I was really looking forward to this book since the premise intrigued me. Each book in the series sounds up my alley, actually. However it ended up being a case that the way the plot developed wasn't as good as I had imagined based on the book's summary. It wasn't bad--I haven't written off the entire series and might pick up the others at a later date, but it was more of a meh. When I spend too long of a time on one book I get impatient to finish it, even when I'm enjoying the book, but especially when there's that feeling of "well, get on with it!" which I had a lot with this book.

For one, they never solve the case from twenty years ago! The case that's the big, intriguing hook from the description. What happened to those kids? Well, we still don't know. Second, I found the first half or so to move really slow. Not much develops in the current case they're working on, and I guess that's the point--they themselves are frustrated that they're stuck, but because it was that old case that intrigued me, I kept waiting to see how it connected to the current case. Third, once it finally did pick up and we progressed on the case, Rob's character also progressed...in a not so positive way. I know he's messed up by his past, but there still comes a point where that can't be his excuse in life. He makes more and more mistakes--messing up when he's at the trial, blowing up at Devlin, and what finally pushed him over for me was how he treated Cassie. The one person who knew his past that he could have perhaps opened up to, he instead pushes away. Although for as much as we hear of Cassie's great profiling skills and how she keeps spotting psychopaths, you would think she would have maybe suggested he do something about his own demons. Counseling? By the end Rob's negative spiral has really ****** up his life. I mean, I certainly wasn't expecting sunshine and rainbows for an ending but I hadn't imagined such a sad ending involving one of the detectives. Although my feeling of sadness was more a general, outsider look because by the end I went from feeling angry at Rob to just not really caring what happened to him. Like, sucks for you, buddy.

Sorry for most of this review going behind a spoiler warning--I just am not sure how much of this would spoil the book. Now for one last spoiler, both for In the Woods and Gone Girl: Once we learn how twisted Rosalind really is*, my immediate thought was "wow her and Amy should meet up. Well...maybe they actually should't." My second thought was "ohh so this is what Amy and Nick's child will be like. Fun." *: On that note--when at the end Rob is all "well Rosalind fooled you too, so neener neener neener" I wanted to be all "NO SHE DIDN'T, JERK FACE!!!" I didn't "call it" right away or anything, but there was something off about her from the start. How or why Rob fell under spell and was so protective of her I never really got. You're a detective and you're letting some under 18 pull the wool over your eyes? Sorry, I'm having too much fun using a fictional character as a punching bag. Kick 'em when they're down, amiright?

In the Woods - Likewise Book Reviews

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