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The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher
Nov. 26th, 2015 11:23 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
Emily’s dad is accused of killing a teenage girl in the woods. Emily is sure he’s innocent, but struggles to work out what actually happened that night. That is, until she crosses paths with Damon, the boyfriend of the dead girl. Maybe they could help each other? But Damon has his own secrets about the dangerous games that are being played in the dark.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Lucy Christopher’s third YA novel is a so-so psychological thriller that doesn’t really do justice to its emotional themes of PTSD or grief and becomes bogged down in an unnecessary and predictable romance. This is a shame because the opening chapter is an absolute cracker that sets up both the emotional conflict between Emily and her mother whilst introducing Emily’s father’s PTSD and his belief in his own guilt. In fact, the investigation elements are interesting as Emily tries to piece together what her father and Ashlee were each doing in the forest and Christopher does well both at keeping up the tension and showing how teenagers turn on each other in a bad situation. Where the book falls down though is in the Damon storyline. He has a similar background to Emily (his soldier father was killed by an IED) and ever since, he’s been hanging out with his friends taking drugs and drinking and losing himself in the brilliant, sexy Ashlee. His amnesia about the night Ashlee died never really convinced me and nor did the slow reveal flashbacks. The biggest irritation though was the inevitable romance that develops between him and Emily, mainly because it just seemed so unnecessary – I actually wished that instead of a romance, there’d been more of a prickly tension between them as each have their own perfectly good reasons for trying to find out what happened that night. All of this is a shame because Christopher is shaping up to be an interesting writer, willing to tackle different genres and subject matter and as such, whilst this book didn’t quite come good for me, I’ll definitely check out Christopher’s next book.
Emily’s dad is accused of killing a teenage girl in the woods. Emily is sure he’s innocent, but struggles to work out what actually happened that night. That is, until she crosses paths with Damon, the boyfriend of the dead girl. Maybe they could help each other? But Damon has his own secrets about the dangerous games that are being played in the dark.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Lucy Christopher’s third YA novel is a so-so psychological thriller that doesn’t really do justice to its emotional themes of PTSD or grief and becomes bogged down in an unnecessary and predictable romance. This is a shame because the opening chapter is an absolute cracker that sets up both the emotional conflict between Emily and her mother whilst introducing Emily’s father’s PTSD and his belief in his own guilt. In fact, the investigation elements are interesting as Emily tries to piece together what her father and Ashlee were each doing in the forest and Christopher does well both at keeping up the tension and showing how teenagers turn on each other in a bad situation. Where the book falls down though is in the Damon storyline. He has a similar background to Emily (his soldier father was killed by an IED) and ever since, he’s been hanging out with his friends taking drugs and drinking and losing himself in the brilliant, sexy Ashlee. His amnesia about the night Ashlee died never really convinced me and nor did the slow reveal flashbacks. The biggest irritation though was the inevitable romance that develops between him and Emily, mainly because it just seemed so unnecessary – I actually wished that instead of a romance, there’d been more of a prickly tension between them as each have their own perfectly good reasons for trying to find out what happened that night. All of this is a shame because Christopher is shaping up to be an interesting writer, willing to tackle different genres and subject matter and as such, whilst this book didn’t quite come good for me, I’ll definitely check out Christopher’s next book.
