that they don’t realize they’re walking straight into a nightmare until it’s too late.

Am I the only one who is just never going camping after reading and watching countless horror tales where things end badly in the woods? Yeah, just don’t invite me! Of course two inexperienced hikers setting out on their own are destined for trouble, but the way that Perkins plots this story out makes it even more unnerving. I love that the book truly follows the girl’s experience and there are zero hints about what’s coming until BAM! I was on the edge of my seat reading through the last few chapters of this book and loved every moment of it. There are definitely gory scenes and darker elements, so make sure to prepare yourself for that going in if you’re new to the horror scene!

Thank you Penguin Teen for this eARC. All thoughts are my own.

Okay, this is the second book this month that I’ve read within two days! Might mean the slump is finally over. If you are a true crime and/or thriller fan, definitely pick this one up.
TW/CW: Attempted rape, mention of child rape, gore, gun wounds, murder

Neena and Josie have been best friends all throughout high school. With graduation coming up, and college about to separate them, they decide to do a three day hike. As the explore the woods, tensions start to arise between the two friends. This leads to detours and something sinister that watches from the trees. This hike will test the two friends in ways they couldn’t imagine.

There isn’t a lot going on in the beginning, at least action wise, but the story pulls you in right away. This is where we get to learn about the two girls and start to see more about their friendship. The beginning is definitely more character driven. For those that have problems with change, the feelings the girls are having may seem familiar. Although I did feel like the strain on their friendship was exaggerated.

The later half is where things really start to speed up. I recently read another thriller and wasn’t as impressed, so reading this one was a nice change. You feel the suspense and worry for what is about to happen. There aren’t really any twists, and the one “twist” (maybe more turning event) seemed too… lucky.

Even though there were a couple of elements that weren’t my fav, I did still find this to be a good story. This is available today, so you are able to pick it up now if it is something that has peaked your interest.

Fall is just around the corner but thrillers are good for any time of the year!👻 Stephanie Perkins is one of my favorite authors, who writes books about contemporary romance, then, horror!!! Yeeessss!
This is a story, of a campers worst nightmare.. literally.
It began a slow burn, the story set the premise, the background, the characters. This third person narrative was a suspense filled novel, and also the reason I will never go camping again.
With Stephanie Perkin’s first horror novel ‘There’s Someone Inside Your House” premiering on Netflix October 6th, (my birthday!) There’s no better time to read these horrific novels, perfect for fall, and spooky time of year!

Neena and Josie decide to take a three day hike into the woods to feel closer to each other before being separated for college. They thought the biggest thing they had to worry about was a bear coming across them, however, there is something worse living in the woods. Let's just say The Woods Are Always Watching.

Ah yes, a book about best friends trying to hold onto their connection before they separate for college, of course I want to read along and feel for them. Oh wait, it takes a turn, a very dark and scary turn. I have zero complaints. This book made me even more scared to go out in the woods than I was before. I felt like Neena and Josie were both incredibly relatable. If you are not one, you are the other, Neena feeling guilty for leaving behind her family and friends to go for her dream, and Josie being stuck in a town that doesn't hold many good memories for her. Both girls had such courage and loyalty in this situation which made me think a lot about what I would have done. I think the writing was great and the story flew by, while making me more and more tense. For me, this was a 4.5/5.

If you like the thrill of potentially being eaten by a bear while hiking, have a best friend you have an unhealthy attachment to, or want to never go camping again without being terrified out of your mind, this is the one for you.

I received a digital copy of this book free from Penguin Young Readers Group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins is a captivating mystery thriller that is sure to send chills up your spine and keep you on the edge of your seat. A well-written story that pulls you in and holds your attention until the very end. The Woods Are Always Watching is a story that is sure to stay with you long after reading.

I have read and loved every Stephanie Perkins book until this one. Too much bickering. The “twists” seemed out of the blue and lacked any sort of surprise or suspense. It’s a rare miss for me.

Best Friends Neena and Josie are slowly starting to fall apart as college looms closer and closer- the very thing that will separate them. But, the girls plan a backpacking trip in the woods for three days, hoping that the inexperienced journey will bring the two of them closer before they must part. But as the weather gets hotter, tensions rise with it and the girls start to realize that not all is as it seems.

I’m gonna be honest; this was an interesting book, but incredibly unbelievable.
The girls were ditzy and clueless- a fact that was often focused on in a strange way. Events would transpire that made no sense and weren’t fit into the story very well. Things would go down and suddenly you’re learning random useless facts about the girls’ personal agenda compared to what’s actually happening in the story.
Yet, despite all of that I still got sucked into the story and read it incredibly fast.
The writing wasn’t the best, but the story was still interesting. With something new always happening.
It wasn’t believable, but it was still fun and frightening with great aspects of foreshadowing!

If you like gruesome (and I mean GRUESOME) thrillers that suck you in- then you’ll enjoy this one!

TWs: {potential spoilers}
(Basically don’t read this if you can’t handle watching an episode of Bones)
- amputation
- murder
- blood
- gore
- smells
- deaths
- mentions of r*pe
- all the gruesomeness you can think of

When I was selected to receive a NetGalley e-book version of #TheWoodsAreAlwaysWatching from Penguin Teen, I was excited to read my very first Stephanie Perkins book…and I was not disappointed! This book was such a fun ride which features two best friends who decide to go on a three day hiking trip before they go off to two different colleges. All is good at the beginning of the trip, but then something happens that changes their lives forever.
Once I started reading this book, I literally read 80% of it in one day…I just had to know what happened next!!! I’ll admit I am not a camping type person (as my dad always says), and after this book, I don’t think I ever will be! Lol! I appreciate the character growth of Neena and Josie as they battle different obstacles in the woods…some downright terrifying! I like how the ending is open-to-interpretation…I feel it adds to the overall suspense of the book. All in all, I feel this book is a perfect end-of-summer read! I will definitely check out Stephanie Perkins’s other thriller….

Thank you Penguin Teen for sending me this NetGalley e-book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Rating: 4.5/5

Ask me if I want to go hiking and camping and I will hand you this book as the reason why my answer is, “f*** no”.

Holy anxiety inducing YA thriller, Stephanie Perkins! The Woods Are Always Watching is a short yet action packed creepy and terrifying novel about two best friends going on one last adventure before they leave each other for college. I was nervous for these girls from the moment I started the book. Josie didn’t want to go on this trip! But Neena talked her into it, so obvi some bad shit is about to happen. And very dark, bad, gruesome things do happen in those woods. Neena and Josie fight for survival like badass champs. I couldn’t stop reading because I had to know what happened yet I also had to put the book down nearly every chapter because of my nerves. I felt like I was there. I could just imagine being in those woods hearing a twig snapping, jolting to look over your shoulder and your heart racing. *shudders*

5 ⭐️ def recommend for thriller lovers and anyone who doesn’t care if they ever hike again. Because NO THANKS.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for the e-galley (also Bookish First for the finished copy) in exchange for an honest review.

K BYE off to get a copy of her other book, There’s Someone Inside Your House, before the Netflix movie comes out.

I love a wilderness survival story and wanted to love this YA horror about two best friends who embark on a hiking/camping trip before parting ways to separate colleges, but it was not meant to be. In Neena Chandrasekhar and Josie Gordon, Perkins has created two layered characters whose complex friendship dynamics are engaging to watch and utterly realistic. The highlight of this book really was the friendship element and the question of whether these two will remain friends once they’re off at separate colleges. Plus, the spooky forest setting. The setting was great! However, the evil the girls encounter in the woods felt two-dimensional, and the scares (even though the horror is graphic) failed to chill me. At just over two hundred pages (and with an abrupt ending), the story felt first too slow and then like there wasn’t enough.

The Woods Are Always Watching was a fast paced and exciting book, with a few minor issues. Let's break it down!

What I Liked:

►I do love me a survival story, and this certainly was one! And it definitely delivered on the tension and the "will they make it out?" aspect, so that was great. The stakes were certainly sufficiently high, and I was invested in the outcome.

►I can appreciate two people who basically hate camping. Look, this was just honest. I haven't the foggiest idea why these two young ladies thought that camping, which neither of them professes to enjoy, needed to be their big hurrah before parting ways, but I think it was a pretty good way to show their sheer lack of woodsy know-how. Next time, I think they should try a day at the beach? An amusement park, mayhaps? And hey, the book has the added bonus of being a cautionary tale: maybe if you don't know about camping and don't particularly enjoy the outdoors, skip it, under risk of death.

►It's a very readable book in general. It's fast paced (except for a little in the beginning, which I will get to) and full of adventure and excitement. I raced through it, needing to know what would happen to the girls, so that is a huge plus.

►While I didn't always love how it was handled, I loved that friendship was a huge focus. This is a romance-free book, focused solely on the characters and their situation at hand. I liked that we meet the girls as they are about to move on from high school, and that they are at a crossroads, basically. The story also delved into the girls' family lives as well, which I liked.

What I Didn't:

►I really, really needed an epilogue. The ending was just way too abrupt for my liking, especially after such a high stakes story. This is definitely my biggest qualm with this book, frankly. (view spoiler)

►While I do understand what the author was trying to illustrate through the girls' arguments, did the fighting have to make up so much of the story? Look, I appreciate that friendships can be rocky, especially when facing such huge life changes, as Josie and Neena are! Hell, I'd be shocked if they didn't fight! They're obviously going through a lot, and it does make sense. It just got to be a lot, especially in the first half of the book. Like are the woods the problem, or is it just you two? Luckily it does pick up, but also I don't know that we get a lot in the way of a satisfying resolution to many of the issues.

Bottom Line: It's certainly fast paced and exciting after the first half, though I did wish for a bit more from the ending.

Actual Rating: 2.5 stars
1st half of the book: 1 star
2nd half of the book: 4 stars

The Woods Are Always Watching had so much potential to be a book I enjoyed, but sadly it fell flat. I enjoyed There’s Someone Inside Your House (apparently I even gave it 5 stars so I must have really been a fan), but this one didn’t even come close.

The entire first half felt like a massive info dump. The writing also felt stilted and didn’t flow smoothly. If I was someone who DNF’ed, I probably would have been done with the book before it got to what I think are the good parts. It felt like ‘here is everything you need to know about these characters and their relationship and their backstory’ instead of it being revealed over the course of the story. I wasn’t entirely invested in the girls’ friendship either as they were both kind of awful, but at the same time I liked how the book focused on the way friendship can change. The one positive of the beginning is it mentioned periods which you never really hear about in horror or camping stories.

When the action picked up though, it got oh so good. The story got so tense, and I was on the edge of my seat scared. I was disgusted so many times because humans are awful (not because of the gore which I liked). Then it fell apart for me near the ending as something happened that just seemed so unrealistic. I usually don’t care about believability because fiction is fake in general, but this one ruined what could have been a great, powerful ending. I did love the way the book was sectioned though, and I thought the narrative style was interesting as it switched from omniscient to each of the girl’s povs and back and forth.

If you want a book to remind you why you should never go overnight camping or let your friends convince you to, this is the book for you. I can’t really recommend waddling through the first half just to get to the fun, but there are people who loved the whole book, so take a gamble if you’d like.

*3.5 stars
this book was a pretty solid ya thriller! now keep in mind, thrillers aren’t my favorite genre of book, but i still enjoyed this! it kept me on the edge of my seat.

however, a few things just felt too cliche. some of the drama was a little too typical for me, and it was sorta predictable. but nevertheless, this book was an enjoyable time and i recommend to all thriller fans!

tw: death, guns, assault

Josie and Neena have been thick as thieves all throughout high school, but their impending separation looms on the horizon. While Josie is staying local in North Carolina for college and living at home, Neena is about to move two thousand miles away to go to school in California. To have one last trip together, Neena and Josie decide to go on a three-day hike in Pisgah National Forest. They have new equipment, charged phones, printed trail maps, a solid bear canister, and each other: what could possibly go wrong?

While the answer is "a lot," the build to it is a tense crawl. Tension creeps into the story as the girls get deeper into the forest, hiking slowly upward and getting more tired and argumentative by the day. When things go wrong, it is a steep, quick descent. When this book got going, it didn't stop until the gruesome end! I will warn readers of this review that this book is a YA about some foolish high school girls, so going in with lowered expectations regarding their behavior will definitely ameliorate your reading experience.

While I had some struggles with this book like later odd backstory flashbacks from supernatural touch (?), the fun whiplash from a tense medium-paced first 50% to a whirlwind final 50% that I finished in literally one hour, I quite enjoyed this book!

trigger warnings: broken bones (external), detailed on-page injury, car accident (mentioned, fatal, some detail), death of a parent, parental neglect, flashing, sexual assault, lost limb, necrophilia (mentioned, threatened), rape (mentioned, threatened), parental abuse, child sexual assault (mentioned)

❧ 3.5

This YA slasher thriller is about 2 teen girlfriends, Neena and Josie who decide to go on a 3 day camping trip together before Neena moves across the country for college. They are in a remote area, and they are not used to camping and they start arguing, like girls do. The first half of the book builds up the tension...but the thrills really pick up in the second half. Now my slasher fans will love the rest. When Josie falls and breaks her leg and cannot move, Neena must leave her and go find help. Ummm hello... terrifying!!! They definitely are not prepared for what happens next. They are being hunted by these redneck men on a killing spree. Let me just say the second half of this book creeped me the hell out.

This is a short, suspenseful, and terrifying tale of being chased through the woods, my all time nightmare. There are some triggers in this one which will make you wince such as Broken bones, lost limbs… and others such as threat of Rape and murder, to name a few. Definitely a fun YA horror read that I pretty much read in almost one sitting.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy! All options are my own!

Full disclosure, I have a full shelf that is dedicated to Stephanie Perkins books. Anna and the French Kiss is my all time favorite book and I have read it multiple times. I also own multiple copies and a crap ton of foreign editions. I’m a Perkins fan girl. She writes it and I read it. But it is important to note that the horror genre is not my kind of reading. Stephanie even knows this. But with that said I want it known that I truly enjoyed The Wood Are Always Watching and I’m not just saying that because of who the author is.

The Wood Are Always Watching is a terrifying tale of Josie and Neena, two high school graduates that decide to have an epic weekend in the woods before they are split up thanks to college. Neither of the girls have been camping before but with tips from Josie’s brother and some borrowed gear they are ready for anything. But hiking and camping are not at all what they expected. Instead of having a final fun trip together, they stumble into nightmare they aren’t sure they will ever make out out of. One thing is certain, camping is not for the faint of heart.

When a friend asked me how The Wood Are Always Watching was, I told her it basically felt like Anna in the woods. That was the best way to describe it because Neena and Josie were regular teenage girls. They had a regular friendship, had regular fears, had regular fights. They thought they were doing something normal, that millions of people do, and taking a 3 day hike in the woods. But what happened to them was anything but normal and that intensified the reading experience. From one page to the next you had no idea what was going to happen and that was terrifying.

Immediately, when I finished The Woods Are Always Watching, I messaged Stephanie to tell her one thing…I am 100% an indoor girl now. I mean I was all about inside before reading her book, but after, there is literally no way I am every going camping or hiking for any amount of time that involves nighttime. Stephanie created a reading experience that had me anxious and jumpy and hiding behind my hands at points(which I don’t recommend when reading). Needless to say, add this to your TBR. You will be in for a frightful journey.

*FYI…there are so really gross and gory scenes so you are warned

I always going to read Stephanie’s books, but I’m especially loving her spooky stories.

I really liked Neena and Josie. They have a good relationship and I loved the loyalty. There are a couple of other characters, but this story is all about these two.

Plot wise, it was slow and steady, until it wasn’t. The woods make for a scary af setting and Stephanie utilizes it perfectly. I loved the build up and the tension and the everything.

Overall, it was a quick and creepy and although I would have liked just a little more at the end or an epilogue, it was fantastic.

FYI: threat of rape and torture

**Huge thanks to the publisher for providing the arc free of charge**

Quick, chilling read. This YA thriller about two best friends who go on a hiking and camping trip before separating for college reads like a true crime documentary/old school horror movie with plenty of teenage drama mixed in. While the first half of the book was a little slow, the second half was action packed. Things got interesting really quickly and unexpectedly. I really enjoyed how this book touched on the fact that women are almost always in more danger than men, regardless of the situation. If you’re into YA thrillers, definitely give this one a try. *I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

** Blog Post scheduled for August 25th!

Thank you to Penguin Teen for providing me with a copy of The Woods Are Always Watching in exchange for an honest review!

Content Warnings: Rape Mentions

Full disclaimer before we start, I did not like There's Someone Inside Your House -- fingers crossed that it'll make a better film than book. I had higher hopes with The Woods Are Always Watching, because it was Stephanie Perkins' second journey into the horror genre and being hunted in the woods would be absolutely terrifying. Unfortunately, this book did not hit at all.

With all that being said, if you liked There's Someone Inside Your House then maybe you'll also enjoy this one.

It's safe to say that I had some issues with The Woods Are Always Watching. To begin with, tensions are high and they have every right to be high; Neena is going to be moving thousands of miles away for college, which really sucks, and they're out in the wilderness doing wilderness-y things. If I strapped on their hiking boots, I'd also be annoyed.

But did we need 75% of this book to be them arguing? I am here for three cups of horror & only a dash of teen drama. When things start to get frightening, it's very underwhelming -- probably because it's only the last quarter of the book. All of that build-up (of truly nothing) & that's what we get? I give so much, and friends, yet I do not receive.

Throughout the book, there are sprinkles of fake scares which in books don't translate as well as in movies (& that's with it being, at times, annoying in movies as well). Maybe it could be done, right? But when you're wafting through 75% with nothing really happening & thinking you're finally getting an ounce of something, it ends up just letting you down.

Without getting too into it, because of possible spoilers, there are a couple of scenes that don't make too much sense to me. Maybe, I'm just confused & it went over my head -- but, at random, our two main characters just know the villains' backstories. Seems like a pretty cheap way of telling the readers' the hows & whys, but okay.

This review is very negative, so I'm going to end this on a high note: The Woods Are Always Watching did go by fast & the gore-ish descriptions were pretty on point.