Gould's third book is an eerie, thought-provoking read. It's underlying message—that the things we don't talk about lose their power if we do—is a powerful one that resonated deeply with me.

(4.5/5) I'm a big fan of Courtney Gould and this may be my favourite of her works yet. In this propulsive page-turner, she tackles the unregulated and destructive "troubled teen" industry, examining horrors both paranormal and all too real. With her trademark blend of surreal horror and sapphic slow-burn romance, this was an engaging and unsettling read.

When Devin wakes up in the middle of the night to two men in her bedroom, she is convinced that she is being abducted. Unbeknownst to her, her foster parents had hired them to transport her to a "troubled teen" camp. The days are gruelling and the company is no better. Soon, camp counselors Liz and Ethan vanish in the middle of the night, forcing the teens to figure out how to survive. However, when Liz stumbles back into their camp a week later, bloody and battered, things take an even darker turn. Is this all a test, a part of their punishment, or is something more sinister going on?

In many ways, this novel is the anti-Lord of the Flies, a testament to found family and resilience, a reminder that we can only survive through community. The ending – oof! My heart! I definitely read far too many thrillers and horror novels as I was on tenterhooks the entire time, hoping for no big twist, no gotcha moment – I'm just rooting for these goofy kids and praying that they make it. This was a brilliant read from start to finish with compelling characters and a relentless plotline. Highly recommended.

Saw 'Courtney Gould' and was in. Let me tell you, I LOVE books set in wilderness settings. Camps, retreats, hiking, whatever. This was creepy and fantastic. I at no point knew what was to come. 4.5 stars.

An appealing blurb and cover, but the story left much to be wanted. It was a very, very slow start; took a long time to get into the action and the meat of the story. I expected the creepiness to start sooner, and it was hard to tell which direction the story was going. The writing was plain at times but character development was executed well.

Thank you to NetGalley for offering this title in their catalogue. This opinion is entirely my own.

I love Courtney’s books more than i love my gay teenage self, and i think that’s exactly why I cannot stop obsessing over them. The fucked up, stupid, queer kids that she puts in horrifying situations that somehow help them through their trauma is everything i wish little gay me had. And if I couldn’t have it then, at least I have it now. I cannot hold more room in my heart for this book because it’s already full of love for Sheridan and Devin and their grief and trauma. They’re so mean to each other in such a feral way that it turns back to love and I’m obsessed with them.

This is a new-to-me author, and I was completely blown away by this book. From the very beginning I was captivated. The characters were well thought out and pieces of each character really resonated with me. I loved the supernatural elements thrown in. What The Woods Took is an excellent story of survival and found family.

It's official. Gould is one of my favorite authors.

I thought she outdone herself with her sophomore book Where Echoes Die, but she managed to exceed my expectations far more with this book. This has become my absolute favorite by her.

The creepy and atmospheric writing sending chills up my spine, the excellent banter and relationship the five teens form together through surviving the unimaginable horrors (Devin, especially, had my heart), the creatures with interesting abilities that psychologically destroy our characters every time they show up?? God, I absolutely ate with this book. I swear, this is gonna stick with me all year, and I cannot wait for this book to release so it can join her sisters on my shelf.

Overall, amazing book. I could gush a lot more about all the things I loved about this book, but I'd rather leave you to pick up the book and experience it yourself.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for an eARC of this novel!

You’re reading this in bed and you slowly realize the room it’s darker then you thought and quieter then it’s even been. The cold slides under your skin and nips at your bones.

What the woods took is a slow and eerie descent into the horrors of the unknown. It brings you into a world of mistrust, vastness and fear. As you read through you slowly feel what the characters feel. You feel their anxieties and fear.

I didn’t want to stop reading. There were some parts that I felt were slow but I think that added to the overall story. It allowed you to immerse yourself into the story and characters.

Review also posted on Goodreads!

This is a survival story, this is a monster story but mostly, it’s a story about found family and how we can find them in the most unlikely of places.

I have gushed about Gould’s writing before – see my reviews on The Dead and the Dark and Where Echoes Die– gird yourselves, I’m going to gush again.

Gould takes the most unlikely of characters and molds them into the most remarkable of people. Each of them so incredibly damaged, and yet, their humanity and goodness shine through in the most brave and beautiful ways. I loved every single one of them throughout their journeys.

A little bit about the premise

Devon is ripped from her bed at her latest foster home and driven with Ollie to an unknown location to participate in an experimental wilderness therapy program, REVIVE. A 52-day trek into the woods with four other teens and two counselors that are barely into their 20’s.

Devin wants nothing more than to escape but the location makes this impossible. Forced to go along with the group, it isn’t long before Devon notices something off about the woods. A feeling of being watched and strange faces among the leaves. When the counselors disappear and don’t return, Devon and the other teens have to learn to survive themselves, certainly a challenge but the addition of something unnatural in the forest, stalking them, puts things in a whole different perspective.

Gould writes an extraordinarily atmospheric coming of age horror story that held me captivated and connected with every page.

The thing with Gould’s writing is that there are so many layers and I’m still peeling back those layers as I sit here thinking about what I want to say. This is an extremely early review and I’ve just read the last page. I’ll probably be back to rewrite but I wanted to say that I loved this story and I wouldn’t call it just a horror, or just a coming of age, or just a survival story … it’s so much more and I know my review won’t be able to capture that.

Poignant, terrifying, heart-wrenching, unforgettable

**Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.

What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould is a young adult horror novel.  It is a dual-point-of-view novel about two young people who are sent by their parents/guardians to a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens and things go horribly wrong.  It is set to be published on December 10th, 2024.  I rated it 4 stars on Goodreads.


Here's the summary from Goodreads:

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.
Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.
Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.
Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.

This was a really interesting novel.  The subject of trouble teens wilderness therapy programs is one that I have heard a lot about recently, so it seems like the perfect setting for a horror novel.  That entire concept is already pretty horrific, and Courtney Gould did a wonderful job of expanding on that and adding an additional layer of horror.  She managed to craft an incredibly atmospheric novel and I found myself haunted by the reality that she constructed and also the elements of fiction that she wove in.  In some ways, the realistic elements were scarier, but I still really enjoyed the horror novel that she wrote.

There are two main point of view characters, Devin and Ollie.  They both had different voices, and brought interesting layers to the story.  I enjoyed both of their perspective's equally, and really felt for them as they were forced to face the various obstacles that they came across.  They are very sympathetic characters who haven't been dealt good hands.  I liked seeing them interact with the other characters, and I liked seeing them grow as people.

The monsters in this novel (the mimics, not the adults who failed these teens) were really interesting to me.  I found it interesting how they were shapeshifters and seemed to be able to read minds a bit.  I was also intrigued by their need to consensually take a human's form in order to leave their land.  However, I wanted things to be a bit more resolved in areas related to them.  I still had some questions that I wanted answered.

The romance elements that were developed through the story were really well done.  There were definitely some toxic elements, but you also saw a lot of character growth before anything romantic actually happened.  I just felt that the characters all had an interesting dynamic.

If you are intrigued by the premise, I would definitely suggest that you check out this book when it releases in December.

Creepy, atmospheric, and tense as hell, this book will grab you from the first paragraph and keep its hold on you until the very end. The premise of this book was absolutely fascinating to me, and I was very interested in seeing how it played out. I finished this book in two days, and as someone who doesn’t typically care for YA, that says a lot.

When I first finished this book, I had to put it to the side to decide what needed to be said. I went into this book excited for monsters and horror and gore, but what I got was this extremely heartfelt story about abuse, trauma, and the road you take after you've been so beaten down you've nearly given up hope. As someone who faced abuse as a teenager and suffered for years in silence with unresolved issues, this book hit home in a way I never would have thought possible from a book with inhuman creatures. I should have done taken the time to right this review months ago, but sadly, I wasn't brave enough and I worried my own emotions wouldn't do this book the justice it deserves.
The author introduced her characters and then over the course of the book filled you in on their backstory and it made it feel like you were meeting a friend and over the course of days you were getting to know them, understand their motivations and reasoning. The horror aspect of this story never outshone the relationships being built between characters and the building up these characters were doing inside themselves and with each other. The romance was also not too heavy and it felt earned instead of rushed and pushed in just for the use of the word "sapphic" (which has sadly been happening a bit too much in my experience). The relationships built in this book weren't only romantic either and even those felt earned. The author took her time giving you the backstory of each character, building the world they lived in, and even took her time slowly enveloping the reader in the deep dark woods and everything that lies within. You may want to scream at the characters to turn around and run from those woods, but you will find yourself staying up late into the night traveling and trying to discover their secrets.
I don't want to ruin this book for the readers who are going to stumble upon it, so I won't go into the detail I want to go into, but you should read this book if you enjoy horror, survival, thrillers, suspense, a touch of found family, and a beautiful healing journey. This book most likely isn't for the romance readers out there, but if you like a little romance with a lot of scare then it is perfect for you too. This was my last read of 2023 and it was one of my favorites. I still find myself thinking of these characters months later, relating to them in new ways, hoping for their strength on hard days... and if that doesn't say something about the talent of the author, I don't know what could ever do it.

I absolutely loved this one!! I stayed up all night to finish it. It was super atmospheric & haunting. Courtney Gould is such a talented author, I’ll keep reading anything she writes!! I cannot wait for this to come out of everyone has the chance to read it.

Thank you to St. Martin's Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

Devin is "kidnapped" in the middle of the night and taken from her most recent foster family's home to the middle of nowhere to a wilderness camp for troubled teens. She meets Ollie on the ride there, and Hannah, Aiden, Sheridan, and Coaches Liv and Ethan, when they arrive.

The plan is to hike through the woods for 50 days. About two weeks in, both of the coaches disappear. Then it's up to the kids to try to get themselves out of the woods without killing each other first, and um, well, there are monsters in the woods.

I love a rugged survival story, a troubled teen story, a group of strangers-who-have-to-work-together story; and monsters make it even more interesting. So, this hit on a lot of my likes.

I stayed up past midnight two nights in a row reading this book. I can't say that about any book in years. I think I read it in 3 days. I can't say THAT about any book in years, either.

I've read the first two books by Courtney Gould, and I really liked them. This is my favorite, though. I think I'll read anything she publishes

If you love spooky survival books that take place in the wilderness, then this is the book for you. Do you also like complex, flawed characters? Then this is definitely the book for you.

When a wilderness therapy program goes wrong, a group of teens find themselves forced to rely on each other to survive. They soon find themselves in a race against the clock to escape the woods before their food runs out. With dangerous monsters lurking in the woods, they have no choice but to face their traumas and fight for the lives they want, and each other, if they want to make it out alive.

The mix of horror fits well with the wilderness setting and the past traumas each character is fighting. Every character is flawed and grappling with their inner monsters while also facing the ones stalking them through the trees. The character transformations and arcs were where this book really shined for me. The mix of emotional character arcs and horror made this a suspenseful, but heartfelt read.

I enjoyed this book, but I did feel like the middle got kind of muddled. It has to be hard to write about people surviving in the wilderness for 300+ pages, but part of me just felt like the timeline was disjointed.

Things I did like: character development, honesty about addiction not ever being “over,” the first half was extremely fast paced and easy to get sucked into.

Thank you to NetGalley, Courtney Gould, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Summary: Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled by their parents in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say. It doesn’t take long before things start to go wrong. When the campers wake up to find both counselors missing and all their gear left behind, they realize they are stranded and left to fend for themselves. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Thoughts: Before I read this novel, I knew nothing about wilderness survival therapy, which is an extreme form of outdoor programs to try to change troubled teenage behaviour. There are some accredited and highly regarded programs in the US, however there are many more unaccredited and very dangerous programs which capitalize on parental fear and frustration to charge exorbitant fees while neglecting or abusing teens. For a shocking and informative exposé, read Jon Krakauer’s article “Loving Them to Death”.

In What the Woods Took, Ethan and Liv are not abusive, however they are woefully unprepared for the dangers that lie in the nature reserve. Each of the teens has a sad and difficult history along with a damaged relationship with their parents. I cannot imagine the feeling of betrayal that a teen would feel while being forcibly removed from their own home in the middle of the night with their parents’ consent. Before starting the novel, I had no idea there was a supernatural element to the story so the source of the danger came as a bit of a surprise. However, it fit the underlying themes of the novel extremely well – betrayal by family members, not feeling able to understand or trust those closest to you and figuring out your own identity in the world. This is my second novel by Courtney Gould and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Where Echoes Die. It is a tense, provocative read and I highly recommend it.

A tender, revealing, and hauntingly atmospheric read about a group of troubled teens in wilderness therapy who find themselves forsaken in the forest with monsters that mimic, with monsters that hunger to take their place. Gould excels in creating a desolate yet claustrophobic environment which challenges the characters to not only confront their innermost demons, but to heal, to connect. Thereby forcing them to band together to escape the horrors that lurk in the woods.

This is a story of friendship, of survival, of coping with trauma. It's the kind of tale that has readers breathlessly looking over their shoulder each time a branch snaps or the birds fall silent; the kind that leaves their words feeling brash, their hearts pounding, and their fists clenching; the kind that has them making unexpected discoveries about the characters and what they're capable of overcoming.
I thought this made for a singular blend of inward vs. outward horror.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

3.5 stars

WHAT THE WOODS TOOK is a suspenseful and tense slow-burn horror that is like THE THING but with a cast of queer and "troubled" teens. The characters are all well-crafted, the atmosphere is amazing, and it overall shapes into a delightfully creepy survival horror that's difficult to put down.

What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould starts off with a rush of activity as Devin is being forcibly kidnapped in the middle of the night. She quickly goes into survival mode of flight or fight. Until she finds herself in the wilderness with a bunch of other kids who are also in survival mode, then Devin has to decide if she should flee or stay and help the others.
This is a fast paced thriller that takes place in a remote, creepy environment. The teens have to learn from each other and rely on each other to survive, which is difficult for them considering their past traumas. The teens have to deal with these past traumas and the the trauma of the wilderness. Will they survive or destroy each other in the process?
I really enjoyed this creepy, tense atmospheric story. The details made you feel as though you were right in the woods with Devin and the other teens. You could feel their emotions burnt into the pages of the story. I look forward to reading more by Courtney Gould in the future.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy of the book. The opinions are my own.