ARC Reviews: The Woods Are Always Watching and They’ll Never Catch Us

I enjoyed Perkins’ first foray into contemporary horror with THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE. It felt a little closer to a mystery/thriller for me, which is probably why it worked. The whole “teen thrasher movie” vibe was fun and I was eager to read her next. After reading this, I am definitely ready for her to get back into contemporary romance. The story centers around Meena and Josie, two best friends who decide to take a 20 mile backpacking trip in the woods before one of them leaves for college in California. The first half of the book is just them bickering and having issues as they hike, try to set up camp, and sleep in the woods. The story picks up a lot and was pretty addicting in the second half. Josie falls and injures herself, which forces the two of them to separate while Meena runs to get help. They’re a full day into their journey at this point so she has quite a ways to go. When they encounter some less-than-helpful fellow “hikers” in the forest, things get worse for them. This was definitely more horror than thriller, with some pretty terrible gore happening. I should have seen it coming obviously but it just felt yuckier than her previous horror novel. I didn’t really enjoy that this was mostly two girls walking through the woods and fighting for the first half – it was a little boring and I missed having a full cast of characters like I […]