Review: The Staircase in the Woods
- tatedecaro
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
2/5 stars
The Staircase in the Woods, by Chuck Wendig (2025)
I cannot recommend this book because of all the needlessly disturbing content. Honestly, if there's a trigger, this book has it.
TW: Blood & gore, Extreme violence, Sexual abuse, Pedophilia, Self-harm, Drug & alcohol abuse, Death of a child/parents, Torture, Rape, Incest, Addiction, Domestic abuse .... you can view them ALL here: Storygraph - Content Warnings.
With that in mind, it's hard to review this book because I didn't hate it. It's an interesting take on the haunted house, and I thought the premise had promise. Five friends find a mysterious, random staircase in the woods while camping. One of them, Matty, goes up it and disappears. Now, many years later, the remaining friends find another staircase, and this time, they follow - and end up in a nightmare labyrinth of terror rooms. It kept me engaged, even while I skimmed and skipped parts that were too graphic - which was a lot of it.
The plot was interesting, but for me, as the story continued it became very one-note. Each room the friends encounter is just one horrible situation after another, often tying in to some long-ago trauma of the characters themselves. That's what it is. This is a book about trauma. But not like, "How do you reckon with trauma? How does facing your fears help you heal?" More like, "HERE IS SOME TRAUMA! Can you believe how awful it is? HERE IS SOME MORE!" - over and over and over. Pain, torture, hatred, murder. People hurting people. After the first few rooms you kinda get the point.
What kept me going was wanting to learn the origin story of this house, and finding out where Matty has been all these years. For me, neither had a satisfactory explanation. I also didn't think the characters were all that compelling. They're all incredibly flawed individuals who seem to only care about themselves, even as they profess their undying devotion to one another. If you're going to throw a bunch of middle-aged folks with deep emotional scars from childhood trauma into an inescapable nightmare house, at least make them likable enough for the reader to want them to escape!
The more I write the more I wonder why I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 1... but when I first finished it I thought it was a 3! It's gripping, so while you're in it, you want to know more, which means I enjoyed the read itself. I just didn't like the after taste.
UP NEXT: There Are Reasons For This, by Nini Berndt
