The Woods

"A story of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. <br/><br/>Red lives in a closed in village in the woods with her Gran. In the village, they are taught to fear the woods and the animals that live in it, the wolves. But when Red is forced outside the walls of her safe village, she is forced to reluctantly take help to survive from her enemy. She learns the true past to her village and who the enemy actually is.<br/><br/>So I read this book as an ARC and thank you to Em for sending it to me! All parts of this review are my own and unbiased.<br/><br/>I did enjoy the Red Riding Hood vibes. I’m definitely a fan of fairy tale retellings. I enjoyed seeing aspects of the original story twisted through out this one to bring it together.<br/><br/>What I wasn’t a huge fan of was some of the lack of originality. Now Em does a great job with the creativeness of the woods and the village in her story, so it was frustrating to see that creativeness go by the wayside with things like: <br/><br/>-the main characters’s name.. Red.. that’s it. We never learn her real name, she’s called by her nickname which is a color through the entire story<br/>-the grandmothers name.. she literally has everyone call her Gran.. everyone in the village<br/>- the names of some other towns in the book, there’s an entire town called grandmother’s house…???<br/>- there were some other cliche lines like “what big teeth you have” but I somewhat anticipated that<br/><br/>I would have liked to see more originality in these areas to go with the creativeness of the story. <br/><br/>The only other thing I wasn’t crazy about, was I felt for some of the adult content in this book, I personally would have liked the writing and dialogue between characters to be a little more mature.<br/><br/>All in all, it’s a light, easy read. I’d recommend it to fairy tale lovers, and I would read more from this author in the future to see how her stories and writing develop.<br/>"

"Edgy and captivating. Couldn't put it down. Coben knows how to write a book! Little mind player this one was but very enjoyable "

"No filler context and a phenomenal plot that keeps you begging for more!"

"Don’t watch the Netflix series if you read this book. It doesn’t do it justice. "

"I think this had a fantastic start, but I felt that it had so many twists and turns that didn't really amount to much of anything. After about halfway through, I was nearly tempted to put the book down for a bit. I did grow attached to the main character in the beginning but started to get annoyed by him as the story went along. The ending just wasn't there for me. There was just too much going on. On a more positive note, I did find this book humorous at times. Also, I did find myself in a state of suspense every now and then. So that's why I'm giving this read 3 stars. I'm not giving up on Harlan Coben yet!"

"I read this after watching this show and I was surprise to find how similar the show stays to the book. There are things that I think were done better in the book than in the show but other than that it was a very good and quick read. "

"Great thriller by Harlan Coben! Mystery after mystery!"

"It was my first Harlan Coben book. It got me hooked. He’s now one of my favorite authors!"

"The first 150 pages or so were a little slow but then it picked up in true Harlan Coben fashion. Lots of twists and turns. "

"Literally got chills when it came to the twist at the veeeeery end. Got me good. REALLY fun mystery. "