Thank you to NetGalley and University of Iowa Press for the e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my review.

Rich, decadent and smooth each short story was worth reading from start to finish. I enjoyed every second I spent reading them.

As a longtime admirer of Janice Obuchowski's fiction, I'm delighted to see these stories compiled into a beautiful collection published by University of Iowa Press as winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Obuchowski's stories manage to be both bold and quiet, with crystalline sentences that are worth pausing for and lingering over. The woods provide a literal and metaphorical backdrop for this collection: the resilient characters get lost but keep searching and persisting, bringing the reader along on their journeys. These stories are a timely examination of our human condition--they plumb deep and do so in haunting, exquisite prose.

I love how this collection of short stories revolve around the woods, namely the Green National Forest. There is a sense of calm as the characters from each story find comfort while going through their everyday struggles.

I also love how the author can quickly turn a calm and inviting scenery into a gloomy, dark one. Her characters are everyday people who are working near the woods and the challenges they face in their lives is similar to how resilient nature can be in order to survive.

I definitely enjoyed this one. Thank you Netgalley and University of Iowa Press for the arc.

This is a collection of short stories, that are all a little morose and somber. Mainly centering around characters from a small town in Vermont and the surrounding woods. The writing is beautiful and very descriptive. That said, it was not one that I loved, aside from the first story, they all fell a little flat for me.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced reading copy.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭.

This collection came out on my birthday, which also arrived with a hurricane here in Florida, and that is why I am reviewing it today on the 21st. Is anyone else out there playing catch up with life like I have been? I think Vermont sounded like heaven to me, even with encroaching woods. In The Woods, of all the stories, The Orams was a worm that burrowed in my brain. In fact, I would love a novel about the Oram Brothers who live up the mountain, on the lesser traveled roads, and the six generations before them. Those Orams, who “could at least have the decency to keep their misdeeds to the woods,” make for good storytelling. What else would the locals do if they didn’t have the wildness of others to measure their own goodness against? Those Orams leave you guessing, what next?

A couple disagrees about an Adirondack chair they received long ago as a wedding gift in “The Chair”. It represents one of the most thoughtful gifts they received, how could Cappie’s husband desire to be rid of it, seeing it as a relic. A bear incites a bit of sanctimonious snobbery towards ‘flatlanders’ in The Bear Is Back, anyone who has ever read neighborhood postings and snippy comments will relate. More so if you are not born to a place. A widow ponders grief and time as she gets lost on the trail behind her home, mesmerized almost as ‘the trees brought her into their hush’. Convinced that her mountain is playing some sort of trickery on her, she remembers when she and her husband first moved to Vermont, young and hungry intellectuals. The Forest Tavern deals with false history and the fascinating ways people fictionalize a thing, or a place, to give it shape. Potions is about betrayal but also how glorious it can be to wish things better with your child’s little hands clasped in your own. In Monsters Nana warns the grandchildren of monsters in the woods, naturally they think she is full of it. Then Nana shows them the critter cam.The siblings are already battle worn from their parents terrible marriage, what could a monster do? There are other tales about a couple who live in a house where tragedy took place, a friend who may be a ghost and woman who knows her plan to stop logging is stupid, but can’t seem to help herself.

The stories take place in a small college town in Vermont, with locals and transplants dealing with aging, affairs, wild creatures, careers, loneliness and the woods that are always seeming to encroach. For some, the woods beckon, for others it is a threat or up to trickery. Several of the stories were moving, not all of them had me hooked, but it was beautifully written. If you need something to wind down from the chaos of living, this is the book. I enjoyed it.

Publication Date: November 10, 2022

University of Iowa Press

I will admit I had a tough time with this one. I think it may have been a combination of me not being in the mood for a slow read and the writing being a bit too descriptive for my taste. I wanted to connect with the stories but they were all very sad or depressing. I enjoyed the setting but wished that the stories revolves around the woods a bit more. Again, I definitely feel like it was personal preferences that hindered my experience more than the writing itself.

A beautiful collection of stories written with lyrical prose.

I am not usually a fan of short stories, but this was so lovingly written, you could read the care that she constructed each story with. The reader gets a strong sense of the subjects, the landscape, the world. In the first story when she is describing the hike in the woods with her neighbor to the statue made of chicken wire, you get transported. You can smell the crisp air, hear the leaves crunch underfoot, and even the spooky wonder of the figure herself is crafted with so much sensual description you are transported.

This beautiful collection of stories of a town in Vermont is more of a study of normal people and of grief.

Ordinary people, with ordinary lives, all dealing with their own pain and their own problems, all going on their own day by day. It's a beautiful way to look at life, Just a slice of life.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Very good writing here. Probably best for serious literature fans or those that like serious storied and writing. The author's talent shines thru. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

Short stories have all the anxiety without any of the resolution.

The small-town Vermont setting was the best part of these. I lived in a town like this for a few months in grad school and I enjoyed being transported back there while reading.

That being said, I don’t understand why short stories are so often depressing. Most of these seemed to focus on career-less/job-less women who feel useless/abandoned/lonely. There’s infidelity, cancer, divorce, death of a spouse, death of a child. There’s a failed artist and at least two failed writers. A ghost and a shadowy monster.

Predictably well-written and beautifully descriptive but don’t read if you’re looking for a happy ending.

This is a book of interesting stories about The author moving to Vermont and making new friends with a People and a homeless cat a local ghost and many other interesting tales. I initially thought this book is fiction but wasn’t disappointed at the non-fiction stories of her life. I found them interesting. It’s always fun to look inside someone else’s life in the authors writing style makes it that much better. I highly recommend this book I received it from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for giving me the chance to read and review this book! What first appealed to me was the book cover, it is honestly simple, yet so beautiful that it really drew me in and often, covers can really set the tone for the book for me. This book is a collection of short stories of a small college town and surrounding areas in Vermont with a lot of woods, which each reminded me so much of my own small midwestern town. The author has a great writing style and does well with descriptions to set the scene. I think I really enjoy “The Potions” the most of all of the short stories; the story and characters were very relatable for me. Each short story really has a way of pulling you in, but also ending at just the right time to leave you satisfied with the story presented, which is appreciated and makes each of these a quick and effortless read. As someone who lives surrounded by woods, I know that I will now often be reminded of these characters and their stories whenever I step outside. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend.

I really enjoyed these connected stories. A great book about place and those we are. Look forward to more by this author

As a reader, I always gravitate toward creative intersections of place and personhood, and The Woods nails it. Gorgeously crafted scenes point to a larger world, with snapshots of characters I'd follow into much broader treatments. Obuchowski's use of language, her talent for interweaving high-level themes with on-the-ground tone, and the slow-burn collapse of comfort and expectation give rise to an extraordinarily engaging collection. A high recommend.

Reviewed for NetGalley:

These stories came across as very somber, slow reads for me. I enjoyed the concept, but didn't love the result.

This was pretty much exactly the sort of book ‘ve come to expect from university presses. Somber and sincere, emotionally intelligent, meticulously crafted collection of slice of life short stories taking place in a small town in Vermont. So very well rendered and yet so meditative and slow as to almost invoke words like torpid and soporific. Or, you know, on the nicest side of that coin, let’s say very mellow, very quiet, and not very exciting.
It’ll work for you directly in proportion to how much in the mood you are for that sort of thing.
For me, having just come back from a (kidnapping) family vacation set in a very similar sort of woodsy bucolic place, it was kinda of interesting and certainly resonant, but ultimately (much like the place I visited) the destination didn’t really sign to me.
I don’t care how many trees it takes to make up the woods, after a while they all begin to blend together.
The last couple of stories were pretty good, second to last might have been the best.
It’s difficult with a book like that, because it’s so technically well done, so there’s a discrepancy between rating the thing itself and the reading experience. Guess I’m going to round the rating up for quality over plain readership enjoyment. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.

Thank you to University of Iowa Press for giving me access to this book as an E-ARC via Netgalley. All opinions are my own. This book will be published on November 10th, 2022.

“The Woods: Stories” by Janice Obuchowski is just that. It’s a collection of short stories all connected by the woods surrounding the characters we meet in the different stories. I found the pace in all the stories quite slow and thoughtful, and I really enjoyed that pace. It felt fitting to the collection.

My favourite short was the first one titled “The Cat”, I thought that chapter really showcased a sort of feeling of vastness, emptiness and that things comes and goes in our lives.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and the University of Iowa Press for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Woods releases on November 10

This was a collection of short stories from characters that all live in a small town in Vermont, that is surrounded by untamed woods.
The common theme between characters and stories seemed to be finding solace with whatever their current situation may have been — whether that be dealing with grief, sibling dynamics, parenthood, marriage, or career changes.
Each story either had a character that was a professor, writer, knew a writer, or mentioned this towns elusive poet.
This was set during + mentions pandemic life, which I wasn’t expecting to be part of the plot.
Overall, I would have hoped for this novel to be a bit more eerie and atmospheric, or to focus more on the actual woods.
There were also quite a few typos — enough for it to be mentioned even though this wasn’t a final copy.