The Staircase In The Woods - Chuck Wendig // Book Review

The Staircase in the Woods

Chuck Wendig || Publication Date - 29.04.2025

What lengths would you truly go to for your friends?

Fiction | Horror

Affiliate Link - https://bookshop.org/a/110173/9780593156568

Three dysfunctional friends are living their separate lives when they receive an email from their fourth friend Nick, telling them all he has cancer and to use the plane tickets he has purchased them to see him one last time.

He's promised them a weekend of alcohol, drugs and debauchery as a final farewell before his terminal diagnosis finally takes him away. However, upon arrival to the party, nothing is going to be the same again.

Nick has brought his friends to a remote part of the woods, and convinces them that the resort he has booked for them all is only a short hike away. What they don't know is he has lured them to an impromptu campsite next to an abandoned staircase. Very similar to the staircase which claimed Matty a few decades prior.

What follows is a fever dream of trauma, horrors and facing their own worst demons as they try to find the friend they abandoned all those years ago.

The Review (May Contain Spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

I have been craving the type of book lately that gives me the absolute creeps and Chuck did not disappoint. The atmosphere in this novel is truly eerie. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a Staircase the same again...

The characters that are being focused on in this novel are fucked up in so many ways, however, their bond is wholesome and chaotic. I love their idea of The Covenant. It's gone from a pact to help each other through their lives major setbacks, to invoking unbridled and messy situations. It really opens up the question of "What would you REALLY do for your friends?". The novel explores so many various forms of trauma and character personalities that it's hard not to find an experience through them to relate to. I felt this added even more layers to the horrors the characters are being exposed to, as they are actively being forced to face them head on.

I love how these chapters are set out. It's coasty for a couple of chapters and they continue to get shorter as something looms. Then you're back to longer chapters which keeps building in a sense of dread, and because they keep getting shorter, the pace quickens making everything seem much more urgent and tense.

If there's a single triumph from this novel - I am truly proud to say it gave me the ever loving creeps. I had yet to find a book which actively made me feel uncomfortable, and this gave it to me in spades. Chuck's writing and how immersed I felt during the story truly gave me the feeling I had been searching for when it came to being given the heebies. And deeply I want to thank him 😂

Overall Thoughts

This was an absolute banger of a novel. From start to finish I was gripped by the situation, the characters and the calamity which ensues through the book. So many emotions were felt while reading, all overshadowed by a pressing sense of dread, and it was perfect. As I've said above, this is probably the first horror novel that actually left me physically uneasy while reading. I'd been craving something to make me feel this way and I loved how Chuck's writing imbued me with unease.

If you're looking for a book surrounding dysfunctional friends and a fucked up house, look no further than this. I highly recommend you pick this novel up for yourself, it was a damn good time and I'm so glad I got to read it.