Beautifully haunting and delightfully gory, Don’t Let the Forest In is an amazing debut for Drews.
This novel follows Andrew, a shy and awkward boy with his perfectly posted twin sister, Dove at a prestigious boarding school in the Virginian woods and their best friend Thomas; a troublesome bad boy whose only soft spot is for Andrew. Oh! And he maybe murdered both of his parents? The story starts with a rocky beginning to the school year, when Thomas is investigated for parricide and Andrew’s relationship with both him and his sister is feeling different. Slowly, he discovers that monsters from him and Thomas’ fictional worlds are haunting the school and resulting in real danger, and the two boys come together to defeat their imaginary creatures while also exploring their relationship as well.
I can say for sure that my favorite part of this novel was its writing- absolutely immaculate! The descriptors of the monsters and the boys’ stories were so vivid. Thomas and Andrew’s bond and love was also written so fondly and was certainly a contributor to my enjoyment.
One critique to mention is because the boys relationship was so well developed, the supposed inseparable trio of the twins and Thomas felt lacking, although we were supposed to feel it. The contrast between how I felt towards the trio’s past (or lack of it) compared to T & A was disappointing.
I also saw the plot twist coming from miles away; however, I rarely deduct from my ratings or enjoyment due to that reason.
In addition, the ending was ambiguous to the max and I am still unsure what to think about it although it felt fitting.
I would recommended this novel for fans of The Wilder Girls, The Wicker King, and House of Hollow.
There is notable LGBTQ+ rep and specifically Ace representation in main character Andrew, which was nice to see too!
Overall, I am usually not a fan of YA stories but this was one of the better ones. I would still recommend!

If you’re wanting something with vibes similar to Sawkill Girls and The Raven Boys I think you might enjoy this. I think that the horror elements of this book were great especially the psychological stuff. This just didn’t quite hit for me and I can’t quite articulate why. Maybe it’s because my points of comparison are The Invocations and Sawkill Girls which execute their horror allegories so well. Patriarchy and rape culture represented through horror might just be more interesting to me I guess. Truly it’s not that this is a bad book it’s just not the book for me.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is Dark Academia Horror at its best: twisted and creepy in all the right ways with main characters you can’t help but love, even as you’re a little bit terrified of them (and for them!). The writing is utterly gorgeous and atmospheric. The depictions of Thomas’s macabre art coming to life will send shivers down your spine (I dare you to go out into a forest at night after reading this book!) The mysteries that unfold are both unsettling and compelling, and the pining between Andrew and Thomas is practically palpable. I don’t want to say too much about the story itself because I feel like it’s really easy to put spoilery suggestions into people’s heads. So instead, I will just say that this book is haunting and macabre and beautiful, and you should definitely read it!

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher so I could provide an honest review (but I bought the special B&N edition too!). No compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

Thank you NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a great debut, and I really liked the way it balanced horror and relationships in relation to its target demographic. The horror was a bit horror-lite but still creepy and haunting in a way that felt very appropriate for a YA audience (like, no one should be having nightmares, you know? but they should feel unsettled) and I thought that Drews did a really good job at depicting what being a teen navigating queer sexuality looks like. Drews’ writing quality was solid and I liked the atmosphere it evoked. A lot of the narrative choices surprised me in a good way and the story kept me on my toes.

i loved this SO much it's a new favorite of mine! i honestly don't even know what to say because i feel my words will not do this book justice

the writing is so beautiful and haunting, it was truly hypnotizing. i don't see imagery often when reading but with this book it was so easy because of the writing. it was descriptive but in a poetic way and not in a boring "tell everything to you" kind of way. it's so hard to even describe you just have to read it and experience it yourself.

i could relate to Andrew's anxieties and the tension between him and Thomas was written SO good. i loved the conversation around Andrew figuring out his sexuality (asexual) and how he still feels romantic attraction to Thomas

i will immediately be buying my own physical copy of this book so i can reread and annotate

Don't Let the Forest In tells the story of Andrew, a high school student who writes twisted stories to escape reality. He has a friend called Thomas, whom he meets after the school break when they both come back to Wickwood Academy. Thomas is mysterious, keeps to himself and draws characters inspired by the stories that Andrew has written and everything changes and becomes even stranger when it seems like the monsters from those stories have become real. This is a story of friendship and developing feelings, with fantastical elements and usual teenager worries, that most experience at similar age.

For the most part I found this quite interesting to the point where it was hard to put down. It's very dark, twisted, but at the same time emotional and touches some sensitive topics. I didn't expect the twist at the end and it caught me off guard which made the reading experience even more enjoyable even if sad at the same time. The writing style was beautiful as well.

Thank you Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions!

Really Enjoyed It, 4 stars

I had a great time with this one. It was eerie and I really enjoyed the psychological horror elements and the mystery of piecing it all together. I found the main characters very endearing and loved all their yearning and pining. I appreciated the ace representation we got in our MC. The eldritch element was really fun, and I almost wish there was more of it. Some of the pacing was a smidge off for me, being to slow at times and then almost to fast at the end, but overall it was a fun read! I'm glad I read it during spooky season, and I look forward to more from CG Drews!

Highschooler Andrew Perrault finds solace in the twisted fairy tales he writes, and his closest friend, Thomas Rye, brings his stories to life by illustrating them.

Literally.

Their lives are uprooted when they make the horrifying discovery that their creations are coming to life. Now the boys find a way to destroy the source of the monsters before they kill everyone they love.

Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews weaves a modern-day fairytale filled with achingly beautiful prose and thorns. Honestly, the writing is biting and had me hooked from the first page to the very last.

All in all, if you enjoy books filled with angst, longing, and tight-bonds (in the vein of The Raven Boys or Your Blood, My Bones), I cannot recommend this book enough.

Reading the synopsis for this book had me really interested to request this. When I was accepted, I immediately began reading.

The plot interested me so much that I could not stop reading until I had finished in a few hours. I absolutely love the representation in this book. I love the characters in the story and how they flushed out together.

I will definitely read more from this author. They are amazing at keeping someone hooked.

Thank you Net Galley and Publishers for letting me read an arc of this book in return for an honest review.

What a wonderfully macabre and sad story. It was dark and twisted and I loved it. It really had me guessing how the boys were going to save the day and come out alive. I was not expecting that ending, but now that I've read it I want to reread this story and see all the clues and foreshadowing that was left behind. This book did a great job explaining being ace and mental health/panic attacks. But if you're looking for a happy story you won't find it here. It's all around beautifully sad and dark.

-4 Stars-

Wow, wow, wow! This book was scary, heartbreaking, beautiful, and so much more. I listened to the audiobook after its release, and it just sounded so magical. I felt so immersed in the world, and I felt like I was right there at school with Andrew and Thomas. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

-Thank you Net Galley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the ARC-

The premise of this book had immense potential—a mix of eerie fairytales, dark secrets, and complex friendships. However, despite its intriguing setup, I couldn't push through to the end.

The narrative felt weighed down by overly poetic prose, which often distracted from the unfolding events and slowed the pacing to a crawl. While Andrew and Thomas’s dynamic held emotional weight, their connection lacked clarity and development. The mysterious elements, like the living drawings and monstrous creations, were fascinating in concept but felt underexplored or poorly integrated into the main plot.

Additionally, the constant melodrama overshadowed any moments of real tension, making it difficult to stay invested. Though I appreciate the gothic atmosphere and themes of love and loyalty, the execution left me frustrated.

This book might resonate better with readers who enjoy atmospheric, character-driven tales over tightly plotted ones. For me, it was too slow and meandering to hold my interest.

Uhhhh! devoured this. it was phenomenal! prose was so lush and the descriptions of rot and filth and dirt and forest were enough to make me feel sick (affectionate). calling this book a brain worm feels too accurate given the context. but i truly couldn’t put this down.

and andrew/thomas were wonderfully complicated messy children going through something unimaginable and handled it badly. which makes sense because. they are children. so anyone complaining that the main characters choices were frustrating??? yeah they’re 17. duh.

also new fear unlocked: vines planting a seed in my ear??? hello???

thank you Netgalley for the ARC and a newfound phobia of trees !

Thanks to NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Don't Let the Forest In was definitely an emotional rollercoaster of a story, covering some very dark subject matter in a unique way. Andrew, his twin sister Dove, and his best friend and roommate Thomas are studying at Wickwood Academy, and it's their senior year. We learn that there was some type of altercation between Dove and Thomas, which puts a rift in their friend group and Andrew, who is not confrontational and dealing with demons of his own, in an awkward position. Meanwhile, Thomas is accused of murdering his family and starts pushing Andrew away. One night, Andrew notices that Thomas is missing, and he finds him in the forbidden woods surrounding the school - fighting literal monsters - which had come to life from his drawings. Andrew and Thomas have to fight these monsters to save their friends and loved ones - and come to terms with how much their relationship really means to one another.

First of all - the writing in this story was absolutely beautiful. The imagery in the descriptions was like watching a movie. It was very well done. Additionally, I loved how many difficult topics were covered - the representation of mental health and dealing with grief was so impactful and raw. I am a lot less familiar with asexuality, but I really liked that there was representation for that as well. I think in the last year, I've only read one other story containing a main character who identifies as asexual, and I've read my fair share of LGBTQIA+ stories this year, so that was refreshing. There were also depictions of disordered eating and self-harm, along with bullying - all topics that young adults are faced with, in one form or another (or exposed to) when they are coming of age and finding themselves. I noticed some reviews criticized how these topics may have been handled, saying it was "glorified," however I didn't see it that way. I saw these experiences that the characters were having as a reflection of what they were going through at that point in their lives and actually comes together in the end in a way that makes a lot of sense. Not every ending to every story needs to be tied up in a pretty bow with rainbows and butterflies, which makes this story a bit bleaker/darker than most young adult fiction.

I really enjoyed this story, and it did remind me of a few other books/series, so if you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this one. This first reminded me of the creativity and uniqueness of The Neverending Story by Michael Ende - and how Sebastian went into the world in the book he found. Instead of going into a story, the characters of Don't Let the Forest In had to battle monsters brought to life from stories and drawings. Another book series this reminded me of that I absolutely loved as a child was Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence. It's been years since I've read that one, but the relationships and the good versus evil parallels were definitely similar between these stories. The final series this book reminds me of (which I know will upset a lot of people by mentioning this) is the Harry Potter series, although without witches and wizards. Don't Let the Forest In is also very supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community, unlike JK Rowling has been. However, both have the dark academia setting, the coming-of-age aspect, fighting literal monsters, and good versus evil. If you are a millennial and grew up loving the HP series before the nastiness of Rowling was exposed, then you will feel that sort of nostalgia reading this one as well.

This book was fantastic and heartbreaking. I highly recommend it!

Andrew, a boy trapped inside the fence of his own mind, struggling with social anxiety, and his sexuality. At the boarding school where he and his roommate and best friend and love interest- Thomas goes, the forest lingers out of bounds waiting to claim the souls of students. Thomas and Andrew return from summer break, with police waiting to speak to Thomas about his missing parents and the crime scene left at his house. They descend into romance, and a mystical eldritch chaos.

This was a wonderful and horrifying glimpse into the mind of a tortured young man, who battles human and non human monsters, finding himself throughout the madness.

Don't let the Forest in was so dark, twisty, and enveloping. I couldn't put it down despite the creepy imagery and eerie vibe. I highly recommend this for folks who love both dark academia and horror!

**4.5/5 Stars**
*Don't Let the Forest In* by C.G. Drews is a hauntingly lyrical story that weaves together raw emotion and eerie atmosphere. Drews' prose is as captivating as it is poignant, immersing readers in a world of creeping shadows and fragile hope. The characters are deeply flawed yet achingly human, their struggles tugging at your heartstrings. While the slow pace might not suit everyone, it perfectly mirrors the tension and quiet dread of the story. A beautifully crafted tale that lingers long after the final page.

GREAT book! Great queer representation. Felt haunting in the beet way! Great story and plot, moved really well! Didn’t drag at all.

Don’t Let the Forest In is one of the most beautifully written and atmospheric YA novels I’ve read in a while, but wow, it hit me hard. The story follows Andrew, his twin Dove, and their friend Thomas at a prestigious boarding school, diving into Andrew’s love for Thomas, the fallout between Dove and Thomas, and the eerie horror of monsters stalking the campus. The themes are heavy—grief, co-dependency, mental health, self-harm—and Andrew’s anxious, self-doubting perspective is both relatable and gut-wrenching. I loved the characterization and gothic atmosphere, though the high school setting didn’t always feel like the right fit for these mature themes. And the open-ended conclusion? It’s haunting me—I need to know what happens next. As a teenager, I know I would have felt deeply seen by these characters and their struggles, but reading it as an adult is tough. I just wanted to pull Andrew aside and tell him (and my teenage self) that life really does get better. It’s a stunning, heart-wrenching story, but it left me with so many feelings I still can’t put into words.

I was and am still so beyond happy to have been given the opportunity to read this title before its release date! I inhaled this book! The forest did in fact get into my head because I could not stop reading! I think it was well written and the descriptions of the creatures and scenes were very well done! I think the concept was also quite original and I couldn’t figure out the end twist until I was there. Truly a good read, I can tell this book is going to make a mark with its twisted tale!