I loved Don't Let the Forest In and read it in one sitting (at night to add to the ambiance). It follows two high school seniors, Andrew and Thomas, after they come back to their boarding school after summer break. However, they find that their beloved forest near campus is now off limits, but they must sneak out to fight monsters of their creation that show up in the forest at night. From there the book has multiple turns, many of which I didn't expect.

This book was creepy, atmospheric, dark, obsessive, and beautifully written. I found myself highlighting multiple quotes and bookmarking pages. One thing that stuck with me was Andrew describing the short, dark, sorrowful fairy tales he writes as "papercuts". I loved reading these "papercut" stories interspersed throughout the book, and I would read a second book just of them. As an asexual person, I also loved (and cried) reading about Andrew starting to come to terms with his sexuality and his yearning for his best friend. Sometimes I read a book that I really wish had been around when I was a teenager and really struggling with my asexuality myself, and Don't Let the Forest In was one of those.

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced electronic copy in exchange for an honest review. I have not said this in a while, but this is a book I will be buying physically with my own money now that it has released so that I can have it on my shelf forever.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars
The writing in this book is masterfully done, beautifully grotesque and grotesquely beautiful. As someone who typically has trouble visualizing things, stories that are heavily reliant on description to get things across are typically hard for me to connect with, but I didn't have that issue at all with this book. All the descriptions are intricate and well-delivered.
Andrew is such a painfully relatable main character. He's damaged and afraid and wants to do his best but has no idea how. There's a strength in finding that about yourself.
The only reason I'm rating this book under five stars is because of the ending. I'll explain as well as I can without spoilers. While it makes enough sense, the direction it took is one that I personally don't like and am not comfortable with. The perception of that is up to the reader, and this is more due to personal preference than an issue with the quality of the story, but I have reasons for these preferences and stand by them.
I also feel like there are several loose ends that could have been tied for a more fulfilling ending, for me at least. Leaving the questions open-ended gives everything an air of mystery and space for speculation, which was presumably an artistic choice of the author's. While a valid route to take, I personally feel most fulfilled as a reader when all my questions are answered.
So my complaints are mainly due to personal preference, things I found less fulfilling than I had hoped. There were also a handful of moments in the story that didn't quite make sense, but they were few and far between enough to not make a large impact.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed a solid 95% of the book. It was gorgeous and horrifying and painful in the most satisfying way. I absolutely plan to read it a second time for the full experience, to pick up on things that I hadn't known initially to look for.

Spooky times call for spooky stories, and few times are spookier than the week of Hallowe’en. So it is with great pleasure that I present my review of Don’t Let the Forest In, a young adult novel from CG Drews. Don’t Let the Forest In is a psychological horror novel set in a prestigious boarding school, Wickwood Academy. It’s there that Australian-born twins, Andrew and Dove, first met Thomas. This is the trio’s senior year, but even on the first day back, everything seems to be going wrong.

Dove and Andrew have been fighting before they even arrive at the school, and all Andrew wants to do is find Thomas so that the three of them can resume their standard undefeatable crew behavior. Thomas is acting oddly, though, even for him. He seems more on edge than usual, there’s blood dried on his shirt, and he’s not talking to Dove. Previously, Andrew would write stories to vent his darker side. Thomas would illustrate them. Dove would serve as the boys’ connection to the real world, anchoring them and helping them through their academic struggles. Now, police are showing up to question Thomas about his parents’ whereabouts, and Andrew doesn’t know if he can even trust his twin. He doesn’t want to alienate Dove by discussing the way he feels about Thomas, he doesn’t want to risk losing Thomas by admitting that there may be more than just friendship between them, and he really doesn’t want to think about the possibility that Dove and Thomas are already engaging in a more serious relationship.

As the year grinds on and Thomas seems to be more exhausted, though, a secret comes out. He’s been sneaking out of the school into the woods at night to fight monsters, his own drawings come to life. The darkness within Andrew’s stories spilling from the pages of Thomas’s sketchbook now threatens everyone at Wickwood. While Andrew volunteers to go out in the dark to do battle alongside Thomas, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be enough. Even destroying the sketchbook doesn’t stop the horrors from tumbling out into reality. Andrew already knows he would kill to protect Thomas. If it comes to it, could he kill Thomas in order to save Dove and the rest of his schoolmates?

Don’t Let the Forest In is a fantastically dark adventure, and I’m ridiculously grateful to NetGalley and MacMillan for sending me an eARC in exchange for a fair review. It’s out in the world as of yesterday, October 29th, and is an absolutely perfect Hallowe’en read. Go get it.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2024/10/30/dont-let-the-forest-in-a-review/

This book was really compelling. On a sentence level, it was really interesting and I found the concept of the monsters and forest creatures to be super interesting. However, I didn't find the themes tied together well, and I don't think the story resolved well. The fourth act twist didn't really add to the narrative, and all of Andrew's problems went unresolved. Instead it felt like a gotcha twist with an ambiguous ending for shock factor. As a YA novel, I think this failed. I did enjoy it, but I wish it had been more cohesive overall.

I was crying by the end of this book. This book has everything that I love : horror, exquisite writing, queer representation, asexuality, monsters, body horror, grief and stories within stories.
“ ‘Just don’t go into the forest,’ his father said. ‘Andrew? Promise me that at least.’ ‘Okay,’ Andrew said, but he couldn’t mean it since the forest was Thomas’s favorite place.”
I have to admit I was confused at times. The writing is like a fever dream. I gasped at the reveal. I was thinking that I needed to start the book all over again. ARC was provided by Macmillan Children's Publishing Group/Feiwel & Friends via NetGalley. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Though with a predictable ending, I found great joy and, weirdly, comfort, in reading Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews. Andrew reminds me of Charlie from Heartstopper and I found myself drawn to him in the same way. This boy, so full of anxiety that he can barely function sometimes. This boy who is so afraid of everything that when he sees the monsters in the forest, he’s not afraid. And he finds power in this lack of fear. The only thing he fears is losing Thomas. He fears losing him just about as much as he fears fully having him. The love and obsession these two boys have for one another is enviable and also fear inducing. They are the type to want to carve into the other and crawl inside, and that still wouldn’t be close enough. But god forbid they actually admit their feelings. All while trying to navigate senior year, potential new friends, infighting, bullies, and, oh yeah, mysterious monsters that keep appearing in the forest and that are starting to infiltrate the grounds of the school itself.

The book is the perfect read for this time of year. I just read it today, the night before Halloween, which happens to be when the ending of the book is set. The damp decay of the forest fits perfectly with my own surroundings, as the last of the leaves turn and fall. The balance of horror and teenage nonsense was well done, though I would have liked more of the school setting. Neither Thomas nor Andrew are really doing the whole school thing, not turning in assignments, etc, but no one feels the need to interfere? But our narrator, Andrew, is unreliable. He’s so focused on fighting the monsters in the forest, and obsessing over Thomas and his sister, Dove, that he could hardly be bothered. Pretty much anything I find fault with can be explained by Andrew’s point of view being the primary window into the story.

Any fan of dark academia will enjoy this book. With queer characters, a private school with a creepy forest, the fall setting as well as what may well be a love triangle, Don’t Let the Forest In is a perfect read. If you liked A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, or The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven, this book will be right up your alley! Be warned, there is not a happy ending here. There are moments of joy, of revelation, of relief of burdens lifted. But it’s not a happy ending. Blood, and gore, as well as disturbing creatures, the eating of non-food items like dirt and maggots run though this book and are worth a warning. Such things are always more palatable for me to read than to see, though some might find it disturbing.

Thank you to Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s always such a pleasure to read such things at the perfect time, when the outside world matches the world of the book. It’s a special kind of immersion that is simply unmatched.

What a haunting novel. While at times I thought it felt a bit juvenile, I realized as an afterthought this was an intentional thing, as the characters in this book are still children, so the fact that the author was really able to capture that sort of feeling, one that brought nostalgia calling from estranged interactions of a reader, was truly a talent rather than a disesteeming factor. I found the interactions with Tomas and Andrew entirely familiar from a similar relationship of my childhood, one I thought unique to myself, but this novel disproved that theory.
There is a special way the author can mix this narration and characters with twisted prose that wouldn't work for any other type of novel, one macabre and sepulchral and genuinely horrific in some moments. The author doesn't necessarily capture this feeling of horror but rather this rising feeling of dread, surging skyward towards the finale, where it is not one a chaotic action-packed climax, but an unforgettable moment of character development, self-acceptance, and actualization.
The only con I found within this novel is sometimes the prose, while dark a delectable at times, felt a bit forced, something that could have happened in the revisions. It took me out of the stories at times to see recurring similes and metaphors, just worded slightly differently. All in all, this novel was a dark and twisted tale, yet, peculiarly unforgettable.

I kept seeing this book hyped over and over on social media (special shout out to the author for the A+ marketing), and the combination of an asexual lead, a queer romance, and forest horror more than had my interest.

And oh wow was it SO worth it. I need to go back and read it again to see the hints and pieces I missed the first time, but the growing terror of the monsters in the forest feeding off of Andrew and Thomas's creations - at the same time as their complicated growing relationship - and the overarching mystery of "what happened last school year?" were SO well done. It's a story that has stuck with me since I finished it, haunting me and making me question the realities of what I read.

I cannot wait to see what else CG Drews comes up with, because I'll be first in line to read it!

WOW, this book tore my heart out in the end in such a beautiful way. You just don’t realize how intimately you are getting to know Andrew until the last quarter of the book, and my investment in the story shot from 3.5 to 5 stars in that time. The monstrous forest and its creatures are wicked and chilling, but the intense complexity of the characters and the relationships is where this book finds its real weight.

I wanted to love this so badly.

In terms of the writing style, the lyricism and descriptions are ensnaring. The short fairy tales woven through the book are gorgeous and terrible, and it is lovely in its rhythms.

The relationships depicted, both new and old, are relatable and felt grounded and real. There's a scene where Andrew gets dragged to the GSA meeting so his new friends can make sure he's okay, and the power of a friend you can be silent with was so beautiful.

Andrew is a disaster, surrounded by incompetent adults. That's ten times as true for Thomas, our love interest, because oh my god how the world has failed this boy, and how shitty everyone around them is for what they do and how they treat him. Wickwood should burn for how all of this played out - it has so little to do with the monsters unintentionally created by Andrew and Thomas and everything to do with the very terrible humans.

Parts of this were predictable, and I think that's what disappointed me. I wanted this to tell a story that felt new, like the language does, but instead I saw a lot of it coming. The very end did surprise me, and it's that note that I think makes this worth reading.

In the end, we can heal. It just doesn't always look the way we think it will.

This is my first book by Drews and it definitely won't be the last. What drew me in the most with this book was the beautiful prose and the way I was immediately immersed in the world. I have to admit, I found this book extremely upsetting and disturbing...in an exceedingly good way. It was exactly the right thing to read in the middle of spooky season and worth every single messed up dream I had after finishing it.

The book mainly follows Andrew, a senior at a boarding school full of rich kids and bullies. The only lifelines he has are his twin sister Dove and Thomas, their best friend who has enough trauma to fuel the monsters that eventually come alive and terrorize Andrew and the school.

I felt so deeply for Andrew and his struggles which at times were painful to read. His love for Thomas and his sister was so pue and beautiful and the way he has to cling to that love in order to survive is written just astonishingly pure and twisted (which sounds like a contradiction but I promise you it isn't).

I was shocked by how upset this book made me and how legitimately scared I was while at the same time loving every second.

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This will definitely not be my last C.G. Drews book.

Beautifully written, this dark academia book is a perfect spooky season read. The novel is rich with imagery, full of strong characters and perfectly paced. Highly anticipated and rightfully so!

"They were beautiful together; they were magic and monstrous, and they had created a whole vengeful world between them."⠀
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C. G. Drews, Don't Let The Forest In⠀
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📗 Don't Let The Forest In by C. G. Drews is a book that will continue haunting me long into the future. It is a gothic masterpiece of dark academic horror that gripped me from page one and dumped my bleeding crumpled heart on the ground with a fierce and frightening ending. This tale has the unique ability to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Every line is as beautiful and broken as Andrew and Thomas themselves. The blossoming romance; the prep school vibes; the secrets; the ghosts: Perfection. ⠀
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Don't Let The Forest In is a spooky, surreal story that consumes you slowly with beautiful and terrible monsters that are closer than you think. Look no further for the best queer young adult psychological thriller of 2024!

This book was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I’ve been holding my breath waiting for it and C. G. Drews did NOT let me down but man did I sob so hard. It’s a beautifully written heartbreaking story and I am so honored that I was allowed to be an ARC reader. Thank you so much.

This book was a trip! I am broken and scarred after reading this....GIVE ME MORE! This really shows, in my opinion, how fragile the human mind is and how trauma causes small cracks that turn into valleys.

Hauntingly beautiful book.
Thank you Netgalley and C.G Drews for my e-ARC of this masterpiece. I am leaving my honest review of my own free will without coercion.

Book Review: Don't Let The Forest In
◇Author: C.G. Drews
◇Genre: YA Horror
◇Pages: 336
◇You might enjoy this if you like
-Summer Sons
-Dark Academia
-Fighting monsters

5 stars!

🌲🏫🏳️‍🌈💀✏️

Happy pub day to this masterpiece! I sure hope this story gets the hype it deserves. I absolutely adored this book, and it was perfect for the Halloween season.

This book is just creepy and eerie the entire time. On every page there is a sense of unease present, and it was intoxicating. I couldn’t get enough of this story!

This book is YA but it does not read that way. It’s disturbing, it’s deep, and I loved every minute of it. I can’t give this book enough praise.

The last part of this book threw me for a loop. I was riveted and devastated. I hate to share too many details, because you should explore this for yourself. The author’s note says this book may haunt you, and it definitely is.

Thank you Macmillan and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

A perfect late autumn read! The writing was lush and atmospheric, and I found the book creepy but not really scary anyone who might be timid about horror books. Andrew was a fascinating character to be in the head of.

Review: Holy shit. I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. I read it in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. Didn't want to. It was creepy, but somehow sweet as well. There was a point towards the end where my jaw absolutely fucking dropped. Pick this book up ASAP. I mean, ASAP. I'll be thinking about this book for a very long time.

Synopsis: Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him.

Protect him. Lie for him. Kill for him.

High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality—Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more.

But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won’t say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork—whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew’s wicked stories.

Desperate to figure out what’s wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster—Thomas’s drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator…

I am impressed, this author is a modern-day Poe!
Honestly, I doubt my words will do the justice this book deserves.
We start with Andrew and his twin sister returning to school and there's an ominous feeling about an incident that happened the previous year. Even in the process of dropping him off Andrew's dad was unsure about letting him return but he wanted to return because he wanted to see and be around his best friend Thomas. When he sees Thomas he is excited and they are roommates however, Andrew has feelings for Thomas but he has not vocalized them or he's more on the shy side about it.
Andrew is asexual with his feelings for Thomas, he's more in his discovery phase of figuring himself out as he is a senior in the school.
Then, the police arrive at the school to ask Thomas about the disappearance of his parents and the amount of blood that was found in the home. Suddenly Thomas starts to pull away from Andrew and then once Andrew finds out what's going on with Thomas they decide to work together to help keep the school safe from these monsters that are attacking the school and killing a teacher.
I loved the analogies and the story and how everything is written and the message underneath is all. This is probably my best read this month!
Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group/Feiwel & Friends for the opportunity to read and review this one! It was definitely a treat and a spectacular read for October!

I stopped and started this book s many times. I can't really say much outside of it being confusing for a good 80 percent of the book and I didn't like Thomas at all. The whole book is just about the main character's obsession with him. And there was just no development. It was 99 percent overly emotional angst talking about Thomas's eyes, lips, hair and I was just over it. The "horror" elements didn't even make sense in the end. And the little stories we get in between some chapters didn't make sense with the reveal we get in the end.

"Don't Let the Forest In" follows high school senior Andrew. Andrew is dealing with the fallout of something (it takes forever to even find out) that happened between him, his twin sister Dove, and their friend Thomas. Andrew doesn't know what happened and why Dove won't just talk to him or Thomas and instead has made new friends and refuses to make Thomas better. When Andrew follows Thomas one night though, he finds him fighting monsters in the woods. Andrew decides he will do whatever he can to help Thomas.

Andrew was exhausting. Being in his head for this long, for this many weeks was painful. Things are revealed, but I have a lot of questions about so many things, but am too tired to point out the plot holes. Also, Andrew is confused about his sexual identity and honestly the only part of the book that felt true and sounded "right" was him hanging out with Lana and Chloe and talking about it. Anytime he is near Thomas is just becomes Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.

Thomas is just pretty awful. I don't see why Andrew was focused on him and their "backwards" friendship. He's also not developed at all, neither is Dove. But for Thomas being the main focus for Andrew, it's a mistake that Drews didn't develop him better.

The main reason why I gave this two stars is that the conversations that Andrew has with Chloe and Lana were the saving graces of the book. I know some reviewers mentioned they didn't know if this was a coming of age story, a coming out story, or a horror story and I agree. Drews didn't do a great job with the horror aspect and maybe if that was stripped away this would have made for a better book.

The overall "plot" was a mess and the flow was terrible. The writing was just purple prose to the 10th power and I got really sick of reading the sentences after a while.

I wish the setting of the school had been scary, but honestly it read as pretty blank and I got confused about how big it was and how big the forest was too.

The ending was not well done, probably because I knew where things were going and there were still too many plot holes to be believed.