The Little Woods

Aug 22, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: why-yes-i-ya

yeah, i just had fun reading this book.

there are a lot of two-star reviews of this book on here, and while i find myself agreeing with a lot of the criticisms of the book: the fact that is doesn't hide its secrets well, the baffling but obligatory love triangle(s), the uneven delivery of the two mystery-plots, the emphasis on the beautiful beautiful people... i don't know - it was just a really fun and fast read, and i freaking loved cally.

and it is not because she is punk rock in a sea of rich...more
yeah, i just had fun reading this book.

there are a lot of two-star reviews of this book on here, and while i find myself agreeing with a lot of the criticisms of the book: the fact that is doesn't hide its secrets well, the baffling but obligatory love triangle(s), the uneven delivery of the two mystery-plots, the emphasis on the beautiful beautiful people... i don't know - it was just a really fun and fast read, and i freaking loved cally.

and it is not because she is punk rock in a sea of rich (and, yes, beautiful) kids, but because she is coming out of a background of damage (you can read the book-synopsis - i don't feel like writing a book report right now, just my response to it - sorry), and seems to be forming a really interesting personality as a result. yes, she is lazy, squandering her academic gifts, but she isn't throwing herself into the oblivion of drinking and drugs and sex. she dabbles a little, in a way that is calculating and fascinating, the same way she dabbles into forming relationships with these beautiful, and foreign to her experience, kinds of people. she is just sniffing around, testing the waters.

reviewers say that cally and alex as a couple makes no sense. and they don't. but it makes sense, to me, in remembering my own teen "relationships." sometimes we just want something beautiful to walk next to us. high school relationships, i mean, they weren't always intense, you know? you see someone, and you think "phoar - hot" and you go and talk to it. and it's completely superficial and you have nothing in common, but you like to be attached to something pretty.so that didn't bother me so much. and then when jack entered the picture, it was all-out teen hormones and no regrets. (view spoiler)

the mystery... yeah, we all saw it coming. but cally didn't. and her discovery of it, with all of the red herrings and misjudgments still served a purpose. i think the story was less about the payoff of the mystery itself and more about her as a character. i think this is frequently the case in boarding-school narratives. they are about the "other", the "stranger" being placed in a setting where it is like an old-timey small-town setting where everyone knows everyone else's business, and the new arrival has to catch up to what everyone else takes for granted, find their own place within this setting, and then either acclimate or reject it.

and cally alternates between the two. she's a punk/goth kid who isn't trying to be edgy, she is just unselfconsciously lazy about her appearance and she eats like a crazy stoned hummingbird. you had better believe i am going out to buy a box of cheerios and seeing what they taste like covered in honey. and she doesn't try to be something she's not, but she does try to see how the other half lives, which i think feels realistic. and she's clever. i like her occasional vocabulary-flourishes.they were never overdone to the point of annoying me, which can happen with overly-articulate YA characters. she just seemed clever, and i liked her banter.

this was just a quick little read, and i think if you don't go into it thinking it is going to be a thrilling mystery novel, you will like it. as a boarding-school character study, i think it is very successful, and maybe i just misplaced my critical faculties when i was reading it, but i enjoyed it more than the book i had forgotten at home, which was why i had to borrow this book from work in the first place. i guess everything happens for a reason, yeah?
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Jul 08, 2012 Giselle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, ebook, contemporary

An eerie setting, a boarding school, a few missing girls - where do I sign up? I love the idea of this book, the vibe throughout is mysterious and slightly creepy. Yeah, maybe it wasn't perfect, it needed better characterization and some things made the plot feel a bit discombobulated, but I had a good time.

Those who enjoy thrillers, mysteries, and everything creepy will undoubtedly love the atmosphere we get inside this novel. I think, in particular, those who haven't read many books in the gen...more An eerie setting, a boarding school, a few missing girls - where do I sign up? I love the idea of this book, the vibe throughout is mysterious and slightly creepy. Yeah, maybe it wasn't perfect, it needed better characterization and some things made the plot feel a bit discombobulated, but I had a good time.

Those who enjoy thrillers, mysteries, and everything creepy will undoubtedly love the atmosphere we get inside this novel. I think, in particular, those who haven't read many books in the genre will be the ones to truly get lost in this story. Being an avid reader of thrillers, myself, I felt it was missing a little… something. The whole plot is very ordinary; we've got a typical mystery with predictable twists. Nothing makes it truly shine from all the rest. I found a lot of aspects unnecessary as well, where I kept wondering why these were added to the plot at all. Cheating, drugs, and sex, for example, which I have absolutely no problem with in YA novels as I find it makes them realistic and often relatable, I didn't see the appeal in this case. Likewise, so many directionless bits (including seemingly random mentions of goddesses) are smushed inside this book which is already filled with more than enough betrayals, murders, mysteries, and secrets. I simply found a lot of it irrelevant for both plot and characterization, giving us nothing more than a whole bunch of superfluous information. For instance: Cally almost shaving her head. Was this supposed to fortify her already confusing personality? Or was it simply an uncalled for act of rebellion? There is also the big mystery element of the Woods itself that I thought would be examined further, yet it never goes beyond these singular occurrences. While the mystery we get is fun, chilling, and entertaining -- easily 3-star worthy --, I had the impression it would be much grander. Instead of making it so crowded, strengthening the characters would have helped garner the strong impact intended.

The fact that it's not a very character-oriented plot definitely makes the lack of character building easy to overlook. The main character, Cally, is extremely hard to identify with. Getting a feel of her personality is next to impossible, but I do admit to enjoying what I did perceive. She has an easygoing style that I was quickly attuned to. Although she's incredibly naive when it comes to boys and relationships, I think we've all done stupid mistakes at that age, making it easy to understand her even when we want to slap her silly. The other characters, to be honest, I kept confusing who was who. No one particularly stands out, which is not a very big deal in a thriller such as this. Their purpose is for dramatic effects, for which it succeeds.

Dramatic, creepy, with enjoyable twists, The Little Woods is perfect for those who like thrillers that are spooky, but still lets you sleep well at night.

--
For more of my reviews, visit my blog at Xpresso Reads

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Mar 30, 2012 Katy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don't get it - Not because the book was confusing, but because I don't understand what the point was.

The book itself was very cliche. It's the same played-out storyline that the majority of young adult books nowadays use - the boarding school, the unresolved murder mystery, the hot boys and love triangles, the mean girls and BFFs and not knowing who your real friends are. But I was hoping this book would have its own personality, and it didn't.

The murder mystery is too predictable. You knew fr...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Pinkie Pie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley-edelweiss

I'm just gonna come right out and say it: I didn't like this book. There were too many characters, an easy mystery, a weird romance, and boring main character. None of it made any sense to me whatsoever. There was only one character that I liked (loved) but that's hardly a redemptive quality to fix an entire book.

First and foremost, the writing was ridonkulous. The narration was done by your typical seventeen year old girl, but then every once in a while there was a crazy, out of place SAT word...more I'm just gonna come right out and say it: I didn't like this book. There were too many characters, an easy mystery, a weird romance, and boring main character. None of it made any sense to me whatsoever. There was only one character that I liked (loved) but that's hardly a redemptive quality to fix an entire book.

First and foremost, the writing was ridonkulous. The narration was done by your typical seventeen year old girl, but then every once in a while there was a crazy, out of place SAT word that did NOT in any way fit into the style. Examples:

crepuscular; loggia; bacchanals; strigine; bellicose; drosophila; ersatz; variegated; hirsute; puerility; sybaritic; autodidact; hypoxic

These were just in the first 50 pages or so. Some of them I had to look up, others not, but all of them did not fit in with a YA mystery with a 17 year old average narrator. No sir.

Now, the characters. Cally is our MC, a girl who lost her sister, a sister who supposedly died in a fire in the Little Woods outside the school Cally enrolls herself in. There is really no mention of why Cally would want to go to school where her sister died, and there's not enough motivation behind Cally's actions. Moving Cally to this school only served to create the plot. Without this ridiculous, motivationless, thoughtless decision, there would be no book. Whatever.

Once Cally does move into this school (whose name eludes me) she meets a gang of girls. There's about 5-7 of these girls and they are all exactly the same. I mean, they are described as looking different, but all their voices are the same, and I can't tell one from the next. This happens a lot when books have a huge cast of characters like this.

Cally gets a boyfriend. I don't really understand what he sees in her. He's gorgeous, obvi, and the most popular, sought-after, best athlete guy in the whole school. He never settles down until he meets Cally. Who admittedly isn't good-looking, wears boys' clothes, and is weird. But beyond this craziness, Cally also snags the second most sought-after perpetually-single boy (who her new best friend is crushing on) and cheats on her boyfriend with this new boy. So not only did she do the impossible, she did it twice, and cheated on the first one with a boy her best friend is head over heels for. Squicky sexy-time ensues, and of course, a cat fight.

Finally, after all this craziness, we find out what the mystery is. There is a missing girl and we're trying to figure out who killed her. Turns out the killer of missing girl also killed Cally sister years ago. But very early on I figured out who the killer was. It wasn't a mystery by any means. And finally, by the time it was all revealed, the entire thing was way too convoluted and wrapped up on itself that motivations were lost and the entire thing seemed pointless. I don't know.

In all, the only thing I liked about this book was a character named Chelsea, who is so demented that she lied about sleeping with someone's dad. But also turns out to be a good guy. She was interesting, and if Chelsea, the art star, had been the main character, this book could have been way more interesting.

In all, I don't think I could comfortably recommend this book. The writing was silly, the sexy-time was squicky, the characters were cardboard cut-outs of Bella Swan at FYE, and the mystery was easily solved.(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Amelia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I literally could not put this book down. Whatever was on my to-do list had to wait a day and a half. Reminiscent of Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY both stylistically and thematically, THE LITTLE WOODS is a beautifully written, suspenseful, and deliciously disturbing story about a girl who enrolls at the boarding school where her sister allegedly died in a fire many years earlier, and soon finds herself at the center of a new, but parallel mystery that leads back to her past. Once Calista Wood...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Amy Lignor rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one author who has, with this title, completely blown adult suspense right out of the water.

The scene is a boarding school - one of those ritzy places that cater to the wealthy children who seem to want for nothing and only care about themselves. These are also the kids who have the power to bully someone they feel is ‘less’ than what they are on the ladder of success and popularity. But when they meet up with Cally Wood, an extremely intelligent and sarcastic girl who transfers during...more This is one author who has, with this title, completely blown adult suspense right out of the water.

The scene is a boarding school - one of those ritzy places that cater to the wealthy children who seem to want for nothing and only care about themselves. These are also the kids who have the power to bully someone they feel is ‘less’ than what they are on the ladder of success and popularity. But when they meet up with Cally Wood, an extremely intelligent and sarcastic girl who transfers during the middle of her junior year, the rich kids at St. Bede’s realize they’ve met their match. Of course…the secret that Cally is hiding not only involves these school grounds set far away from civilization, but also involves a killer who has never been found.

A while back, when Cally was very young, her sister went with a friend to St. Bede’s to enjoy the summer at the closed school. On her third night there…she disappeared and was never found. Cally is offered a full ride to St. Bede’s years later because of this horrific incident and the school wanting to keep the whole thing quiet.

Cally has a rough life. After her sister disappeared her father was struck down by a heart attack and her mother became a drunk, so she’s more than happy to leave home and head for the posh school.

When she arrives, she meets many - Freddy, a redheaded Class President; Sophie, who becomes her bff; as well as Jack, a highly stunning young man who is ambivalent to the fairer sex and doesn’t date. The two that make Cally cringe at first is her roommate, Helen, and Helen’s more quiet punk-rocker sister, Noel. Helen automatically gives off that vibe - she’s beautiful and everyone knows it, very wealthy, has hidden secrets, and is so fake when she smiles that she looks more like a killer than a teenager.

As Cally begins her new life, romance blossoms, gauntlets are thrown, but more frightening than anything else is the fact that ‘The Little Woods’ behind St. Bede’s seems to be the Bermuda Triangle. Not only did Cally’s sister and her young friend disappear here long ago, but now others are disappearing as well. When a puzzle box is delivered to Cally, the secrets begin to unravel and the school becomes a playground for a killer who wants to hide the past.

This is one of those very rare YA’s (heck, any genre, for that matter) that is a ‘5-star’ read. The writer offers a plot full of suspense, and characters coming out of the woodwork with such different personalities that the reader has no idea who the real culprit is going to be. The story never slows down and readers will want to keep this particular title on their home bookshelf so that they can reread it anytime they want!

A triumph for the YA market!

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Aug 14, 2012 Bibliojunkies rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don’t often read thrillers or horror stories but once in a while I totally get an itch to read something scary. The Little Woods sounded like it would fit the bill. It turned out to be a quick easy read but unfortunately didn’t really satisfy my need for thriller and mystery.

I think maybe I have watched too many episodes of CSI and Law & Order in my lifetime because this is not the first novel I have read where I figured out “who did it” long before the end. Very early on it was easy to d...more
I don’t often read thrillers or horror stories but once in a while I totally get an itch to read something scary. The Little Woods sounded like it would fit the bill. It turned out to be a quick easy read but unfortunately didn’t really satisfy my need for thriller and mystery.

I think maybe I have watched too many episodes of CSI and Law & Order in my lifetime because this is not the first novel I have read where I figured out “who did it” long before the end. Very early on it was easy to determine the identity of the murderer of Calista’s sister and half way through the book it was obvious why the same murderer killed again. The only thing I was waiting for was the motive behind the initial murders. But since I figured it out so early, the wait for the actual reveal made me lose interest.

I wasn’t a big fan of most of the characters in this book. You just don’t learn enough about them to develop a relationship with them. Sadly, I was also not a fan of the main character, Calista. Her character seemed rather contradictory. She sometimes comes off as an independent rule breaker that turns her nose up at the popular crowd. This quality is the reason why I never quite understood her decision to build and maintain relationships with the popular girls at the expense of other friends that shared similar interests as her. It just didn’t ring true. Also, Cali admits to being a pretentious word snob. She uses a number of unusual words in her internal dialogue. Although educational, this quality of hers seemed forced. I think maybe it would have seemed less forced if she had been using those words in dialogue with other characters.

The characters I did enjoy were Jack, Sophie and Chelsea. Jack was just all boy. Fairly down to earth and “normal” and a little bit clueless. Sophie was smart and my favorite moment in the book was her response to Cali when she shaved her head. Then there was Chelsea. She was truly the most mysterious part of this book. Every scene with her involves great dialogue and/or creepy actions. In the end, you still don’t know much about her. She is the one person that provided true mystery to the story.

This was just a meh for me. I haven’t read many YA mysteries but out of those few I have read I would recommend Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf or Every You, Every Me by David Levithan.

Nat
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Jul 15, 2012 PrincyJessie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished

Comments: THE SUSPENSE BLEW MY MIND!
PLot= Many people say the woods of St Bede is haunted but it may not be true because once people is inside the woods they disappear and none make it out of the woods alive.
Characters= Cally= our main girl, I love how she moves to this private university after her sister's Clare disappear I always love these kinds of girl because they can go through alot to find the ultimate truth. I love much she cares for her friends and her love life sucks but she cares abou...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Frishawn Rasheed rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is another example of a brilliant premise being lost in execution. The idea of Cally going back to the school that held the secret behind the loss of her sister so many years earlier is enough to tantalize any reader almost to the point of involuntary salivation that would make Pavlov's dogs jealous; but before you go all hungry eyes and run off in search of a copy...there are a few things you should know.

Cally
She is the saving grace of this book. She is a strong smart realist who is t...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Melodie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this as a Netgalley ARC and was excited to find a YA mystery. I'm a fan of boarding school fiction, and the world created here seemed authentic - if a bit cliched, with the rich clique vs. everyone else...but of course, from what I recall from my Greek days at college, that kind of insulated environment IS cliched. I loved Cally's character - her no-frills, totally cerebral approach to life. And the pacing was great, both for the mystery and for how fast teen life seems to move at this st...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman follows Cally who is new at St Bede's academy, the place where Cally's sister went missing years before. Cally finds out when she moves into her room that the girl whose bed she is sleeping in disappeared earlier in the year. Callie makes her way through the politics of private school dealing with friends, romance while trying to figure out the mystery of the missing girls.

I didn't expect much when I started the book but I've always been a fan of boarding...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Sherri rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: washyarg-finished

Cally Wood decides to attend St. Bede’s private boarding school halfway through her junior year to get away from her absent-minded, alcoholic mother. Cally’s mom never recovered from losing both her husband and older daughter Clare ten years ago. Clare was visiting a friend from camp at St. Bede’s when both girls just disappeared during the night and were never seen again. Cally’s dad died shortly thereafter of a heart attack. While it seems morbid for Cally to attend the school where her sister...more

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Jun 01, 2012 Kristy Sartain- Whispering Pretty Stories Reviews rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's refreshing to read a book that ends when the pages run out. :-)

Cally has been a fun character to get to know, except for her boyfriend relationship part. I guess that was thrown in to make her seem more like a teenager, or maybe so more people would turn on her. I don't know, but I wasn't impressed with it. It didn't seem in character at all.

I enjoyed the dynamics of boarding school life. There's always one of each of them in a group of girls, and I imagine the personality differences to be...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I read the back of this book, I knew I was in for a ride. Imagine going to a new school only to learn it has dark, creepy secrets and you've taken the place of a girl who disappeared. As scary as that sounds, I couldn't wait to figure out how the story would unfold!

Cally is definitely NOT your typically main character. She's a girl who doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, dresses punk, and shaves off her hair whenever she feels like it. Even though I would probably never talk to someone...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Traci rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley-arcs

The Little Woods is an interesting story about Cally Woods that lost a sister tragically when she was a child. In an attempt to move on with her life, she begins to attend a school located in the same area her sister disappeared. However, the boarding school isn't quite what she expected.

I liked Cally and was routing for her the entire time. I'm surprised she managed to hold things together long enough to attend school despite all of the crazy things going on around her.

I only had a few minor i...more

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May 24, 2012 Audrey rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: advanced-reader-s-copy-arc, college-fiction, e-book, netgalley, thriller-mystery, ya

I received an ARC (digital copy) of the book via Netgalley.

I wanted to like this book -- I requested it specifically because it fits into one of those sub-genres that really appeal to me (boarding school, YA, mystery with a hint of magical realism/supernatural). But I just couldn't get past a couple of things: #1, the author's overuse of big words from her thesaurus that just make no sense in the context of the sentence (and worse, don't fit with the character's voice or the tone of the passage...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Cassi aka Snow White Haggard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: galleys, read-in-2012

2.5 stars

Reading The Little Woods felt like watching a battle between the good and the bad. There is so much potential in this story, but sadly the poor execution is impossible to ignore.

The story itself was actually quite good. Cally goes off to St. Bedes boarding school. She gets a scholarship because 10 years ago her sister mysteriously disappeared while visiting the school. According the police, her sister died in a fire but since they never found the bodies Cally has always been skeptical....more

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Jun 12, 2012 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There were certain aspects of The Little Woods that I really enjoyed - the boarding school backdrop, the mystery surrounding the unexplained disappearances, the intrigue and allure of Cally's new friends - but there were other aspects - the author's copious usage of a thesaurus (did you catch what I did there?) and a seemingly plot-irrelevant love triangle - that had me cringing.

I like to think I have a rather expansive vocabulary, considering the amount I read. The terms used in The Little Wood...more There were certain aspects of The Little Woods that I really enjoyed - the boarding school backdrop, the mystery surrounding the unexplained disappearances, the intrigue and allure of Cally's new friends - but there were other aspects - the author's copious usage of a thesaurus (did you catch what I did there?) and a seemingly plot-irrelevant love triangle - that had me cringing.

I like to think I have a rather expansive vocabulary, considering the amount I read. The terms used in The Little Woods are ridiculous. I actually started to comprise a list of words that I had to look up the definition for, because I couldn't believe that any fifteen year old, even one as intelligent as Cally, would speak in such terms. Crepuscular, turpitude, ersatz, hirsute, sartorially, puerility, sybaritic - these are not words that anyone uses, especially not in their thoughts. Every time I stumbled over a word, I was ripped from the story as my brain haemorrhaged slightly and it definitely lessened my overall enjoyment while reading.

That being said, Templeman obviously has a way with words. Some of her phrases caught my attention so fully that I had to re-read them because they were written so beautifully.

She fell back into her seat like a steam of fresh water languishing into a marble fountain.

She was also brilliant at creating such unique descriptions that I could perfectly envision the scene in front of my eyes.

Helen looked wrecked, her feline eyes circumscribed with swollen red skin. With a twist and a clip, she affixed her tangled hair so that she looked like a glamorous drug addict.

So I'm of two minds about Templeman's writing - it was at the same time both frustratingly annoying and beautiful.

Cally was a pretty bland character. At times, she seemed quite emotionally flat and apathetic, which complemented her general laziness. I constantly found myself wondering what her new friends saw in her as she seemed to spend most of her time ignoring them - choosing to leave parties to go read in her room. She had some quirks that made her stand out slightly as an individual, but she's not an overly memorable protagonist.

I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding Cally's group of friends. Her roommate Helen seemed to have dual personalities which were constantly in conflict: one second she would be friendly and outgoing and the next her eyes would cloud over and she would brush Cally off, or conveniently forget to invite her to tag along.

And then her face lit up, and she pushed herself out of her seat and moved toward me, the cold exterior falling away to reveal a delicious caramel warmth.

I had the sense of "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." The other members of Helen's group gave off a similar vibe, but I did have a hard time keeping them all straight for the first half of the book or so, as they seemed to have similar personalities. As for Sophie, she was even harder to figure out! She welcomed Cally with warmth and smiles but seemed to keep her at arm's length, yet her motives for keeping her distance weren't ever really explained.

I didn't believe in Cally's relationships with either Alex or Jack; neither was believable. Her infatuation with Alex's looks explained why she would be thrilled that he was interested in her, but her lack of enthusiasm while they were actually dating failed to create any chemistry between them. Their relationship did absolutely nothing to further the plot or to increase the suspense surrounding the mysterious disappearances; if anything, it took away from the suspense as Cally's investigation was interrupted by a booty call. As for Jack, he came completely out of left field. Their secret rendezvous' were somewhat steamy, but I couldn't wrap my mind around why they were happening. When did they develop feelings for each other? Or was it just about the physical contact? Why could Cally be physically intimate with Jack, but not with Alex? Why were they both willing to risk relationships in order to fool around with each other? It just didn't make any sense to me and it was never properly explained. It also did nothing to further the plot or to help explain the disappearances, so I just didn't understand why it was included.

The plot in The Little Woods was paced decently, but it wasn't overly suspenseful. I guessed at the guilty person early on, and was disappointed when I found out I was right. I did enjoy watching Cally stumble upon something that might be relevant, and how it had me trying to piece it into my idea of the culprit. I also liked the inclusion of the puzzle box, as if the guilty party were taunting Cally with the truth if she could only figure it out. It was kind of frustrating that there were so many tangents that were made to be seemingly important, which later served no true purpose - like Cally's distrust of a certain teacher, or the apparent hatred that one teacher fostered for her, and other more spoilery things. Come the end, the way with which things were uncovered was a little too far-fetched for my liking, with Cally having an epiphany of sorts and putting everything together in a jumble of thoughts.

As a whole, The Little Woods was slightly...monotonous. While there were definitely aspects I enjoyed, the thesaurus speak, slightly dull protagonist and varied tangents had my thoughts wandering on several occasions. It wasn't an unenjoyable read, but I doubt it will leave any lasting impression on me.(less)

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Aug 18, 2012 Kimberly rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 52-books-in-52-weeks-2012

Calista Wood arrives at St. Bede's Academy half way through the year. She's been granted a free ride, but there's more than school on her mind. Ten years ago, her sister and another girl mysteriously vanished outside this school. Now Calista is back, searching for answers to her sister's disappearance.

I'm sorry to say I didn't care for this book. While the opening chapter hooked me in, I felt pretty lost through the beginning half of the novel. Callie enters the boarding school with hope that th...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Susie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I gave this a two because I thought the primary plot was interesting. However, the characters in the book are terrible!! ally is an outcast 16-17ish year old that wears "skater" clothes and supposedly is into punk rock, but manages to become the most attractive, popular girl at this Gossip-girl-esque boarding school, where the kids are described as entitled, rich snobs? Am I getting this right? Makes absolutely no sense. Apparently, every high school student at St. Bede's is incredibly rich and...more I gave this a two because I thought the primary plot was interesting. However, the characters in the book are terrible!! ally is an outcast 16-17ish year old that wears "skater" clothes and supposedly is into punk rock, but manages to become the most attractive, popular girl at this Gossip-girl-esque boarding school, where the kids are described as entitled, rich snobs? Am I getting this right? Makes absolutely no sense. Apparently, every high school student at St. Bede's is incredibly rich and attractive and intelligent and vindictive and sleeping with either other students, teachers, or parents. Cally is set up to be a fish out of water, but on one hand seems to elements of St. Bede's, while carrying disdain for the basic premise of the school. And if Cally is so punk, how does she end up with the most popular guy in this elite school? They have nothing in common, and Alex only ever comes off as a jerk. Meanwhile, Jack is described as asexual and oftentimes speaks as though he is; but, he too becomes the object of Cally's affection.

And what a nice, happy ending! The murder-mystery is solved, Cally returns to a sense of normalcy, and everything is wrapped up in a nice little bow. By the end, I was still left wondering why Cally ever went to St. Bede's in the first place? When she arrived at the school, after a very, very brief intro into the murder-mystery plot, there was no indication that she wanted to solve the mystery of her sister's death; in fact, Cally makes frequent comments that she wants to believe her sister is either alive and well, or died in the fire, which is randomly mentioned about halfway through the first part as though we were supposed to know about this fire all along.

There were too many characters, none of them well-defined. Cally is incomplete - too naive, too young, wants to be a detective but not really, seems determined to lose her virginity and make friends in this world, while rejecting the school at the same time... The only reason I finished reading the book was to find out the identity of the murderer. Found out, wasn't impressed.(less)

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Jul 02, 2012 Book Twirps rated it 2 of 5 stars

This one was … interesting. I requested it on Netgalley because I loved the premise: creepy boarding school, the new girl, a murder mystery — all things that I typically enjoy, but it just didn’t deliver. Maybe it was because I read this right after I read Dark Companion which has similar themes. I was still on a high after reading that book and had high expectations for this one, but it just didn’t grab me the way I hoped it would.

The story is very familiar. Still reeling from the death of her...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Yeah, I really like this book. The conversations were great, Cally's voice (I thought) was great, and the ending was great.

Not the who-done-it-revelation ending. You could kind of see it a mile away. Kind of.

I'm talking about the Love Triangle ending. I hate love triangles. I stop reading series once I find out that in the second and third book, the hardest choice the heroine has to make is who she is going to pick in the end. Can't we just stop with all this drama? Can't I just read a romance...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Stephanie Ward rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-review, owned, ebook

'The Little Woods' is a great YA mystery novel that takes the reader into the secret depths of high class boarding schools. We learn early in the book that our heroine, Cally, has suffered a devastating loss several years ago. Due to this loss, she is drawn to St. Bede's Academy, a private boarding school with ties to her past. Once at the school, Cally's new friends and classmates tell her about the stretch of woods outside the school that are rumored to be haunted. There's also the mystery of...more 'The Little Woods' is a great YA mystery novel that takes the reader into the secret depths of high class boarding schools. We learn early in the book that our heroine, Cally, has suffered a devastating loss several years ago. Due to this loss, she is drawn to St. Bede's Academy, a private boarding school with ties to her past. Once at the school, Cally's new friends and classmates tell her about the stretch of woods outside the school that are rumored to be haunted. There's also the mystery of the girl who disappeared last semester - what really happened to her? Cally's curiosity about the school, the woods, and her classmates begins to deepen as she is drawn further and further into the history of the school and the secrets it holds.

After reading the description for the book, I was expecting more paranormal elements to be present in the book - but there really isn't much in that respect. The mystery of the novel is enticing and keeps the reader trying to figure out the truth - which makes the story a page turner. I liked Cally's character - she was strong and didn't hide from whatever she was afraid of. The rest of the story - the parts that revolved around her classmates and the general boarding school setting - seemed really cliched to me. They were the expected snobby brats who liked to party and misbehave and who also had tons of secrets and treated people like trash. The school looked the other way, of course, and seemed to have no real desire in what was actually happening on campus. These were expected and I found that they were so predictable to be boring and a bit of a turn-off.

The narrative of the novel was well written with a solid backstory that draws the reader in and preps for the mystery that is the main focus of the story. I had the bad guy figured out pretty early on, but the little twists that the author threw in kept me intrigued and interested to the end of the book. I highly recommend this for fans of mysteries and thrillers with a YA twist.

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.(less)

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Sep 29, 2012 Lectus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Via http://onlectus.blogspot.com/2012/09/...

Templeman’s The little woods is slow in action but lovely to read. I mean, it is cataloged as a thriller but there is more of Cally going on that the actual mystery. However, the suspense was good enough to keep me reading every single page until the end (because you too skip pages sometimes, don’t you?).

Ten years ago, Cally’s sister disappeared in St. Bede’s Academy. Ten years later, Cally gets a scholarship to attend said Academy. Why? Well, the why...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-fiction, read-in-2012

The longer I think about this one, the more disappointed I am in it. This story is contrived to the point that even when all of the pieces come together at the end, the plot holes and character holes are more gaping.

Ten years ago, Cally's sister and her best friend died after spending the night on the campus of St. Bede's academy (her sister's friend, Laurel, was the daughter of one of the teachers and that gave them free reign to stay there that evening). Now, Cally's decided mid-way through th...more The longer I think about this one, the more disappointed I am in it. This story is contrived to the point that even when all of the pieces come together at the end, the plot holes and character holes are more gaping.

Ten years ago, Cally's sister and her best friend died after spending the night on the campus of St. Bede's academy (her sister's friend, Laurel, was the daughter of one of the teachers and that gave them free reign to stay there that evening). Now, Cally's decided mid-way through the semester that she's going to attend St. Bede's -- the same out-of-state, private academy where her sister had died -- and she's taking up residence in the dorm where Iris had lived. Iris who just months before "disappeared," and who many believe was killed by Helen, Iris's former/Cally's current roommate.

The story is set against the backdrop of these mysterious woods. They were on fire the night that Cally's sister died and they're where Iris had supposedly disappeared.

So while Cally's at school, she's meeting a whole host of characters. There's the girls who I can't tell apart but who are all pretty shady, then there are the two boys, Jack and Alex. I don't understand why there was ever a need to introduce a love triangle because it didn't amp up tension or suspicion about who committed crimes here at all. Instead, it was distracting and the sex was poorly written, uninteresting, and didn't advance the characters. These relationships were flat and cliche and felt like they were trying way too hard (they weren't even there for shock factor because there's virtually no on-screen time for intimacy). (view spoiler) What these romances did seem to do was rouse suspicion of the girls in the story for Cally -- that is, it was an opportunity for her to reconsider whether these girls were good people or bad people, based on whether Jack or Alex had been cheating on her with them/if they were hiding it from her. That was one of the biggest problems in this book: the only way most of these characters are defined is through their relationship to these boys. It didn't make sense why they were the ones she trusted from the start and why she let the one good character fly under her radar. Cally was inconsistent.

Then there's the drug use, which never once felt authentic or real. It felt cliched and honestly, (view spoiler). Likewise, I found the big reveal/potential non-reveal of Iris's back story to be more about shock value than about who she was as a person. It's never clear if what Helen and Noel say happened with her really happened, but either way, it didn't work for me. (view spoiler).

The Little Woods felt like it wanted to do a lot of what Erin Saldin does more successfully in The Girls of No Return: offer up characters whose intentions and back stories are unclear but who are stuck together in a remote place where bad things happen. Except in this story, the whole reason Cally attends St Bede's in the first place is contrived, and that no one questions why she was doing it was bizarre. The dark and haunting elements never coalesced here. Moreover, Cally's voice isn't all that memorable to me; what's sticking out is how much I had to suspend my belief.

While the story had a lot of problematic aspects, I thought the writing itself was nice. The pacing was right, despite the things that didn't work, and I do think there will be readers who will dig this. But I guess my biggest concern is that this is the kind of story that would work well for younger YA readers, yet the "shock" elements and the writing itself -- which at times borders on using really sophisticated language (a product of Cally's education and character, so it's not problematic in and of itself) -- are going to be too mature.

I'm bummed because this had all of the makings for something great, but it instead fell into many of the tropes that make these kinds of stories cliched. It just tried too hard. (less)

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Mar 22, 2013 Alexandra rated it 2 of 5 stars

Oh pretty cover. You tricked me with your gorgeous pink and purple, with those trees. You lured me in by your beauty. I was so excited to read this book and I was hooked for half of it. But then it just bothered me. The characters, and I mean every.single.one. Of them, were so.. Idiotic. Ridiculous. Confused. All of them. The kids, the adults. This book was just full of what the fuckery.
The setting was depressing as fuck. So was the plot and all the characters.
I guess you could say that everyo...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Danica Page (One Page at a Time) rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review appeared on my blog Taking It One Page at a Time

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Disclosures: I received an e-galley of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

My Overall Thoughts/Impressions: I went into this book not really knowing what to expect. I hadn't really seen any other reviews of this book when I first picked it up.

I was expecting a riveting mystery and I got that and so much more. This book was well-written and engaging, if not predictable. I will ad...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Ally rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Shelves: kindle, netgalley, young-adult, debuts, fiction

I was worried, at first, that this book was going to be another run-of-the-mill boarding school tale. Not so. The mystery is convoluted enough to keep things interesting, but not too complicated. But the characters are the real triumph. Cally is fantastic. She's just edgy enough to be considered strange at St. Bede's, but not so weird that she would be too quirky in the background that she's used to. The revolving door of stereotypical St. Bede's girls--Noel/Helen/Freddy/Pigeon--are almost indis...more

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Jul 03, 2012 Meagan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

I have a soft spot for books set in boarding schools. I know they’re not always the most realistic, and it’s not like I ever went to one. But the idea of high school kids having the kind of freedoms and interactions that college kids have makes for much more interesting, and sometimes “grown up” conflicts that you don’t get with young adult books all the time. Except that typically, the kids are all rich. That brings it down just a bit.

Calista Wood starts at St. Bede’s academy, and she doesn’t i...more I have a soft spot for books set in boarding schools. I know they’re not always the most realistic, and it’s not like I ever went to one. But the idea of high school kids having the kind of freedoms and interactions that college kids have makes for much more interesting, and sometimes “grown up” conflicts that you don’t get with young adult books all the time. Except that typically, the kids are all rich. That brings it down just a bit.

Calista Wood starts at St. Bede’s academy, and she doesn’t immediately fit in. She’s come half-way through the year, and that was a special exception for two reasons: her test scores were phenomenal, and years ago, her sister went missing there. So she has a connection to the school that she doesn’t quite understand yet, but all signs point to: go. One thing that sticks out is that Cally’s test scores were high, so I expected a deviation from the standard teenager. I’m not sure what I got was what I was looking for -- some of the words that Cally uses don’t always make sense in the context she puts them. Is that a mark of a girl thinking she knows more than she does, or is it a mark against the writing?

People start off by trying to make friends with her -- her roommate’s sister, two best friends in one of her classes, and then the roommate. Cally still feels a little lost at the school, and then the parties start. They’re those epic parties where all kinds of things are supposed to happen, except... Cally goes to bed instead of socializing. Okay. So maybe she isn’t the social butterfly, that’ll work just the same, right? Except as the story progresses, she seeks out and picks ways to alienate herself. She hooks up with someone, despite knowing that it’s going to hurt a lot of people in mix.

I’m not sure how to feel about Cally. She’s smart and intuitive, and she really wants the answers to her lingering questions. But in the ways that she’s still very much a teenager -- the desperate need to stand out so people notice her with her haircuts and weird clothes -- she gets frustrating. This front doesn’t exactly tell us all that much about Cally, aside from the fact that she’s definitely not emotionally stable through most of the book. And when she could be making smart choices, it’s never really clear what her intentions are.

I don’t read a lot of mysteries, so I can’t tell you if this one would stand out among a sea of others. But I know that YA mysteries in boarding schools are some of the coolest books I read, and I appreciate them in the genre. As a mystery itself, I think we see the culprit right out. But that’s the reader, and the thing about The Little Woods is that it’s more important for Cally to come around to the revelation on her own.

However, the romantic side plots in the book were straight up terrible. Cally not only finds a boyfriend who is completely wrong for her (and gives her flack about the weird crap she does to her hair?), but proceeds to cheat on him. I’m totally sick and tired of seeing cheating played out like it’s no big deal in YA, or just something you shrug off, but the reactions some of the characters had to what happened was just weird. These characters are all just very weird, and I don’t know if it’s the woods, or boarding school, or what, but it was really bizarre.

The Little Woods is a book I’d definitely recommend you find at the library and check out, but not one I’d keep forever.(less)

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Aug 13, 2012 Branwen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of creepy boarding school stories, such as 'Dark Companion'

Shelves: young-adult

Any book that hooks me from the first page and compels me to read it nonstop until I finish it is an automatic five star rating in my opinion. I never heard of this book before, but it caught my eye with it's gorgeous cover and the story looked interesting so I bought it for my Nook. As soon as I began this book I couldn't put it down! I can never resist a creepy boarding school story! I found it to be pretty well written, and Cally, the main character, was easy to empathize with. If you're look...more

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