Of all the guesses of putting pieces together as who’s done it, I only got one thing right. It’s the bag that Barbara retrieved from her house.
Multiple Timelines
The multiple timelines surprisingly add more mystery to the story, a way to show clues and just keep your mind boggling. I started to figure this out through Jacob’s character when I had to read back and find his previous timeline and POV to help me decipher what his role really is. The part when he was hiding somewhere in the room and hearing footsteps, I can imagine a real scene in a movie. It’s like using the same scene but showing two different timelines, the past and the present. In the present when he was caught by the police while from the past when he witnessed the long-time secret of the Van Laars.
Women
As contradicting as Jacob’s character history, I like the way he trusts Judy, the Nation’s first investigator. He lures women by their weakness yet he’s bold enough to entrust a woman with a difficult truth. And this is what the book I think is trying to tell the readers.
In the first part of the book, the women characters were shown as weak and misjudged. Alice, not as intellectual as her sister Delphine; Louise, her love for man was manipulated and used as a tool to exert control; T.J., misgendered by her strong personality; Barbara, neglected and seen as replacement of her deceased older sibling, The Grandmother Van Laar; shown like a puppet following her husband.
But as soon as Judy’s character appeared, almost all of the characters started to develop and grow. What differs her among the rest is she managed not to show weakness despite her unforgiving thoughts of judgement by everyone. Her investigator instinct and T.J. ‘s proficient camping director skills complements altogether to solve the long-time hidden truth all the while discovering the recent mystery.
In the end, Alice was able to move on and grief for his son; Louise got justice for her previous abuse and harassment from her boyfriend, T.J. successfully accomplished her plan to give justice to the wrongly accused while Barbara finally was able to love by its own freedom away from her rigid Van Laars family.
The Other Women
But there’s more, the book also showed a different side of women. That the ones who are always seen as intellectual and beautiful will mostly likely be the snakes that you least expected. Delphine, who sleeps around her sister’s husband while Annabel, the 17-year-old counselor in training, sleeps around her counselor, Louise’s boyfriend.
But there’s one lady character that left me hanging, the Grandmother Van Laar. I can’t pinpoint which side she is on, but she was the one who gave Judy the very most important key to solve the mystery, to interview Victor Hewitt. She either told Judy to arrest Victor or to guide Judy through Victor to know the real culprit. If it is the latter, then I assume she has always been part of T.J.’s plan.
Whatever it is, the God of the Woods is a 400+ page book and despite the low ratings and some not so nice reviews, I carried on. Well, it didn’t disappoint!
How about you? What do you think?
