** spoiler alert ** 
 After all of that development and growing and cultivating and caution and survivable self-destruction and failure and regeneration and struggling and coping, they had just walked through the wrong bunch of bloody trees. And that was that. 
 I have read only the first part, 'Beneath the Remains'. And I don't feel like reading the second. The plot, though not very original, was fine, I like that sort of stuff. But I was constantly distracted and annoyed by the characters. They were unpleasant; and since in Apartment 16 was the same thing, I start to wonder if Adam Nevill is a misanthrope. Seriously, how am I supposed to care about their surviving if I distaste them? Well, Hutch was more neutral, but *major spoiler alert* the guy was the first to die. 
 But the most distracting and annoying was how stupid they appeared. Though Hutch and Luke had, supposedly, had experience; and Luke ranted like - "They were all pathetic; getting lost like a bunch of amateurs. The kind of idiots who attempted to climb a mountain without proper training or the right gear; or those wankers who tried crossings of treacherous water and ended up diverting the ocean's shipping in a search and rescue." All they did was wrong. There was no need for supernatural to kill them. They had been doomed the minute they set foot on that trip: 
 They didn't tell anyone where they were heading and what way. Anyone. Not families, nor authorities. The guy, Dom, injured his knee at the very first day. And... instead of sending him back, or changing their plans, they continued with the hike. They what, thought he can walk it off or something? Then they decided to take a shortcut through the woods, alright, that's the plot's base, but even then it became obvious that going through that terrain was an extremely difficult task, they didn't turn back. They didn't try to return to the trail. And it wasn't before two of them had been killed and one was barely standing on his feet when the simple idea of climbing a tree to get their bearings occurred to Luke. But the funniest situation was with water. They didn't have much. So they drank whiskey, hello dehydration, and some 'murky' water from the creek without even bothering to boil it first, hello.. whatever. While it was raining almost all the time! How hard can it be to rig something to catch and funnel rain water? 
 All in all: 3 stars for the first part. And, who knows, maybe one day I'll eventually decide to read the second part of the book, 'South of Heaven'. But for now, the book goes on the 'did-not-finish' shelf.