This book was such a delightful surprise that I loved so much! I was drawn to it for the beautiful cover, and I’m so glad I decided to read it. This book has an incredible atmosphere, and the prose is incredibly gripping and beautiful and haunting. The way that things are described, how they smell and feel, is so vivid it makes it so easy to be incredibly immersed in this story.

I think Andrew was a really interesting protagonist and narrator and very well written. He has a lot of problems that skew his perception of the world around him, and his unreliability to me really added to the horror, because it’s not always clear if the way he feels about what’s happening is rooted in reality. It made it all very surreal. So so good.

The real highlight of the book was the relationship between Andrew and Thomas. Their dynamic is incredibly fascinating, how they orbit around each other and are so co-dependent on each other. It’s an incredibly obsessive relationship, which roots and drives much of entire narrative, and was incredibly well executed. I also appreciated that this was the first time I think I’ve read a relationship like theirs where sex is not at the center. Andrew’s asexuality was to me very well handled and such a nice surprise, as I didn’t know going into this book that he was ace. It didn’t feel like a simple throw away character trait to me, but was necessary to who he is as a person as well as his relationship with Thomas.

I’m not one to usually read a lot of horror, but this book made me want to explore more of the genre! I really can’t sing enough praise about the writing and descriptions of everything, from the setting to the monsters to the character’s feelings. All of it painted such a vivid picture that made me feel like I was right in the story with them.

All in all, this was such an amazing reading experience, and I cannot recommend it enough if this is a genre that appeals to you!

Andrew Perrault is returning to Wickwood Academy after summer vacation, with severe memory loss regarding an incident in the forest surrounding the school (which has since been closed) and the scattering of scars on his hand. Even though his father offers to let him transfer schools, Andrew is determined to spend this year with his two best friends--his twin sister, Dove, and the boy he has a crush on, Thomas.

Thomas is a 'tortured artist' type, a kid with a rough upbringing who can only make art of monsters. As someone who can only write morbid fairy tales, Andrew feels like Thomas's other half. The two create twisted stories together, but when those stories begin to take root outside of the school, the two begin a descent into madness. How could anyone manage a normal school life when there are monsters threatening their classmates?

I have mixed feelings on 'Don't Let the Forest In'. I like that Thomas is a brooding Victorian anti-hero in a modern setting. I like that he's a ginger. I like how the novel sets up a few mysteries at the beginning for us to become invested in, and does a pretty good job foreshadowing the twist without giving anything away. While the prose uses a few too many 'Tumblr Aesthetic Buzzwords' (I'm saying this as an active Tumblr user, but moths, mushrooms, antlers, bones and moss are the most popular forest-eaten aesthetic choices for micro-blogging teens), it's lovely at points, with some visceral body horror both in Andrew's stories and in the descriptions of the monsters themselves.

Unfortunately, those pieces I like are held together with fragile, gossamer threads like spider's webs. Andrew has a toxic codependency towards Thomas, which feels like something the author thought about committing to but didn't want to go the whole way, which is understandable--writing a non-healthy queer relationship in a book geared towards teens can come with some unwanted scrutiny, especially when even the most innocent of gay relationships in books get banned from public and school libraries. Maybe I'm a bit of a sicko, but I was expecting a darker twist than what we got, especially with how much Andrew was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of Thomas.

I think the biggest problem with 'Don't Let the Forest In' is that it takes place in the modern day. Perhaps if Wickwood Academy had more of a conservative, 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' attitude I'd be more forgiving, but if a student who suffered from a serious tragedy and mental break towards the end of the previous year looked exhausted and lost a good deal of weight, he would at the least be cornered by the school nurse or spoken to by a guidance counselor. Even setting it in the 90's or early 2000's would have worked better for ignoring the mental and physical health of teens, and GSAs and asexuality were known about then, too, so it wouldn't have made them feel anachronistic (I went to a rural high school in the 2000's and was also a member of the GSA and was grappling with my asexual identity, so I speak from experience). Alternatively, I think a college setting would have let the same things happen without as much teacher intervention (since you're technically an 'adult' then), but it would lose it's YA rating then.

One last issue... a red herring is introduced only a few pages before the twist is revealed. I wish we had this misdirection earlier, since it had me thinking 'Wait a minute... that doesn't quite work' and going back to earlier points of the book, only to have the actual twist happen right afterwards. Personally, I wanted more time to chew on this, since it leads into what the actual twist is... though I'll admit, even if it made less sense I kind of liked the red herring more than what actually happened.

Ultimately, 'Don't Let the Forest In' has a lot to offer. I'm sure if I would have picked this up as an angsty, artsy, asexual teenager who dealt with bullies and bad grades, I would have loved this book. As a cranky adult (who is still asexual and artsy, but learned early on that she wasn't artsy enough to make a career out of it), I'd give it a 3.5. But since that cranky adult isn't the target audience for it, I'll let my younger self raise that rating up to a 4.

Twist and turns and deep mental illness are not things one expects from a YA queer book, but DONT LET THE FOREST IN delivers all perfectly. I appreciated the asexuality aspect, something not explored enough in media, as well as the twist revolving Dove and Thomas. I’ll be re reading this soon in an attempt to pick up on the excellent foreshadowing

god this was so good i'm so in love!!!!! the blurb is what had me adding this to my tbr and requesting it from netgalley but i just. my brain is scrambled atm. i loved this so much.

I really enjoyed the descriptive writing and the body horror. I also liked the angsty yearning and self-discovery of the two boys. Some of the dialogue felt “off” to me, and the plot and pacing felt disjointed at times. I would recommend this to anyone who likes YA horror + lgbtqia representation.

It's rare for me to pick up a horror book and even rarer that I adore it as much as I did this one. This book is gruesome and terrible with lots of gore and monsters to match. The language is rooted in fairytale so even with the book being so descriptive, it's very flowery and fantastical.
I couldn't look away from Andrew and Thomas. They would go to the ends of the earth for each other, to their own detriment. They aren't okay and maybe they would've been better off without each other but they make this book so worth it.
My favorite part was most certainly the asexual representation. I felt very seen.
This book is full of beautifully gross horror, it covers a wide range of traumatic topics, and it's done so well. I'm haunted by it.

Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

I thoroughly enjoyed the horror elements of this book, the body horror reminded me of hell followed with us by A.J. White; the descriptions were gruesomely and wonderfully descriptive and well written, as well as the general horror elements that weren’t body horror. I think the horror was the strongest part of this novel.
But alas, the horror was (to my surprise) not the main focus. The bulk of the story was focused on Andrew and Thomas’s relationship and Andrew's identity. Had this been marketed as more of a romance and self exploration novel with elements of horror, I wouldn't have been so caught off guard. I was getting tired of the constant descriptions of Thomas, it felt like every other sentence was Thomas this and Thomas that, to a point that I genuinely didn’t have an idea who Andrew was outside of Thomas. I get that's sort of the point but I think it would’ve been nice to have a starting point where we compare and contrast Andrew at the beginning vs the end with his obsession with Thomas but the very first chapter he’s already completely obsessed. (A break would’ve been nice as well, I was actually getting irked with how much of Andrew's narration was just Thomas).
I also felt as though the story progressed too slowly. I got more than 50% of the way through and only two major things had happened, one at the very beginning and one right after half way, and everything in between was so slow and repetitive. Every night and every morning followed a similar pattern until it would be broken up by a major event before it would start to fall back into that pattern again. There were also some elements and plot points that were mentioned and then just completely dropped? Thomas’s parents and the following investigation? Hardly mentioned outside of the first few chapters. The enforcement of not sneaking out at night by the school staff? Never actually (conveniently) happens.
In summary, I think marketing this as primarily a horror novel was a bit of a disservice to the book. I think it would be better and more true to the actual story for it to be marketed as a romance with horror elements. I loved the horror elements, they were the best parts for me, but I got a bit sick of the romance and main dynamic because of how overwritten I felt the relationship and descriptions was. The writing, for me, was beautiful for the non romance elements. I may reread it once it's released and see how I feel knowing and not expecting it to be a horror book first and romance second. I would recommend this to body horror lovers, darker queer romance appreciators, and people who enjoy flowery prose.

siento que le falta desarrollar muchas cosas, hay cosas del final que no entendí y tengo una sensación rara porque no se cómo explicar el sentimiento que me dejó

I feel weird about this book. I'm torn, really.

First of all, I absolutely loved the writing. Descriptive, atmospheric, beautiful, the visceral descriptions were everything.

My problem with the story is the way the whole plot was carried. I don't know, I feel that maybe it needed a little bit more development on the page to get me more engaged with everything. I couldn't connect completely with the relationship/romance or the characters themselves and who they are. After reading the plot twist I could understand why they acted like that, but still, I wasn't invested enough to completely care. And I don't know if I'm stupid or something, but I didn't understand the ending.

There were plenty of good things in this book and I would have loved it more if it wasn't that many things felt flat and should have been more elaborated to comprehend and get more invested in the story.

2.5☆

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and the author, C. G. Drews, for giving me this arc.

This was a great read. I loved the representation in this book. I love that it includes people of all different backgrounds. I find the author's writing to be beautiful in itself and I am already adding a preorder of this in hardcover and other CG Drews books to my TBR. I highly recommend this one!

This book was just not quite my cup of tea. I love anything with spooky monsters, but I could not get past the main character.

I know he was going through a mental crisis, but the way he was so oblivious to everything around him, his constant self depreciating talk, and his selfishness was extremely annoying. Especially with his best friend and other friends around him were trying so hard to help him.

I personally would not read again, But that's only because of the main character. It was beautifully written and I loved all of the supporting characters.

The plot of this story is so unique where monsters are brought to life with ink. I really enjoyed the development of Andrew and Thomas’ relationship as they attempted to take down these monsters that they were unintentionally creating. Some scenes left you questioning if the narrator was being truthful as you are taken down some interesting twists and turns.

The writing was phenomenal in this book, Drews created this eerie and unsettling feeling about the forest where you were basically transposed right into the story. I almost felt like I was Andrew as he was being overtaken by the forest, with each advancement and development from the mushrooms, to thorns, to moss, to bark. Some of the ways phrases and words were structured in this story also made it atmospherically pleasing, giving insight to both the world of the monsters while also putting us into the head of our main character. I also constantly found myself highlighting all kinds of quotes and paragraphs due to how rich and beautifully it was written.

I love when books include really strong friendships containing underlying romantic feelings. Our main characters were not only battling these monsters but also what to do with the feelings that they have for each other. Andrew and Thomas had a sort of codependency rooted in their friendship where each of them held the ultimate “I would die for you” mentality. It was extremely believable, the emotion and depth of these characters made them jump right off the page. I was feeling all this immense emotion between the characters and the deep love that they truly held for each other.

This is a story that will stay with me for a long time and can definitely see myself rereading it in the future. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Macmillan for the opportunity to read this arc!

Thank you so, so much to the Netgalley team, the Feiwel and Friends team, the incredible C.G. Drews for making this haunting nightmare of a book come to life and letting me review it. I feel so fortunate to have read this incredible work of art.

Y’all are not ready for the tour-de-force that is C.G. Drews’ queer, YA, psychological, cottagegore, debut horror novel. You won’t be ready when it comes out in October in time for Halloween, and you won’t be ready after you’ve read it’s very last page.

This is the very first book of C.G. Drews I’ve ever read, and I am blown away like autumn leaves in a rogue wind. Drews does such an incredible job of creating believable male teenage angst, and every chapter in the plot sings its mournful song like the haunted, tragic tale that it is. The prose is as dense and as lush as the forest that terrorizes Wickwood Academy’s students, and overall, Drews just has some killer lines that I’m going to highlight and tuck away like some crow who’s found some shiny baubles.

My favorite part about the novel, without hopefully giving too much away, was how queerness, horror, romance, and intimacy were explored and how thin the lines between all of them are. Andrew’s asexuality as a character wasn’t just a prop but an integral part to his story and his character, and I loved reading every single word of this tragic forest boy’s story.

If you appreciate a more mature-YA read like I do, this book is for you.
If you own a deck of Sam Guay’s Blood Moon Tarot cards, this book is for you.
If you keep listening to Kester Spach’s dark cottagecore mixtape on YouTube (content warning for language and disturbing images), this book is definitely for you to read and maybe even listen to the music at the same time.

Absolutely haunting, gorgeous, gritty, and gorey.

CAN I JUST SAY THE COVER, THE COVER IS IMMACULATE

I am honestly still on edge after reaching this book. It brought out emotions I haven't felt since I was a child reading the Percy Jackson series for the first time. Truly such a phenomenal read I can't express that enough.

Beautifully dark from the start, this story draws you in. You get lost in the images painted, the tale itself, it's AMAZING! I hightly reccomened this. If you like gothic style stories this one is for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for providing me with an arc.

This book was perfect for my horror-fantasy loving heart. The prose is beautifully written in a lovely, lyrical sort of way and I was instantly drawn in.

There’s a lingering thread throughout the narrative of something bad happening to Andrew in the previous school year that everyone remembers except for him and I couldn’t wait to find out what it was. Once I finished the book, I went back to the first chapters to see how Andrew’s perception of events foreshadow the reveal, which was fun.

I loved the snippets of Andrew’s dark fairy tales that were added in between or at the end of certain chapters. I want a whole book of Andrew’s tales!

If you liked A Study in Drowning, this macabre, at times heartbreaking tale, is for you.

You can see fanart I drew of the characters here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C48r1TNLlKh/?igsh=MWpjOGtzdTVjcHRiZQ%3D%3D

High school is hard for pretty much everyone in the school, especially senior year. But when you go to a private prep school in a country where your accent stands out, and you are coming back after a traumatic end-of-year… well, people stare and things are worse. Andrew Perrault finds the only refuge he can in the comfort of the dark and twisted fairytales that he writes. He writes them for Thomas Rye, the only one in the world who can ground him in reality when Andrew's twin Dove becomes cold and distant when they return to Wickwood Academy.

Andrew finds himself with friends who look at him with a mixture of pity and sadness, and when strange things start happening with Thomas Andrew feels like he is losing his mind. What is happening to make Thomas pull away from him? Where does he sneak off to in the middle of the night? And why was there blood on the cuff of his sleeve the first day back at school? Andrew must discover the answers before it becomes too late for them, and for the school.

I love a good twisted fairytale! The writing was smooth where it needed to lull the reader into a false sense of safety, and then stabbed at just the right moment to make it hurt in the best possible way. The imagery pulled from the pages the way monsters crawled from the imaginations of the two boys. The fairytale snippets and descriptions of the drawn monsters were delightfully wicked. My only con about Don't Let The Shadows In was that it ended too soon!

I would fully recommend this book to anyone who loved Grimm's Fairytales, the dark original tales of all the stories we've seen prettied up in movies. It is a book to keep you reading under your covers all night long.

Content Warnings:
Major
Bullying, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Eating Disorder
Moderate
Violence, Injury Description, Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor
Death of a Sibling / Child Death

What a dark and twisty ride. The imagery is horrifying, disturbing, repulsive, and gorgeous. The fantasy elements of this book, specifically the excerpts from Andrew's stories, worked extremely well for me. However, it did feel at odds with the "real world" setting/tone in a way that was jarring at times, and some of the discussions about queerness and asexuality felt dropped in from a different book entirely. I also felt that the pacing was a bit off - it took a while for the story to pick up, and while the third act was breathtaking and compulsively readable, the actual ending felt too rushed. I think it could have used more of a build in the tension and drama, instead of starting with the pedal all the way down and never really letting up.

Ultimately, this book was unique, unsettling, and gripping enough to overcome these complaints, and I think it's pretty successful viewing it through a YA lens.

Initially, this was a 3.5 star read for me. It's a Raven Boys knockoff with some occasionally lovely bits of prose, so it was fun enough to read. However, the further I read, the more uncomfortable this book made me, and not in a good way.

First of all, it spends a lot of time glamorizing eating disorders and self harm, and I just really don't enjoy books where starving yourself is repeatedly depicted as being interesting, appealing, and beautiful. Furthermore, the approach to asexuality is weirdly... sexual? The book spends all its time lingering thirstily on descriptions of mouths and backs and cheekbones and hands, so we get this odd, contradictory thing where the protagonist repeatedly says he experiences zero sexual attraction while also having intensely erotic, physical fantasies about his best friend. It ended up feeling like the author wanted to write an asexual character because they're trendy, but wasn't actually willing to change their approach or the way they view the world at all.

I wish this had spent more time exploring the spooky forest and less time fetishizing asexuality.

This book was dark, beautiful, and frightening. I can safely say that I will be going nowhere near any forests anytime soon 4.5/5 stars.

I could not put this book down! I was constantly on the edge of my seat, desperate to know what came next. Every time I thought I knew what was going on and what was next I was proved wrong. It had me questioning what was happening the whole time and fully unprepared for the ending.

The writing in this book was both lovely and incredibly unsettling. It drew me in even as the terrifying imagery made me want to hide away and save the book for the morning when I wouldn't have to fear the dark.

The romance was also incredible! It was as gorgeously dark as the rest of the book. They had the type of love and friendship where they would burn down the whole world for each other and not care as long as they had each other. Full of contradictions, they were both so soft, yet their jagged edges were sharp enough to make the other bleed. Their love felt so all-encompassing. Plus an asexual main character and M/M romance!

If you like dark academia, dark fairytales, and all-around dark books then this is for you!