Within the Woods

A Horror Novel

By: Tony Urban

Narrated by: Thomas Rode

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's summary

For 12-year-old Garrett and his four best friends, the idyllic summer of 1989 crashes to a halt when Garrett's older brother vanishes.

Something is very wrong in Sallow Creek, Pennsylvania.

Something is turning their neighbors and relatives into unstoppable monstrosities...monsters that are coming for them.

Their small town is under siege, but the adults refuse to believe the truth. Can five young misfits and outcasts save the day?

©2018 Tony Urban (P)2019 Tony Urban

Good storyline

If you liked Stand By Me, this is a story for you! I can’t wait to share this with my granddaughter. She will love it!

Get Lost In It

I Loved This Book! I could not turn it off! Everything I did, I took this book with me. This writer has never failed me, and always leaves me yearning for more of his writings!

Good characters but wished the story was longer.

As stated above I enjoyed the character interactions between the kids, but every other character felt kind of bland. Also the idea of a sluggish monster invading a small town but aside from its lethality & the dramatic discovery of its weakness I wished the creature could've been expanded upon. Also I wished the author didnt resort to so much crude language. Overall though it was an enjoyable listen, especially during Halloween.

Horror and Comedy DO Mix!

Story 5/5
Narration - 5/5

"Within the Woods" by Tony Urban is one of the best coming-of-age tales I've read or listened to, and has to be in my top ten of the year.

The narrator is very talented.

As good as this story is, this is a case of must-listen-to if there ever was one!

Highly Recommended

silly fun

honestly, I'm a 50 yr old women and this book was written from the perspective of 12 yr old boys. and that just made me laugh! I enjoyed it.

enjoyable

night of the creeps meets the faculty with a bit of the thing thrown in for good measure. Enjoyable story and narration

Fun Read

Reminds me of Stand by me+The Goonies and Stranger Things all put together. Fun Read

Enthralled!

If you love a book that sucks you in immediately and leaves you pondering the possibilities long after the epilogue is over, this is the book for you! Tony Urban has a knack for creating incredibly relatable characters that the reader can really connect to. The friendship between the characters transported me back to my own childhood and I felt like a participant in the group rather than an outside observer. The story was horrific, gory, gross, sad, nerve-wracking, frightening, and yet funny enough to have me laughing out loud many times. Reminiscent of Stranger Things, Within the Woods takes the reader along on a wild ride and leaves you hoping for a sequel when you’re finished!

Really scary!

This is a good one! Sort of reminds me of early Stephen King. It’s well written with characters that you really like and cheer for. Sometimes you cheer, sometimes you despair, and sometimes you crack up. If you enjoy alien invasion horror, you’ll enjoy this.

I liked the concept, poor execution

Spoilers Ahead

I got this thinking it was going to belike a more adult version of the stuff I grew up with in the 90s like are you afraid of the dark or goosebumps. It was not. I thought the focus on body grossness bordered on ludicrous; there was so much puke and poop and boobs and peckers in this book that it eventually led to eyerolling exasperation. Constantly trying to gross the reader out with mentions of puss and diarrhea when mentioning the worms. I get some explanation but it eventually became juvenile. All the characters except the grandfather, adults and kids where always mean spirited including the main boys. As a boy growing up if someone insulted you constantly you wouldn't be friends with them. Never understood the concept where writers think that's all boys do. The main boys were also almost interchangeable except for Jose and Garrett. (Side note, how Jose was infected and died was really dumb. They could have thrown salt on the arms immediately but Rey was too dumb to think about it.) I would find myself not really knowing who was who or what their personalities or even what they looked like. Not many stood out. The cussing was overly nonsensical as well. The types of cussing that was used in this book I've never heard anyone utter in my life and the people who do cuss this much are usually the most ill educated. And this book is called Within the Woods, nothing hardly happens in the woods. The climax is at the middle school. Also the boys never do much investigating or know what the worm people are or what they were trying to do. They just eventually find out about them by accident, figure out how to kill them by accident which wouldn't make sense since salt is in almost all human food. And they just assume they're aliens. No source is ever found or anything ever investigsted. So it made me think why am I on this journey if nothing will ever be found out? I was hoping for something better and kept thinking it would get better. It didn't.