The Woods Are Dark - Richard Laymon - 4 stars

Apparently this book was first copywrited in 1981 and the editors for Warner Books butchered the book. Taking out full paragraphs, whole chapters were removed, bad grammatical errors, and so on. Laymon often referred to this book as the one that ruined his career. Then in 2008 after painstaking work, his daughter, Kelly Laymon pieced the book back together and had it published as the restored and uncut version, fortunately this is the version I have. Sad that Laymon did not get to see what his daughter had accomplished since he passed away in 2001. His daughter wrote a little story about all of this and published it into the first few pages of The Woods Are Dark. So there may be some bad reviews of this book if the 1981 version is what was read. If you read the 1981 version, do yourself a favor and read the one published in 2008.

When I first chose to read this book, I really liked the premise of the story and knew that I was in the mood yet again for a Laymon book in full Laymon style. In this story we have Neala and Sherri who find themselves tethered to a tree along with the Dill family waiting for the Krulls to come and get them. They knew what it meant to get this visit from them. They get escape and have to survive the dark woods. The story goes on from there.

There was so much action and just plain insanity in this book, it was just non stop. I really enjoyed the premise of this story and I think it was executed so well. I read this book in 3 and a half hours because it was so engaging and flowed really well. There was also great imagery to describe the Krulls and their life style in a very harsh, woodsy setting. Made me wonder who could really survive the terror among these savages. I knew I would not want to be one of the victims.

I really liked the characters in this story, not because they were greatly developed, because they really were very simple. I liked the characters because of how they were changed so much throughout the story. You could actually see them evolve from what they started out as, due to the harshness of the terrain, and the savagery of the dwellers. I never knew what one of them would do from one moment to the next, so it became rather shocking at times. But placed in this situation, people will do what it takes to survive and you wonder who is turns bad and who is good anymore.

Of course I have to recommend this book to anyone who loves Laymon's writing. We all know he is not for everyone. He is on the scale of 'you love him' or 'you hate him'. There is no in between. Also those who like a dark, shocking, disturbing tale of insanity may enjoy this book as well so go ahead and take the plunge, you won't be sorry.