What do you think?
Rate this book
The Woods: Stories
The Woods explores the lives of people in a small Vermont college town and its surrounding areas—a place at the edge of the bucolic, where the land begins to shift into something untamed. In the tradition of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio , these stories follow people who carry private griefs but search for contentment. As they try to make sense of their worlds, grappling with problems—worried about their careers, their marriages, their children, their ambitions—they also sift through the happiness they have, and often find deep solace in the landscape.
What do we find in the woods? An uplifting of spirit or a quieting of sorrow. A sense of being haunted by the past. Sometimes rougher, more violent abandoned quarries and feral cats, black bears, brothers caught up in an escalating war, a ghost who wishes to pass on her despair, monsters who boom with hollow ecstatic laughter. But also the hermit thrush and the winter wren. Rushing rivers glossy with froth. A nineteenth-century inn that’s somehow gotten by all these years. And far within, a vegetal twilight and constant dusk that feels outside of time. This remarkable debut illuminates the ways we all carry within ourselves aspects stark, beautiful, wild, and unknowable.
What do we find in the woods? An uplifting of spirit or a quieting of sorrow. A sense of being haunted by the past. Sometimes rougher, more violent abandoned quarries and feral cats, black bears, brothers caught up in an escalating war, a ghost who wishes to pass on her despair, monsters who boom with hollow ecstatic laughter. But also the hermit thrush and the winter wren. Rushing rivers glossy with froth. A nineteenth-century inn that’s somehow gotten by all these years. And far within, a vegetal twilight and constant dusk that feels outside of time. This remarkable debut illuminates the ways we all carry within ourselves aspects stark, beautiful, wild, and unknowable.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
212 pages, Paperback
Published November 10, 2022
14 people are currently reading
238 people want to read
About the author
Janice Obuchowski
5 books15 followersJanice Obuchowski is the author of THE WOODS, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award (University of Iowa Press, 2022). Her stories have twice received special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthologies and have appeared or are forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Alaska Quarterly Review, Iowa Review, Gettysburg Review, Conjunctions online, and LitHub. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 30, 2023
Adultery, ghosts, brawls in pubs. This collection of lightly (slightly) interconnected short stories has it all. It's been compared to "Winesburg, Ohio," but I savored this collection even more. Janice Obuchowski can be as wistful and wrenching as Sherwood Anderson, but she also has a dynamite sense of humor. Some of the tales are as funny as others are heartbreaking. Whole book is a gem.
August 13, 2022
This was pretty much exactly the sort of book ‘ve come to expect from university presses. Somber and sincere, emotionally intelligent, meticulously crafted collection of slice of life short stories taking place in a small town in Vermont. So very well rendered and yet so meditative and slow as to almost invoke words like torpid and soporific. Or, you know, on the nicest side of that coin, let’s say very mellow, very quiet, and not very exciting.
It’ll work for you directly in proportion to how much in the mood you are for that sort of thing.
For me, having just come back from akidnapping family vacation set in a very similar sort of woodsy bucolic place, it was kinda of interesting and certainly resonant, but ultimately (much like the place I visited) the destination didn’t really sign to me.
I don’t care how many trees it takes to make up the woods, after a while they all begin to blend together.
The last couple of stories were pretty good, second to last might have been the best.
It’s difficult with a book like that, because it’s so technically well done, so there’s a discrepancy between rating the thing itself and the reading experience. Guess I’m going to round the rating up for quality over plain readership enjoyment. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.
It’ll work for you directly in proportion to how much in the mood you are for that sort of thing.
For me, having just come back from a
I don’t care how many trees it takes to make up the woods, after a while they all begin to blend together.
The last couple of stories were pretty good, second to last might have been the best.
It’s difficult with a book like that, because it’s so technically well done, so there’s a discrepancy between rating the thing itself and the reading experience. Guess I’m going to round the rating up for quality over plain readership enjoyment. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.
December 23, 2022
This collection of stories starts quietly, with a deceptively small tale, but over the span of stories it accomplishes three things persuasively.
The first is that it conjures a cultural bubble, the people and towns surrounding a liberal arts college, which is surrounded by lands simultaneously wild and alluring. The second is that it gives objects a kind of totemic power, a symbolism that is never heavy handed but often subtle until the meaning is satisfyingly revealed. Third and most importantly, it tells several tales that are wonderfully creepy and scary.
Two in particular captivated me, about something scary in the woods, and about a small town woman who finds an odd friend to help her grieve the failure of a pregnancy.
Those stories make this book enormously compelling, and bode well for the writer's career. When a fictional debut is a story collection, one assessment is whether its voice and craft would work on a larger canvas. These stories make me eager to read a full novel by this author -- and hopefully a yarn that scares me out of my boots.
The first is that it conjures a cultural bubble, the people and towns surrounding a liberal arts college, which is surrounded by lands simultaneously wild and alluring. The second is that it gives objects a kind of totemic power, a symbolism that is never heavy handed but often subtle until the meaning is satisfyingly revealed. Third and most importantly, it tells several tales that are wonderfully creepy and scary.
Two in particular captivated me, about something scary in the woods, and about a small town woman who finds an odd friend to help her grieve the failure of a pregnancy.
Those stories make this book enormously compelling, and bode well for the writer's career. When a fictional debut is a story collection, one assessment is whether its voice and craft would work on a larger canvas. These stories make me eager to read a full novel by this author -- and hopefully a yarn that scares me out of my boots.
August 13, 2022
I was drawn to this collection of short stories because I’ve lived in (and still haunt) the forested parts of Vermont where these stories take place. The author’s vivid descriptions brought me right back and reminded me of how something that seems so beautiful and inviting one moment can transform into gloom or threat with a quick change in the weather. Her characters, most of whom work at a nearby college, test and sometimes transgress the boundaries between their inner and outer worlds. While they may tend to overthink or rationalize the challenges in their lives, nature endures as a mysterious and expressive force, the deeper realm of the subconscious. Monsters lurk in both thought and thicket. I liked that some of the stories could be classified as horror or ghost stories and included tidbits of local folklore and history. The book jacket’s comparisons to Sherwood Anderson and Elizabeth Strout are accurate, but there are some traces of Stephen King and Shirley Jackson here as well. I recommend reading these stories by a warm fire with a hot beverage and a loyal dog at one’s side, one that’s ready to leap up and protect the reader from the many surprises that jump out of these woods.
November 24, 2022
Can I tell you how much I love and admire this book? See what I'm doing with my arms? That's how much. Please do yourself a favor and step into Obuchowski's world, which is rendered on these pages as a place exquisitely real and (ahem) woodsy, full of wonderfully strange folks doing strange things. Oh, those Orams! This is a writer in complete control of her subject. We have no choice, when writing this good comes along, but to follow. So, we follow. We set off into these woods. We hold our breath and peer joyfully at everything our guide shows us. We are grateful, a bit sad when the experience is done, but we feel good, too, because we know this book is only the first volume of what Obuchowski has in store for us. Also, show me a more perfect use of the word "nitwit." I'd give you the page number, but wouldn't that just ruin the fun?
November 22, 2022
I loved this collection of stories, as someone familiar with the landscape of woods in which they are set. Characters dealing with their everyday struggles or going through watershed moments and how the sense of place in the Green Mountain National Forest crystallizes those moments for them or brings them to a head. Some of the stories have clever plot devices I appreciated, like a gifted history book of a local inn. I enjoyed the time I spent with the characters even if it was short and didn't always reach a resolution. Much of the collection is brooding and focuses on the darker and wilder side of the woods, and how our attempts to tame them often go awry. I read each story as a little treasure each evening over a couple of weeks. Highly recommend if you like short fiction or are familiar with Addison County!
December 26, 2022
This is an exciting debut collection of short stories set against the backdrop of the Vermont mountains. Obuchowski's stories are observant and often sly, focusing on interiority as characters navigate key moments in their lives. Each story is beautifully crafted, coming full circle in a satisfying way that never feels pat or contrived. Many of the stories focus on quiet upheavals that affect the characters, but "Monsters" is a gothic story about a family's implosion that had me completely wrapped up in its horror. Some of my other favorites include "The Cat," "The Bear is Back," "Potions," and "The Chair."
Thanks to the University of Iowa Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to the University of Iowa Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
August 26, 2022
As a reader, I always gravitate toward creative intersections of place and personhood, and The Woods nails it. Gorgeously crafted scenes point to a larger world, with snapshots of characters I'd follow into much broader treatments. Obuchowski's use of language, her talent for interweaving high-level themes with on-the-ground tone, and the slow-burn collapse of comfort and expectation give rise to an extraordinarily engaging collection. A high recommend.
January 10, 2024
Absolutely loved. Favorite in a long time. Beautiful, somber, windy, woodsy, short fiction revolving around a Vermont university town and its largely academic populace. To quote the bard, “this sort of thing is my bag, baby”. Picked up at AWP on a recommendation, so glad I found this and can’t wait to see what Obuchowski does next.
December 11, 2022
This is a wonderful collection of stories - each standing on its own, but also intertwined by virtue of location, characters, setting, etc.
The writing is gorgeously descriptive, as if Obuchowski is painting the images inside your brain. You feel as if you are walking through the woods (or The Woods) as you read: breathing the pine-scented air, startling at the crackle of branches underfoot, or seeing the woodland creatures scurrying about nearby.
At times, reminiscent of Richard Powers' The Overstory - both by virtue of the connection with Nature and in structure - I found The Woods to be more elegant and accessible overall.
Obuchowski is a highly-skilled author who clearly puts her full self into every word, and draws you in to all the magic of The Woods: the light, the dark, the human, the animal, the plant, the stone, the community, and the people.
The writing is gorgeously descriptive, as if Obuchowski is painting the images inside your brain. You feel as if you are walking through the woods (or The Woods) as you read: breathing the pine-scented air, startling at the crackle of branches underfoot, or seeing the woodland creatures scurrying about nearby.
At times, reminiscent of Richard Powers' The Overstory - both by virtue of the connection with Nature and in structure - I found The Woods to be more elegant and accessible overall.
Obuchowski is a highly-skilled author who clearly puts her full self into every word, and draws you in to all the magic of The Woods: the light, the dark, the human, the animal, the plant, the stone, the community, and the people.
July 31, 2022
As a longtime admirer of Janice Obuchowski's short fiction, I'm delighted to see these stories compiled into a beautiful collection. Obuchowski's stories manage to be both bold and quiet, with crystalline sentences that are worth pausing for and lingering over. The woods provide a literal and metaphorical backdrop for this collection: the resilient characters get lost but keep searching and persisting, bringing the reader along on their journeys. These stories are a timely examination of our human condition--they plumb deep and do so in haunting, exquisite prose.
January 2, 2023
This book is a gift. Highly recommended!
November 21, 2022
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕. 𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕.
This collection came out on my birthday, which also arrived with a hurricane here in Florida, and that is why I am reviewing it today on the 21st. Is anyone else out there playing catch up with life like I have been? I think Vermont sounded like heaven to me, even with encroaching woods. In The Woods, of all the stories, The Orams was a worm that burrowed in my brain. In fact, I would love a novel about the Oram Brothers who live up the mountain, on the lesser traveled roads, and the six generations before them. Those Orams, who “could at least have the decency to keep their misdeeds to the woods,” make for good storytelling. What else would the locals do if they didn’t have the wildness of others to measure their own goodness against? Those Orams leave you guessing, what next?
A couple disagrees about an Adirondack chair they received long ago as a wedding gift in “The Chair”. It represents one of the most thoughtful gifts they received, how could Cappie’s husband desire to be rid of it, seeing it as a relic. A bear incites a bit of sanctimonious snobbery towards ‘flatlanders’ in The Bear Is Back, anyone who has ever read neighborhood postings and snippy comments will relate. More so if you are not born to a place. A widow ponders grief and time as she gets lost on the trail behind her home, mesmerized almost as ‘the trees brought her into their hush’. Convinced that her mountain is playing some sort of trickery on her, she remembers when she and her husband first moved to Vermont, young and hungry intellectuals. The Forest Tavern deals with false history and the fascinating ways people fictionalize a thing, or a place, to give it shape. Potions is about betrayal but also how glorious it can be to wish things better with your child’s little hands clasped in your own. In Monsters Nana warns the grandchildren of monsters in the woods, naturally they think she is full of it. Then Nana shows them the critter cam.The siblings are already battle worn from their parents terrible marriage, what could a monster do? There are other tales about a couple who live in a house where tragedy took place, a friend who may be a ghost and woman who knows her plan to stop logging is stupid, but can’t seem to help herself.
The stories take place in a small college town in Vermont, with locals and transplants dealing with aging, affairs, wild creatures, careers, loneliness and the woods that are always seeming to encroach. For some, the woods beckon, for others it is a threat or up to trickery. Several of the stories were moving, not all of them had me hooked, but it was beautifully written. If you need something to wind down from the chaos of living, this is the book. I enjoyed it.
Publication Date: November 10, 2022
University of Iowa Press
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕. 𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕.
This collection came out on my birthday, which also arrived with a hurricane here in Florida, and that is why I am reviewing it today on the 21st. Is anyone else out there playing catch up with life like I have been? I think Vermont sounded like heaven to me, even with encroaching woods. In The Woods, of all the stories, The Orams was a worm that burrowed in my brain. In fact, I would love a novel about the Oram Brothers who live up the mountain, on the lesser traveled roads, and the six generations before them. Those Orams, who “could at least have the decency to keep their misdeeds to the woods,” make for good storytelling. What else would the locals do if they didn’t have the wildness of others to measure their own goodness against? Those Orams leave you guessing, what next?
A couple disagrees about an Adirondack chair they received long ago as a wedding gift in “The Chair”. It represents one of the most thoughtful gifts they received, how could Cappie’s husband desire to be rid of it, seeing it as a relic. A bear incites a bit of sanctimonious snobbery towards ‘flatlanders’ in The Bear Is Back, anyone who has ever read neighborhood postings and snippy comments will relate. More so if you are not born to a place. A widow ponders grief and time as she gets lost on the trail behind her home, mesmerized almost as ‘the trees brought her into their hush’. Convinced that her mountain is playing some sort of trickery on her, she remembers when she and her husband first moved to Vermont, young and hungry intellectuals. The Forest Tavern deals with false history and the fascinating ways people fictionalize a thing, or a place, to give it shape. Potions is about betrayal but also how glorious it can be to wish things better with your child’s little hands clasped in your own. In Monsters Nana warns the grandchildren of monsters in the woods, naturally they think she is full of it. Then Nana shows them the critter cam.The siblings are already battle worn from their parents terrible marriage, what could a monster do? There are other tales about a couple who live in a house where tragedy took place, a friend who may be a ghost and woman who knows her plan to stop logging is stupid, but can’t seem to help herself.
The stories take place in a small college town in Vermont, with locals and transplants dealing with aging, affairs, wild creatures, careers, loneliness and the woods that are always seeming to encroach. For some, the woods beckon, for others it is a threat or up to trickery. Several of the stories were moving, not all of them had me hooked, but it was beautifully written. If you need something to wind down from the chaos of living, this is the book. I enjoyed it.
Publication Date: November 10, 2022
University of Iowa Press
July 9, 2024
Loved this one! I got it from a local bookshop in Stowe this past spring on a whim and I'm so glad I did. The writing was beautiful and each story felt so personal. Easily my favorite read in a long time.
January 3, 2023
A great Winter-time read!
September 14, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for giving me the chance to read and review this book! What first appealed to me was the book cover, it is honestly simple, yet so beautiful that it really drew me in and often, covers can really set the tone for the book for me. This book is a collection of short stories of a small college town and surrounding areas in Vermont with a lot of woods, which each reminded me so much of my own small midwestern town. The author has a great writing style and does well with descriptions to set the scene. I think I really enjoy “The Potions” the most of all of the short stories; the story and characters were very relatable for me. Each short story really has a way of pulling you in, but also ending at just the right time to leave you satisfied with the story presented, which is appreciated and makes each of these a quick and effortless read. As someone who lives surrounded by woods, I know that I will now often be reminded of these characters and their stories whenever I step outside. I would definitely recommend this book to a friend.
April 27, 2023
This collection had me in its thrall from beginning to end, each story unfolding in ways that were both convincing and unexpected. Like all great writing, its purpose is to illuminate the experience of being human and existing in a place, and it does this repeatedly not just with the drama of fiction but with the grace of poetry.
The prose is gorgeous and luxuriant, blending and blurring physical and emotional landscape to create a magical and dreamlike (often nightmarelike) effect. When needed, it can also cut right to the heart of things in a single, swift stroke. Either way, you're on your guard, a little off-balance, and unable to stop reading.
It's all hits, no skips, but I was especially impressed by "The Orams" (very advanced POV technique, also funny and insane), "The Bear is Back," "Potions," and "Monsters." (You think the monsters in that last one are going to be some elaborate literary metaphor, and you keep on thinking that until you find yourself in that shed at the end.)
The prose is gorgeous and luxuriant, blending and blurring physical and emotional landscape to create a magical and dreamlike (often nightmarelike) effect. When needed, it can also cut right to the heart of things in a single, swift stroke. Either way, you're on your guard, a little off-balance, and unable to stop reading.
It's all hits, no skips, but I was especially impressed by "The Orams" (very advanced POV technique, also funny and insane), "The Bear is Back," "Potions," and "Monsters." (You think the monsters in that last one are going to be some elaborate literary metaphor, and you keep on thinking that until you find yourself in that shed at the end.)
September 16, 2022
This is a book of interesting stories about The author moving to Vermont and making new friends with a People and a homeless cat a local ghost and many other interesting tales. I initially thought this book is fiction but wasn’t disappointed at the non-fiction stories of her life. I found them interesting. It’s always fun to look inside someone else’s life in the authors writing style makes it that much better. I highly recommend this book I received it from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.
September 29, 2022
Short stories have all the anxiety without any of the resolution.
The small-town Vermont setting was the best part of these. I lived in a town like this for a few months in grad school and I enjoyed being transported back there while reading.
That being said, I don’t understand why short stories are so often depressing. Most of these seemed to focus on career-less/job-less women who feel useless/abandoned/lonely. There’s infidelity, cancer, divorce, death of a spouse, death of a child. There’s a failed artist and at least two failed writers. A ghost and a shadowy monster.
Predictably well-written and beautifully descriptive but don’t read if you’re looking for a happy ending.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The small-town Vermont setting was the best part of these. I lived in a town like this for a few months in grad school and I enjoyed being transported back there while reading.
That being said, I don’t understand why short stories are so often depressing. Most of these seemed to focus on career-less/job-less women who feel useless/abandoned/lonely. There’s infidelity, cancer, divorce, death of a spouse, death of a child. There’s a failed artist and at least two failed writers. A ghost and a shadowy monster.
Predictably well-written and beautifully descriptive but don’t read if you’re looking for a happy ending.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 10, 2022
2.5 stars
I will admit I had a tough time with this one. I think it may have been a combination of me not being in the mood for a slow read and the writing being a bit too descriptive for my taste. I wanted to connect with the stories but they were all very sad or depressing. I enjoyed the setting but wished that the stories revolved around the woods a bit more. Again, I definitely feel like it was personal preferences that hindered my experience more than the writing itself.
I will admit I had a tough time with this one. I think it may have been a combination of me not being in the mood for a slow read and the writing being a bit too descriptive for my taste. I wanted to connect with the stories but they were all very sad or depressing. I enjoyed the setting but wished that the stories revolved around the woods a bit more. Again, I definitely feel like it was personal preferences that hindered my experience more than the writing itself.
December 7, 2022
I love how this collection of short stories revolve around the woods, namely the Green National Forest. There is a sense of calm as the characters from each story find comfort while going through their everyday struggles.
I also love how the author can quickly turn a calm and inviting scenery into a gloomy, dark one. Her characters are everyday people who are working near the woods and the challenges they face in their lives is similar to how resilient nature can be in order to survive.
I definitely enjoyed this one. Thank you Netgalley and University of Iowa Press for the arc.
I also love how the author can quickly turn a calm and inviting scenery into a gloomy, dark one. Her characters are everyday people who are working near the woods and the challenges they face in their lives is similar to how resilient nature can be in order to survive.
I definitely enjoyed this one. Thank you Netgalley and University of Iowa Press for the arc.
August 18, 2022
Reviewed for NetGalley:
These stories came across as very somber, slow reads for me. I enjoyed the concept, but didn't love the result.
These stories came across as very somber, slow reads for me. I enjoyed the concept, but didn't love the result.
February 23, 2023
Excellent book of stories about the people in a college town in Vermont.
April 12, 2023
Wonderful collection of stories about living in the wild world of the mind and the differently wild world of nature.
June 9, 2023
These are well-crafted short stories about both the routine and dramatic times in the characters’ lives. There are some cynical and dark moments appropriate to the tales. This book is for adults.
August 30, 2023
A collection of stories centered around a remote Vermont college town. Good for getting in the mood for fall.
January 16, 2025
Simply beautiful writing, which is why I go to short fiction.
October 1, 2025
These stories are patient, quiet, and deeply human. Little masterpieces.
August 12, 2022
Thank you to University of Iowa Press for giving me access to this book as an E-ARC via Netgalley. All opinions are my own. This book will be published on November 10th, 2022.
“The Woods: Stories” by Janice Obuchowski is just that. It’s a collection of short stories all connected by the woods surrounding the characters we meet in the different stories. I found the pace in all the stories quite slow and thoughtful, and I really enjoyed that pace. It felt fitting to the collection.
My favourite short was the first one titled “The Cat”, I thought that chapter really showcased a sort of feeling of vastness, emptiness and that things comes and goes in our lives.
“The Woods: Stories” by Janice Obuchowski is just that. It’s a collection of short stories all connected by the woods surrounding the characters we meet in the different stories. I found the pace in all the stories quite slow and thoughtful, and I really enjoyed that pace. It felt fitting to the collection.
My favourite short was the first one titled “The Cat”, I thought that chapter really showcased a sort of feeling of vastness, emptiness and that things comes and goes in our lives.
December 8, 2022
[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and the University of Iowa Press for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Woods releases November 10, 2022
This was a collection of short stories from characters that all live in a small town in Vermont, that is surrounded by untamed woods.
The common theme between characters and stories seemed to be finding solace with whatever their current situation may have been — whether that be dealing with grief, sibling dynamics, parenthood, marriage, or career changes.
Each story either had a character that was a professor, writer, knew a writer, or mentioned this towns elusive poet.
This was set during + mentions pandemic life, which I wasn’t expecting to be part of the plot.
Overall, I would have hoped for this novel to be a bit more eerie and atmospheric, or to focus more on the actual woods.
There were also quite a few typos — enough for it to be mentioned even though this wasn’t a final copy.
⤷ The Cat
“It’s something—when you feel lost or down—to walk out and face wild, crashing beauty. It exerts some pull on you as it rushes along, all gloss and froth.”
⤷ The Orams
“The woods have always contained them. But nature’s indifference is also its great patience. It will reclaim itself. At the very least, it will claim the Orams.”
⤷ The Chair
“The world changes. It’s not worse or better, she thinks—just different.”
⤷ The Bear Is Back
“We need a break from ourselves. Because we can’t have that, we must settle for overlooking things.”
⤷ Mountain Shade
“Behind her, the woods held something both there and not there, an experience that haunted her, but which she knew nothing about.”
⤷ The Forest Tavern
“But today my procrastination takes the form of desperate optimism.”
⤷ Sylvia Who Dreams of Dactyls
“Thoughts that cling as lint on a dress.”
⤷ Potions
“The potion needs to be neutral to allow us space to find within it what we want, what we need, what we wish.”
⤷ Monsters
“I think the world is even worse than we imagine it.”
⤷ Self-Preservation
“If the trees were a threshold, she wasn’t sure what was gained in crossing into them.”
⤷ Millstone Hill
“The shapeless pandemic days giving way to shapeless seasons felt a doubling of purgatory.”
Thank you to NetGalley and the University of Iowa Press for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Woods releases November 10, 2022
This was a collection of short stories from characters that all live in a small town in Vermont, that is surrounded by untamed woods.
The common theme between characters and stories seemed to be finding solace with whatever their current situation may have been — whether that be dealing with grief, sibling dynamics, parenthood, marriage, or career changes.
Each story either had a character that was a professor, writer, knew a writer, or mentioned this towns elusive poet.
This was set during + mentions pandemic life, which I wasn’t expecting to be part of the plot.
Overall, I would have hoped for this novel to be a bit more eerie and atmospheric, or to focus more on the actual woods.
There were also quite a few typos — enough for it to be mentioned even though this wasn’t a final copy.
⤷ The Cat
“It’s something—when you feel lost or down—to walk out and face wild, crashing beauty. It exerts some pull on you as it rushes along, all gloss and froth.”
⤷ The Orams
“The woods have always contained them. But nature’s indifference is also its great patience. It will reclaim itself. At the very least, it will claim the Orams.”
⤷ The Chair
“The world changes. It’s not worse or better, she thinks—just different.”
⤷ The Bear Is Back
“We need a break from ourselves. Because we can’t have that, we must settle for overlooking things.”
⤷ Mountain Shade
“Behind her, the woods held something both there and not there, an experience that haunted her, but which she knew nothing about.”
⤷ The Forest Tavern
“But today my procrastination takes the form of desperate optimism.”
⤷ Sylvia Who Dreams of Dactyls
“Thoughts that cling as lint on a dress.”
⤷ Potions
“The potion needs to be neutral to allow us space to find within it what we want, what we need, what we wish.”
⤷ Monsters
“I think the world is even worse than we imagine it.”
⤷ Self-Preservation
“If the trees were a threshold, she wasn’t sure what was gained in crossing into them.”
⤷ Millstone Hill
“The shapeless pandemic days giving way to shapeless seasons felt a doubling of purgatory.”
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews