The Woods Are Always Watching – Stephanie Perkins

Two high school best friends go on a camping trip as a last fling before they go their separate ways for college.  An argument the first night puts them on edge, but the events of the second day draw them back together, thanks to a sinkhole, a broken ankle, dead bodies, a missing hand, and a duo of murderous men who hunt them individually and, eventually, together.  In order to escape, they will need some help from mother nature.

The Woods Are Always Watching, a young adult thriller from Stephanie Perkins, entered my household as a birthday gift for my nearly 70-year-old mother.  Now, you may be asking yourself “who would buy a young adult thriller for an old lady?”  A valid question, dear reader.  When all you know about your co-worker is that they like to read, and you head to the local bookstore with your pre-teen child and have them pick out the book, this is the result.  So why did I read it?  It was there.  Perkins tells a tale.  An unlikely tale, but a tale none the less.  Nothing really happens for the first half of the book, other than the big argument that nearly drive the girls apart but pick up considerably in the second half.  The ending is so ludicrous that you won’t even bother questioning it.