Overall I was disappointed in this one. I can tell the author has found her voice and her audience, the fact that Netflix signed a deal for book one being a testament to that - but it isn't me. This was a little too on the nose in so many places, and not nearly as insidious as it could have been.

4.25 stars.
Two best friends decide to go for a 3 day hike before one of them goes off the college and the other has to stay behind in the small town they grew up in. The only thing they have actually prepared for is the print outs of maps and trials and a bear canister - because there's warnings or bears in these woods and you don't want to be attacked by a bear, do you?
Not long into the journey the girls begin to bicker. who had the heavier backpack, who got them lost, who was the selfish one...but after setting up their tent next to another eerily quiet neighbouring one they begin to hear snaps of twigs that can't be a bear. But what is it and why does it seem like they're being tracked like they're the animals?
Ok this was a tense thrilling book that I was surprised to (double checked) a YA book. If you ever need to put your teens off going with their friends/partners for a hike, this is the thing to use. This is why we don't trust other humans, or nature, or our friends, or anything.....

I LOVED this book. I'm not usually a fan of survival stories but this has such a strong sense of danger and tension throughout. The two main characters were really interesting and I loved the setup of two friends who feel their friendship is coming to an end going on one last trip in an attempt to salvage it. There are very few books which can scare me but this filled me with dread and some scenes were genuinely terrifying. A fantastic read.

Overall Rating: 4.5/5 stars

An absolute page-turner! It's very rarely that I find myself gravitating towards this genre, but I decided to trust Stephanie Perkins having loved her previous YA work and I can't say that I regret it at all. This is the kind of book that demands to be read in one sitting.

Thank you for accepting my request and apologies for not getting around to reading this sooner! I'd previously only heard of Stephanie Perkins through her YA romance series (Anna and the French Kiss etc.) so was slightly skeptical going into this as to whether she could pull off a mystery/horror plot. I was not disappointed! This is one of the best YA books I've read this year and will be purchasing her pervious horror novel to read in the colder months.

i'e heard a lot about stephanie perkins but this is the first book i've read of hers

i really liked the way it was set up, very ordinary, final trip with two best friends. they go into the big outdoors, fall out, and then it all starts getting creepy and unsettling

didn't expect the way horror would present itself in here, the body horror, the realistic terrifying fear. it made me feel sick as i compulsively kept reading

want to read more of hers!

I wanted to love this book so so much. Sadly, I did not. I very much expected a creepy otherworldly haunting thriller but this book did not deliver that. The 'thriller' & 'horror' was very centered in real life but the book felt like it was meant to be in this out of this world erie setting with an equally out of this world terrifying 'horror'/'villian'. The author is obviously very talented because she built the suspense and atmosphere I expected the book to give. However, the book let me down with the actual horror it presented. The setup was phenomenal the actual climax sadly, was not.

I'll start with the good. The storytelling, description and general building of vulnerability and well executed. The makings of a great psychological horror thriller are here but I did feel a tad let down by the end more in the sense of having read other books in the genre it was somewhat predictable.

I did enjoy the book though and it was a fun read. I am not sure if I would be quick to reread but it was good. I was delayed in my review with a family emergency but I did find I could easily remember the events and story so it did have that. I would be interested to read more by the author

I finished The Woods Are Always Watching a couple of weeks ago and I can barely remember anything about it. That’s not a good sign.

I freaking love hiking, and finding out this one is about a killer on a hiking trail both put me on edge and also made me keen to settle in. I loved the setting of this book. Reading about the characters’ journey through the wilderness was SO much fun, up until the point things start to go wrong of course. Perkins did a great job of introducing the wilds.

The downside for me was the characters. They were so unprepared for their hike, for one thing. It was the most frustrating thing to read. Along with that, they had almost no personality between the two of them. I don’t know why they were arguing or what caused them to get so aggravated other than a couple of minor things. I think Perkins should have spent longer on her characterisation of the pair of them so that I actually cared when they were in danger.

While some parts of this book were interesting and a little suspenseful, for the most part this was just a quick read that I blitzed through and promptly forgot about. It did help me realise that I wanted to read more camping or hiking horror books though.

The Woods Are Always Watching is a nightmare-inducing mix of the thriller and horror genres in which two best friends attempt to navigate their changing relationship as they prepare to go off to college thousands of miles apart, and as a last hoorah, they recklessly decide to head off on a three-day-long hike in the deep wilderness. Two recent high school graduates and best friends from Ashville, North Carolina, Neena Chandrasekhar and Josie Gordon, begin their backpacking excursion in the dense Pisgah National Forest. The story begins with lighthearted banter, but sadness soon tinges the experience as the girls, both outsiders at school, realise that the future is coming closer and when it arrives, their comfortable relationship is probably going to end. Timid Neena is going to college on the West Coast and resentful and envious Josie is facing a go-nowhere future.

In the forest, they quickly find that despite the tips from relatives and borrowed equipment that they are in way above their heads on their first-ever backpacking trip. So when their nightmare gets worse and Josie falls into a sinkhole it results in a terrible injury that leaves her trapped, bleeding and unable to move. Neena realises she must return to a more populated area to find help, but it suddenly dawns on her that she forgot to bring her inhaler with her. Both girls are now in quite the predicament leaving them vulnerable to those likely to take advantage of youngsters in distress. At the same time, the girls realise that someone else is in the forest and is stalking them - two white serial killers are on the prowl. Can they make it out alive? This is a terrifying and nail-biting tale where everything that could go wrong literally does and couple this with the wilderness they are in, far away from normal society, and you have a recipe for disaster.

There is no gratuitous sexuality or violence, but this is a truly psychologically unnerving story; in fact, it was so insidious I found the story haunted my dreams for a few nights showing the impact it must have had on my psyche. It's a deeply immersive tale with lush descriptions of mother nature and how cruel she can be, and the whole ordeal did a superb job of highlighting the beauty and serenity of the Blue Ridge Mountains - a cast member in their own right alongside our two protagonists. Just when you think it cannot get any more urgent or catastrophic it does, and Perkins continues to outdo herself. I appreciate that the teenage main characters actually acted age-appropriate and were naive which is really what leads to their dire situation. This is the type of horror I enjoy whether in book or television format - unsettling, subtly disturbing and that works its way under your skin. Overall, a sinister and rapid-fire paced read fraught with tension and emotion. Highly recommended.

Unfortunately this didn’t really hold my attention all that well. Stopped reading and never returned to it.

I was excited for this book, The premise of the book sounded good but in the end it was predictable and lacked execution.

I was looking for a book that would have that amazing edge on the seat, heart beating fear-provoking sense about it and this book has it in spades. I adored Neena and Josie, two best friends who chose to go on a hiking trip through the forest before they went their separate ways to college. It was a terrifying read that I am very glad I read in the brightness of daylight. A great read!

Best friends Neena and Josie decide to go on one last trip before they separate for college - a three-day hike deep into the woods. But it doesn’t go to plan and they find themselves walking into a living nightmare.

Although we’re thrown into the story pretty much straight away, I struggled to get into it, and I found it fairly predictable. I didn’t care about the characters or what happened to them. 

However, it was a quick, easy read that didn’t take too much brain power to get through. The setting was pretty good and added a creepy layer to the story. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a chance to read and review this book.

OMG this was everything I hoped it would be and more, my excitement for Stephanie Perkins books has just went up like 100%! I've been anticipating this book for ages and to be fair had hyped it up in my head so much that I was a nervous going in but can I just say omg there was nothing to be nervous about because this book was fantastic.

We're following Neena and Josie who have decided to go hiking before they split up to go to college. Neither has any hiking experience and let's just say both girls are carrying some heavy baggage about their friendship and things start to go from bad to worse real quick.

Honestly this was just brilliant the creepy atmosphere of camping at night was just spot on and it definitely reminded me of camping as a teen and how easy it is to freak yourself out. And then the fact that the last 50% is an all out survival novel was just the icing on the cake and i absolutely ate it up. The panic the adrenaline the atmosphere everything in here was just gold, this book is for sure going to be in my top 10 books of the year and Stephanie Perkins just became an author who's books I'm always going to pick up. Highly recommend if you like camping, survival or slasher type books. 100% have my own copy on pre-order.

Thank you so much to the publishers at netgalley for providing me with an E-arc in exchange for an honest review.

A nail-biting horror packed with twists and memorable characters. I've been longing for a follow up to There's Someone Inside Your House and Stephanie Perkins more than delivered

This was definitely reading out of my normal comfort zone. Two girls go on a hiking trip in the woods and things go very wrong.
Living in the middle of the UK, we don't have any of the wilderness areas as described in this story so I was really intrigued by the setting. Stephanie Perkins describes the woods perfectly and the building tension as the girls' friendship is stretched to breaking point by the hike and having to survive is brilliant. The novel then moves into horror territory as they encounter a killer far worse than the bears that they had originally been afraid of.
I was less convinced by the horror aspect than the earlier section of the book but I was gripped by the story and had to find out what was going to happen next. It's definitely not one for the faint hearted or squeamish though.
Thank you to Net Galley and Macmillan Children's Books for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the characters of Josie and Neena and, much like her previous book, I appreciate the intention of subverting the callous narrative of slasher films. But I found this book just kind of unpleasant and unnecessary. I would read her next book, this one just didn’t really work for me.

I think the book idea was very intriguing and interesting. And while i enjoyed reading the book i feel as if the second half was a bit more rushed in the action than it needed to be and the first half nothing interesting really happed apart from the girls arguing with each other. And when the girls were together the character focus would shift and that's not something i really like i prefer different character pov focus in different chapters. And the ending i feel like could be better if we could see what they were like after they escaped the killers. i still enjoyed reading this but i fell it could be improved in different ways to make the story much better.