Book Review: Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
The back cover of Through the Woods claims that it contains five mysterious, spine-tingling stories. Sure, I thought, but really it’s not going to be that scary, right? I expected to feel the small frisson that comes with reading ghost stories and the visual delight of paging through some cool looking art. Pleasant, simple, fun. A nice summer read. So I put it in my bag and took it to Vermont. Vermont, in case you were wondering, is full of woods. Let me properly set the scene here: we’d gone for a weekend to get away from all the hustle and bustle of work and city life. We had not packed our laptops, we did not bring our phone chargers, and each of us brought exactly one book to read (Moss’ was the excellent Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which I had already read). During the day, we stopped to meet friends for lunch in New Hampshire, and then hiked for four and a half hours in the green mountains, getting back to our car right as the sun was beginning to set. We checked into our hotel, The Vermont Inn, which was lovely and remote, and the sort of independent old inn that has lots of creaky charm in the stairs and floorboards. We ate a lovely dinner in the inn’s restaurant, followed by a delicious dessert cocktail — which tasted like a maple milkshake — in the inn’s bar. We soaked in the inn’s hot tub under the stars. And then we went upstairs, and read our books. Before bed.
