Welcome back to Books With Cause. Let’s dive straight into my latest review.
Again, we’re continuing with catching up on the ongoing Goodreads Horror Aficionados recommendations. This time it’s the turn of This Wretched Valley. A wilderness horror story, and upon reading the back of it, I was excited for this one.
The story begins in a rather ambiguous way, too. It opens in October 2019 with three dead bodies found in the Kentucky Wilderness. The flesh and organs have been removed. All that remains is their skeletons. The bodies are identified as belonging to Sylvia Burnett, Clay Foster, and Luke Woodhaven. Authorities discover that these three people set out in a group as part of a research trip. But there should be four of them. So where is the fourth? Where is Dylan Prescott?
We then jump back to March 2019, where we meet Clay, alive and well. Clay is a geologist, and he has been tipped to a previously undiscovered cliff face. This could be the break he’s looking for. The case study could mean he nails his college degree. He teams up with researcher Sylvia, also from his college. Between them, they can handle all the science and logistics. But they need someone to do the actual climbing part. Enter Dylan. A rock climber who is turning professional and just landed her first big-time sponsor. But she will only do it if her boyfriend, Luke, comes along too. Clay has no issue with this as he knows that Dylan will need someone to belay; he’ll be too busy to do it himself. So it might as well be Luke. And Luke brings along his dog, Slade.
That’s the setup. From there, we get some formulaic horror movie vibes. Like when they stop for food on the way, and the waitress in the diner warns them not to go into the woods. Some people go into the woods and never come out. They ignore her warnings. Otherwise, the book would’ve finished around page 40 rather than 302. They go into the woods, and that’s where things get weird. First, Slade goes missing, and that is the catalyst for the violent breakdown of the group.
And I’ll be careful not to tell you much more than that. You already know the fate of three out of the four youths from chapter one.
Try as I might, this is a book that I struggled to get into. I don’t know why. It was just one of those where the idea felt better than the execution.
My Goodreads Rating: ★★★☆☆(3 stars)
