gilda_elise

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods.

While on a camping trip, five high-schoolers bound by an oath to always protect one another discover something in the middle of the forest: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend climbs up but does not come back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later it reappears, and the friends return to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase.

While it’s a really creepy story, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I have some of Wendig’s other books. Maybe because, while I found the story compelling and unputdownable, I think the fact that I didn’t care all that much for the characters sort of ruined things. Not terribly, just enough for me to wish that at least one character had been written more likably.

Yet, at the same time, I’m not sure that would have worked. The four remaining characters are all pretty flawed, with some major issues. In that, it worked that the one character who was basically a nice guy is the one who goes missing, because a lot of the what was going on dealt with those issues. Unfortunately, that’s what made the characters not so likable.

It also seemed that none of them had grown much. One would think that, pushing forty, the characters would have more sense. I had a hard time seeing them as adults, their actions often being that of a teenager.

Having said all that, I still enjoyed the story, because it is a good story. And what was happening really tended to outweigh who it was happening to.

Goodreads 35