You know a book is exceptional when it opens with a line like, "What is love if not devouring." Even without finishing it, I can confidently give **Hazelthorn** five stars. This novel is a beautifully dark, Gothic, gory, and poetic experience. It's an absolute must-read for fans of **botanical horror**.

Absolutely loved this! It was both atmospheric and haunting. The characters were so well developed, and the tension between Evander and Laurie could be cut with a knife. The setting was described so beautifully!

If petrichor was able to morph into a vision of drama, horror, and greed, it would look like Hazelthorn. Once again, C.G. Drews uses the very earth around us to create a hauntingly beautiful and grotesque story that pulls the reader deeper and deeper into the world of gothic, dark fantasy. The story follows Evander, a young man that has lived in Hazelthorn mansion has lived a life that is the very definition of sheltered. Only surrounded by an overgrown and wild garden, with the occasional visit of his so-called guardian and his servant, Evander fights with loss, horrifying memories, paranoia, and feelings toward the one person he hates that tear through is heart. As always, C.G. Drews uses the world around the characters to create a super descriptive story that hooks the reader from the very beginning and keeps them digging through the mystery. The use of terminology relating to plants and earth to describe the characters’ feelings (physical and emotional) is cleverly ingrained in the book. I could feel, smell, and even taste the world that is Hazelthorn. I would most certainly recommend this book to anyone looking for a gothic mystery with some horror sprinkled in. I can’t wait to read more from this author as the stories come out.

Please just do me the favor of reading this book if you loved Don't Let the Forest In!

This book gave that same dark eerie vibes and as told from the cover there is the botanical horror that was beautifully woven in throughout Don't Let the Forest In.

I can't get over how beautiful C. G. Drew's writing style is. It's so poetic and the story gives the perfect gothic vibes along with a sense of longing.

Key points: If you love gothic or botanical horror, a writing style that feels lyrical, darker topics, and revenge then here's the book for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for my advanced reader copy!

Will you feed the garden?

If CG Drews writes it, I will read it. Being a big fan of "Don't Let the Forest In", I absolutely devoured this story as well! This is another YA Gothic Horror story along the same lines, with a feral garden, a creepy estate, murder mystery, botanical body horror, and another unreliable mmc. Or is he?

While this is a slower story, I truly had no idea where it would lead. This was definitely more of a Character Driven book. I was nothing but curious the whole time, wanting to know what would happen next. A truly haunting YA story leaving you unsure of who to root for.

This was one of my most anticipated releases and it did not disappoint. CG Drew’s has beautiful writing and her characters always feel so real. This was also one of the best representation of an autistic character that I have ever read. While it is a slower story it does not miss in the atmosphere. This is a perfectly dark story that I’ll be thinking about for a long time

I so wanted to love this, but sadly it was mostly just vibes (although fantastic ones). Neither Evander nor Laurie felt like 17 year Olds. Evander sometimes knew far too much for someone who had been essentially locked in a room for 10 years, and Laurie was far too wise in their sentiments. And the repetition of words and phrases was grating after awhile.
The plot was fairly predictable, and it overall just felt not quite right.

i am unwell. this book deeply moved me and had me biting my nails at 1 am. i will be thinking about it forever. truly a perfect blend of beautiful writing, terrifying botanical horror and toxic gay people. evander is now my monstrous son, i'm adopting him, thank you !!

huge thanks to the author and netgalley for an eARC! mark your callendars for october 28th to read this gem!

This book got me out of my reading slump! I’ve never been more horrified and enthralled at the same time. CG Drews already gained me as a fan with Don’t Let the Forest In, and this book exceeded my already high expectations!

Evander made me laugh, cry, and panic all at once. Seeing a queer, autistic character in media really makes me feel seen and I love that Drews portrays it so eloquently.

I couldn’t put this read down because I had to know what happened next. Drews quickly made me care for Evander, deeply curious about Laurie, and desperate to uncover the mystery of what was going on with the garden.

Fans of the Magnus Archives horror podcasts would love this read, with its bone-turning body horror and roots that creep into your skin and make you keep turning the page!

I am eagerly awaiting more reads like this from CG Drews.

I loved the writing and story and the ties it has to nature and how cruel it can be. It's grotesque but in an eerily beautiful way, but I couldn't learn to love the main character. Unfortunately, because of that, I ended up skimming the story.

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this early for an honest review..

I had the pleasure of being able to finish Don’t Let the Forest In and start Hazelthorn on the same day. Loved the easter egg of the boys in both books having been at the same boarding school.

Like the garden of this book’s namesake, this story crawled into my brain and has taken up residence. I loved the gothic setting and the two beautifully broken boy leads.

I was so excited to be able to review C.G. Drews next YA horror!! I adored Don't Let the Forest In, so I couldn't wait to get into this E-ARC. I gave this book 4 stars, and while I didn't love it as much as Drews' debut novel it was still amazing. The writing was clever, emotive, and intriguing. Both the main characters, Evander and Laurie had their own traumas that they bonded over which were intriguing to me. I was irritated at times by Evander, but I think that was the point of his character.

It took a while for me to get into the story because it was hard for me to follow along, but after sitting on my rating for quite a bit of time, it made sense that I was confused because our two MMC's were always confused as to what was occurring in the Hazelthorn mansions garden and family. There was a TON of body horror, so if you are sensitive to that, I would stay away. I loved the body horror. It was so descriptive and brought so many tingles up my arm's multiple times. ALSO, the cover?! ICONIC.

C.G. Drews twist near the end I did NOT guess, which bumped the book up to 4 stars. We LOVE a surprise horror twist that relates to the main character.

Gothic, botanical/body horror, and queer... Some of my favorite things! Hazelthorn was absolute perfection.

I think the best way to sum up my feelings about this novel is to simply insert some of the notes I took while reading:

1. The prose is very heavy and wordy, causing the reader to easily becomes lost in it. However, I can see why the author may have done it, considering our narrator is unreliable to an extent. But one also needs to find a balance between unreliable narrator and being coherent enough for the reader to have some kind of understanding.

2. I think it would have benefitted from a slower start; letting us sit in Hazelthorn with Evander for a few chapters before things suddenly changed. I was still trying to grasp his situation and understand the setting, and i had little to no attachment to the characters introduced before things began to deteriorate around them.

3. That being said this immediately reminded me of Wilder Girls by Rory Powers, while also being reminiscent of Hell Follows With Us by Andrew Joseph White. The reference to his work in the books pitch is what caught my attention, but it also set a VERY high standard to me. That book is one of my favorite body horror/religious trauma sort of novels, and it touched my soul when I read it. While I would agree the comparison is valid, I didn’t love this novel as much as I loved that one. Still I just LOVE the whole “nature has gone wrong” for a horror concept.

4. THAT all being said, and I know it was a lot, I appreciate this book for what it is. As someone on the spectrum, I could viscerally relate to some of what Evander would say and experience. It’s a dark thing to confront, a painful hatred for what makes you different and what makes your life so difficult from what is considered “normal”, and I always always love when that is explored through horror.

5. I have never felt…truly SCARED reading a book. But this story was unnerving, almost sickening in the bone cold realizations. I would sometimes just drop my tablet and have to stare into nothingness for a while because good God.

6. C.G. Drews I think I just fell in love with you

In conclusion, I will be purchasing a hard copy of the novel and absolutely decimating it with my sticky notes, highlighters, and annotations.

I am a huge fan of the author's other work Don't Let the Forest In, and if you too liked that book then you are in for a treat with this one! Hazelthorn is just as atmospheric and immersive and I quite literally could not put it down once I started reading it.

The way in which Drews is able to convey rage, and terror, and questioning yourself and everything around you was honestly a sight to behold. The creeping terror of the garden growing outside it's boundaries, the body horror aspects that left me gagging at times, and the dread while dealing with gaslighting relatives was all lyrically wrapped up in this phycological horror story that was such a great read. Perfect for when you want your skin to crawl a bit while reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Publishing group for a copy of this ARC.

Gothic, rotting, beautiful PERFECTION! 👏

✨✨✨Enthralling YA Gothic Botanical Horror Masterpiece!!! ✨✨✨

A gothic, botanical, body horror, queer YA novel!! I HAD to read Hazelthorn and I’m so thrilled that I did because I LOVED it!

This book is a whole moody, gloomy, and decaying VIBE!! Not only is the atmosphere SO incredibly well done, but the writing in general is enrapturing with its rich, botanical, beautiful grotesqueness!! The writing style and language used had me in a major chokehold. I felt like the roots and vines had ahold of me and were pulling me in, pulling me under, and devouring me. I’m obsessed!

I was absolutely captivated from page 1!! I wanted to jump into the pages and protect Evander so bad! I felt so immersed in the story and couldn’t wait to see what would happen. I liked the romance parts as well!!! Everything about the book was written so flawlessly! COMPLETE PERFECTION.

Words cannot express how much Hazelthorn made my little gothic heart so happy! I want to live in a house like that and have my own gothic garden! Minus the sinister aspects…of course…unless?

This is definitely a new favorite book. I mean like in my top 5 books of all time and I have a lot of favorite books. If you’ve read the summary and it sounds like your type of vibe, then I say READ IT!!! You won’t be sorry!!

This is the first book I’ve read from this C.G. Drews, and I’m absolutely going to read more!

✨🚫Be sure to check out the trigger warnings first! 🚫✨

🥀 “Pain is meant to take up space or else we wouldn’t know how to scream. Fuck making your agony silent to avoid disturbing others. Maybe they should be disturbed.” 🥀

(Quote is from the uncorrected ARC. I never share quotes from an ARC in case it’s changed, but I really loved this one and had to put it here!)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is expected to be released October 28, 2025.

Thank you NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends (an imprint of Macmillan) for the eARC! In exchange, please find my honest review:

Drews has done it again! If you loved Don’t Let the Forest In, you’ll devour Hazelthorn. I certainly did. This novel is dark, and spiraling, and as visceral as blood. I read the lion’s share of it feverishly, over one and half days where my insomnia was in high form, which - honestly? - might be the ideal reading experience for this work (I mean this in the most loving and affectionate way possible). In the acknowledgements, Drews writes that they “wanted this book to have thorns for teeth”, and boy does it ever.

In Hazelthorn, Drews introduces us to Evander - a 17 year old boy who is in a confined convalescence of sorts within a claustrophobic, labyrinthine manor surrounded by strange and hungry gardens. When his mysterious guardian - the owner of the estate - dies in front of him and leaves Evander to inherit, Evander finds himself contending with his own fractured memories, with his mixed fear of and obsession with his guardian’s mocking grandson Laurie, and with an ever-present and burning hunger.

Drews excels in conjuring the kind of maddening, anxiety-inducing atmosphere that holds the reader down and gnaws at them, while allowing the sparks of tension between Evander and Laurie to unspool like a ball of yarn for the audience to follow through the maze of obscured motives and gorey imagery. There are some unusual words and phrases repeated throughout the novel that, with a less skilled author, might have been distracting or felt juvenile, but Drews uses them in a way to further the reader’s experience, always feeling like we’re spiraling back around, retreading our steps, or confronting an eerily-familiar-but-distinctly-different room on the other side of a locked door. In addition, these pages bleed with botanical and body horror - Drews is a master at evocative and truly disturbing descriptions – of food; of growth and decay; of flesh and blood and the things teeth can do to them. I could go the rest of my life and happily never hear the word “luscious” in proximity to the word “tendon” again. I loved it.

I will say that because of some of the body-horror elements, some of the darker aspects of the narrative, some of the descriptions around food/starvation/eating, and themes of bodily autonomy, this book could certainly be triggering for some people. Drews provides a trigger warning list at the beginning of the novel, which I encourage readers to consult before deciding if they are the right audience or in the right brainspace for this novel - because this truly is a book that doesn’t pull punches

But if you are in the mood for a darker, unflinchingly honest novel that will sink its teeth into your luscious tendons and not let go? Well, Hazelthorn awaits.

Hazelthorn proffered me a glimpse into myself so hauntingly familiar, yet so terrifyingly unknown, that each turn of the page was itself a horror. To read, to see, to understand Evander, to scream along with him and tear at my own skin; how could a book comprehend me in a way I could never hope to?

Hazelthorn eviscerated me and used my soul to fertilize the soil on which it grows. Every second I spent reading was another second supplanting my veins with its vines, my blood with its sap, my heart with its flowers. And I begged it to take more. I could never give enough. I was dizzy with the desire that it would never end, though I tore through its pages with hopeless abandon. My very survival depended on consuming each page. But it did end, and I was rendered inanimate once again.

Before Hazelthorn I was nothing. After Hazelthorn I am nothing.

But while reading I was Hazelthorn, and I have never been so alive.

This book is magic. It has its tendrils wrapped around the curves of my brain. It inspired me to want to write my own book. And I am not a writer. I will try to be vague about the content so as to not spoil anything but let’s just say cg drews did not disappoint and there is yet another mind melting twist like their previous queer horror dltfi.
I am absolutely obsessed with hazelthorn. The way that evander and laurie love each other is so devastatingly beautiful I wish I could live in the pages of this book forever. It will yank on your heart and then stitch it back together with no anesthesia. It took me a month to write this review because I could barely get my own thoughts together enough to describe how much hazelthorn means to me. It is gorgeous and terrifying and even a month after finishing it, I think about it every day. And I have reread it, which I think is essential to truly feeling the story and understanding the devastation the characters discover as the story progresses.
Let me also take a moment for the BODY HORROR. Exquisite. Horrifying. I could picture everything and it was perfect. Cg drews also has such a unique way of writing the narrator’s descent into madness you’ll feel like you’re going too.
I have recommended this story to literally everyone I know, including my 2 week old nephew and several coworkers. I need it to be October so bad so there can be a mad raving fan base to rot with me. Basically read this fucking book it is my new favorite read and also a strange comfort. Thank you cg drews for another masterpiece.
I would also recommend sipping on a dark fruity tea for this one; blackberry works best, to really embody the darkness and immerse yourself in the creepy world of hazelthorn.

This book was so hard to put down. I loved every bit of it. The dialogue between Evander and Laurie is just *chefs kiss* I can not get enough of the boys. I was caught so off guard with every twist in this book, just as you think you know what's going on the author rips another rug out from you. I recommend this book wholeheartedly and will not stop!!