Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield

How to Survive in the Woods by Kat Rosenfield

How to Survive in the Woods

A Novel

by Kat Rosenfield

  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2026, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Wild meets The Wife Between Us in this page-turning thriller, set in Maine's Hundred Mile Wilderness—the treacherous final stretch of the storied Appalachian Trail—an addictive tale of passion, betrayal, control, and what it means to survive.

Raised by a doomsday prepper and hardened by the startup world, Emma Sharp has learned how to endure—especially in her marriage to Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who keeps her under tight control. To Emma, her marriage is a cage: it keeps you in, but it also keeps you safe. Until it doesn't.

When Emma forms an unexpected bond with Logan's former girlfriend, the two women form a plan to help Emma take her life back. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time.

As the three venture deeper into Maine's backcountry, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark, and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost ... or found.

How to Survive in the Woods is a heart-stopping knockout of a novel, by turns smart, psychologically rich, and deliciously dark. In her masterful hands, Kat Rosenfield asks us to consider what it means to be a survivor—and what, or who, you would sacrifice to stay alive.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Her shrewd efforts to outwit nature and her fellow hikers keep the pages turning, but Rosenfield skimps on emotional depth and character development. The result, while diverting, is unlikely to stay with readers." ―Publishers Weekly 

"An addictive, razor-sharp thriller—darkly funny, brilliantly tense, and impossible to put down." ―Jo Morey, author of Lime Juice Money

"How to Survive in the Woods grips you like a hidden snare in the underbrush—sudden, sharp, and impossible to escape. Set in the haunting vastness of Maine's 100 Mile Wilderness, Kat Rosenfield delivers a hypnotically compelling thriller that pulses with authenticity and dread. Think Michael Koryta's grit meets Gillian Flynn's psychological edge, all wrapped in a survivalist nightmare that unravels with masterful twists. You'll blaze through pages like you're racing sundown!" —Travis Kennedy, author of The Whyte Python World Tour

This information about How to Survive in the Woods was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Janine_S

Twisty psychological thriller
This is a slow-burn psychological thriller that's intense, suspenseful, full of twists and rabbit holes, and at times a "can't put it down" read. It explores themes of betrayal and loyalty, both in nature and in relationships, and what you would do to survive.

Emma Sharp is a complicated but tormented woman, raised by a doomsday believer, her father, Gregory Sharp, and hardened in the startup world to accept preparation and order. She's a survivor underneath her quiet, meek, submissive appearance but she harbors such self-loathing that she makes a terrible choice and marries a diabolic controlling misogynist, Logan Grant. Her psychological distress (revealed later in the book) stays dormient until after five years of marriage when Emma seems to wake up especially when she forms a romantic liaison with Taylor Cognetti, Logan's ex and former business partner. Emma envisions freedom and plans with Taylor to take a hike on the final miles of the Appalachian Trail, the punishing Hundred Mile Wilderness where scores will be settled.

The book is divided into seven parts each based on Emma's father's survival rules. Each rule is then expanded on with Emma's story or psychological torment. A kind of omniscient narrator comments alongside Emma as interacts with other characters giving more depth to Emma. As the hike proceeds events occur which seem to go one way but then verve off into another twist. We see that Emma is more prepared for survival than her tormentors. It really gets intense as the book nears it conclusion.

My criticism of the book is the lengths to which we had to endure Emma at times. Frankly she was so needly psychologically at times I wasn't sure how I felt about her, though as Logan continues to be a character in the book I felt a lot of empathy. With that said, I think the intensity of the journey into Emma's psyche and her desire to truly be free of her fears is probably an overall plus for this book.

I enjoyed the read.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Kat Rosenfield

Kat Rosenfield is the author of six books, including No One Will Miss Her (Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel), and the New York Times-bestselling A Trick of Light, co-authored with the late, great Stan Lee. A former reporter for MTV News and current columnist for The Free Press, her essays and cultural criticism have appeared in The Boston Globe, Vulture, Wired, AirMail, and The New York Times. She lives in Connecticut.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked How to Survive in the Woods, try these:

  • Meet Me at the Crossroads jacket

    Meet Me at the Crossroads

    by Megan Giddings

    Published 2026

    About this book

    From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.

  • North Woods jacket

    North Woods

    by Daniel Mason

    Published 2024

    About this book

    A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

  • Go as a River jacket

    Go as a River

    by Shelley Read

    Published 2023

    About this book

    Set amid Colorado's wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter. A tragic and uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival—and hope.

We have 10 read-alikes for How to Survive in the Woods, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
A Pair of Aces
by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
  • Book Jacket
    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
  • Book Jacket
    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Somebody Worth Killing
    by Jessica Payne
    Meet Nadia Davis, loving mom, devoted wife, secret assassin… and she needs a babysitter.
Who Said...

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

S the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.