These Silent Woods (Book Review)

Back in December, my sister was in a production of A Christmas Carol. She lives about three hours away, so my mom and I drove up together every weekend to catch as many showings as we can. We often listen to audiobooks together, but between the road trip weekends and the insanity that is Christmas season in retail I’d been exhausted. On at least one of the trips, I slept while she drove and listened to her next book club book, which was These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant. I drifted in and out of sleep, so I heard a few scenes wildly out of context (including, unfortunately, the epilogue). What I heard sounded interesting and my mom enjoyed the book so later, on my own time and fully awake, I listened to it for myself.

What’s it about?

Cooper and his young daughter Finch are living off the land in a cabin deep in the woods. Those aren’t their real names, and they’re as much hiding as living in the middle of nowhere; years ago, Cooper did something bad enough that he had to flee with Finch and change their names lest his past come back to bite him and take Finch away from him. After several years of relative peace—occasional visits from their odd and unsettling neighbor Scotland notwithstanding—things start to go wrong, throwing new people into their small world and threatening the closed but safe life Cooper built for them. 

How’s the narration?

These Silent Woods has two narrators. Bronson Pinchot, reading as Cooper, does the vast majority of the novel, with Stephanie Willis taking the sole chapter that is not from Cooper’s first person perspective. Both narrators do a good job: engaging but calm, just what the story needs. This novel is sort of a thriller, but it’s mostly about the careful atmosphere that Cooper creates, and Pinchot creates that with his voice.

What’d I think?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I have slightly mixed feelings about These Silent Woods, and it’s all due to the end. There’s the slightest disconnect between the setup and the payoff, and even though I could kind of see the end coming I still found it a little underwhelming.

December 2023 Wrap Up

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that it’s already 2024. I hope you all had happy and safe holidays. I got to see lots of family and play lots of games, which is really all I can wish for (except maybe some vacation time. Retail during December is rough).

Thanks for clicking on this wrap-up! I hope you enjoy the whole thing, but even if you don’t I can be certain you’ll enjoy the adorable picture of Darcy being festive. There’s nothing cuter than a puppy with a fresh haircut.

Here’s what I read…

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (audiobook read by Tim Curry)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

My sister was in a community theatre production of Alan Menken’s A Christmas Carol this year (she played a Charity Man, amongst other ensemble roles). In the past I’ve been a millennial stereotype in the sense that I strongly believe that The Muppets Christmas Carol is superior to all other versions of the classic tale, the original included. Having seen Menken’s version four times now, I love it too. Honestly, I’m just a sucker for a musical. Across the many road trips to and from my sister’s theatre, I listened to an audiobook of Dickens’ original. I have long said that, while it’s worth reading A Christmas Carol once if for no other reason than to experience a cultural classic in its original form, there are so many onscreen versions that adapt it accurately enough that reading it and watching it are essentially the same in most cases.

Unless you watch a musical version, in which case watching it is far better. I still stand by that. 99% of the time, a version of a story with quality bops is better than the version without. Still, it was fun to revisit non-Gonzo Dickens’ words, particularly as read by Tim Curry (who is a fantastic audiobook narrator, to the point that his reading a book is a major incentive to read it). For the most part it was just a narrated version of the story I’d seen onscreen so many times, but I’d forgotten a few specific details: the Ghost of Christmas Past is so often depicted as a woman or a child that I was legitimately surprised to be reminded that in the book he’s a man with a lightbeam shooting out of the top of his head. It was fun to revisit, but it’s hard for me to want to spend my Christmas Carol attention on it when there are versions with songs like “Marley and Marley” or “Dancing on Your Grave.”

---

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (audiobook read by Dominic Hoffman)

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is one of the year’s critical darlings. It’s Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year. It’s one of Amazon’s books of the year. It’s on Barack Obama’s list. It’s on The Week‘s list. It was a finalist in the Goodreads’ end-of-year awards. That being said, I hated it. There’s clearly some sort of allegorical story going on in this novel that I didn’t catch, but there are too many characters introduced for limited payoff, running bits that seem like they should be funny but aren’t, depressing plot points, and random bird walks for me to be anything but glad to have finished it. Clearly others have seen something in this book, but I was bored enough that I couldn’t bring myself to pay enough attention to search for it.

I will say that the very end, which focuses on the quote-unquote American dream and the way it excludes and/or exploits minority groups, is powerful. If the whole book had had that focus, I might have liked it more, but the last few pages of a 400 pg/12+ hour book is too late to catch the reader. Congratulations to James McBride for getting this book named Book of the Year in so many places, but for what it’s worth, if I’d been any of those panels the top prize would have gone elsewhere.     

Full review here

---

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley (audiobook read by Isabella Star LaBlanc)

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.