“Don’t Let the Forest In” has got to be one of my favorite reads recently, and maybe one of my favorite of the year. The writing is dark and beautiful and gross, the story incredibly unsettling and tragic and lovely all at once. Andrew and Thomas were very interesting characters, and I had a lot of fun reading their story.

Fantastic read! Thank you NetGalley for an eARC.

This was a phenomenal read from start to finish. It was spooky, whimsy, tense, brilliantly told and just so so good. Definitely add this to your TBRs..

I loved how relatable the characters were despite not having come from the same background/upbringing. There are pieces of the story to collect along the way and at the end I was wrong. But at least my fears didn't come true at the end.

Beautifully told haunting story.

3.75/5 ⭐️
Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing for an ARC of this book!
This was quite the intense reading experience, it kept me on the edge of my seat that I had to finish it in three sittings! "Don't Let the Forest In" is a psychological thriller/horror novel that follows the friendship of Andrew, Thomas, and Andrew's twin sister, Dove. The novel takes place at Wickwood Academy, in the beginning of the fall semester. The dynamics of the friend group are tense, Dove is keeping distance from Andrew and Thomas, and Thomas' parents have strangely gone missing prior to his entrance on campus. The novel is a surreal and mind boggling experience.
The pacing of this novel was so fast, that it felt like the chapters were flying by. Right from the first page, the novel was already tense and suspenseful. In some ways, I thought the passing was almost too fast. I would have loved more flashbacks or moments where the reader can first-handedly see the dynamics between Andrew, Thomas, and Dove prior to the tense beginning of the plot.
The ending of the novel was packed with twists and turns. My jaw literally dropped during the last 20% of the novel.
This book has a lot of discussion surrounding gore and violence, so I would suggest caution to any reader. I am not someone who is bothered by this description of gore, but there were some parts in the novel where they violence felt gratuitous, and I needed to take a pause while reading.
Overall this is a perfect book to get anyone out of a reading slump because of its fast paced and innovative plot!

I am absolutely haunted by this book, it will follow me and eat away at me until I pick it up again. I was immediately transported into the world of Don’t Let The Forest In in a way I had never experienced before, it was all playing out in my head with the way CG Drews managed to tell the story.

The foreshadowing, writing style, and something always being a little off all tie together in the end and made my brain implode once I realized what was happening. This book will have you questioning everything you thought was real in the best possible way.

This was a wonderful read and I want it to share it amongst my peers in hopes they’ll feel just as entranced as I did.

E-ARC was generously provided by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and Netgalley, thank you so much!!

There are monsters in the forest, and they are coming for us all.

Don’t Let the Forest In follows Andrew, a boy who writes twisted fairytales for his best friend Thomas who draws them. Monsters who shave the skin off your face and others who have roses for eyes. Their senior year is full of secrets - arguments, feelings, and the monsters in the woods.

By chapter 2, I was hooked and couldn’t come up for air until I saw Andrew through to the end. The relationship between Andrew and Thomas feels like suffocating or plunging into water so deep you can’t come up. There are so many twists and turns to this story, just like being lost in a forest. I feel like I can’t dissect the plot the way I want to without giving things away.

My only negative is that some descriptions became repetitive after a point, but I don’t think it detracts from the story. If you like dark, twisted stories set at a boarding school next to a forest full of secrets, then you will like this book. The magical realism is done well and just adds to the layers in the story. The horror in this reminds me of Mexican Gothic but done a million times better which is impressive since this is YA, and I find that YA usually holds back q but more.

I was surprised how much this story gripped me and definitely recommend checking it out when it releases this October! It would definitely be a perfect fall read.

*will be posting this review on Instagram closer to the release date

3.75

Got as an eARC from Netgalley. There was a lot I liked about this book. The characters were all endearing. I love an enchanted forest, even when it’s beyond creepy. I nailed down the plot twist about halfway through but it wasn’t so obvious that it was ridiculous that our main character didn’t know.

I feel conflicted about the ending as it’s vague and not many questions were solidly answered. There was also a fakeout that happens near the end that almost soured my whole reading experience. But, overall I enjoyed reading Don’t Let the Forest In and think it’s a really good October read.

Shy, anxious, neurotic Andrew Perrault's senior year at Wickwood Academy begins unhappily: his pragmatic, studious twin sister Dove is avoiding him, and his fiery best friend, Thomas Rye, is under suspicion for murdering his parents. When Andrew starts seeing grotesque monsters around campus, he and Thomas discover the sinister consequences of their penchant for dark fairytales.

Don't Let the Forest In is yet another title in the recent spate of YA horror releases. Drews's sharp, savage, evocative writing creates a dark, dangerous setting and vulnerable characters who realistically struggle to cope with their newfound burden and stressors. In particular, the horror action scenes are especially tense and fraught, and the descriptions of the monsters are delightfully nightmarish. However, Drews's writing veered into overdramatic too often for my tastes. The book filled with sentences that are atmospheric and pretty, but are ultimately incoherent: "But his ribs were a cage for monsters and they cut their teeth on his bones." This dramatic writing style also leads to more telling than showing; it is especially noticeable in the paragraphs that describe the relationship between Thomas and Dove, who don't interact for over half of the book, and then behave inconsistently from what the reader was previously told.

Don't Let the Forest In isn't a bad book, per se. There's a particular type of teen who is going to love the lush, vicious descriptions and become absolutely enchanted with Andrew and Thomas's slow burn romance. But for general readers, good diction isn't enough to distract from the shallow plot.

I'd like to thank CG Drews, NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was brilliant. I wish there was more, the ended had me gasping for air as if my lungs were being wrapped in vines. This YA Psychological Horror was absolutely breath taking.

Our story takes place at Wickwood Academy, a school for rich kids to send their kids, and its surrounded by a forest. Andrew, our main character, loves to write macabre stories, beautiful and sad with a twist to turn them dark. Andrew's twin sister Dove is an academic, and this year she's upset with him and giving him the cold shoulder. Thomas is Andrew's best friend, he's fiery and protective and violent, but he's withholding something from Andrew. Andrew has secrets too, he's in love with Thomas, but he's asexual and not sure how to approach the idea of a romantic relationship. Besides the usual teenage angst there's something going on with the forest, monsters are trying to get into the school, and the only ones who can stop them are Andrew and Thomas, their creators.

This book was the epitome of gothic literature with fantastical dark academia. Filled with wild fantasy creatures with a thirst for blood, and body horror with an angsty queer love story. I wish there was more, I ache for it. The ending left me staring at my ceiling, wondering what I'm supposed to do with my life now that I've finished this book.

Trigger Warnings I've Collected: Disordered eating, body horror, homophobia, bullying, child death

WOW WOW WOW.....THIS BOOK WAS SO DAMN GOOD.

I.
Have.
No.
Words.

I did not see it any of it coming. As I sit here, staring at the wall and absorbing the last few chapters... this book will indeed haunt me.

What a beautiful story of loss.

This is a perfect spooky season read that is just more than your average story.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group | Feiwel & Friends for the opportunity to read this eARC.

This was the most painstakingly beautiful read of the entire month and then some. If you’re ready for poetic angst and STUNNING representation, you should most definitely check this one out. I really enjoyed the characters and the writing brought them to life almost. The horror aspect sold me but this book is so much more and it really takes you on a journey.

I’m so very excited to have gotten the chance to read this book early ( thanks to NetGalley) so I can tell people to READ THIS BOOK ( it comes out October 29th).

Don’t Let the Forest In feels like a modern fairytale and actually ends like a fairytale depending on what you know about fairytales (remember this if you decide to read it). I truly loved this story from the beautiful writing full of metaphors and haunting descriptions to the characters and their love of words and art. Andrew loves writing and Thomas loves drawing everything Andrew dreams up. Their creations hold the secrets that hide deep within them and they become very real and very dangerous monsters. Set in a boarding school in Virginia, Andrew and Thomas have to deal with their own feelings, issues, school, and bullies while fighting these monsters each night. This book kept creeping into my thoughts throughout the days I was reading it. I kept thinking about the characters as if I knew them personally. It reminded me about other books I love such as Bridge to Terabithia and Some Kind of Happiness in the way the characters use fairytales to understand or cope with their feelings or traumatic experiences. It made me think of The Raven Boys in the way you can feel the devotion in friendship these characters have as soon as you meet them. It reminded me of Mexican Gothic with its naturalistic horror and gore. And it felt like watching Guillermo del Toro’s haunting fairytales on screen.

This book felt very human in the way the author wrote pain, sadness, angst, unrequited love, and friendship. I wanted to start the book all over again right after I finished. I felt this book very personally and I’m excited for people like me to find and read it and call it their favorite someday soon.

And I’d like to use this space to thank the author for writing something with everything I look for in a perfect book. It was really magical reading your words.

This was absolutely beautiful, eerie, tragic, haunting, it was just everything.

It’s about our lovely boy Andrew, an asexual story writer, the boy he loves Thomas, and them fighting the monsters they brought to life through Andrew’s writing and Thomas’s drawings. I wont go into it more than that, but it’s a story of suffering and you should check trigger warnings!

The writing of this book is so lyrical, there were so many quotes I highlighted I can’t wait to grab a finished copy and tab the entire book up. Plus the cover…. Just absolutely stunning.

Plot: Though it was the middle of spring when I started this ARC, I could feel all the creepy vibes lingering, with six months until the spooky season. The overall plot of this book was quite intriguing and addicting, which made the story engaging. I loved the combination of writer, artist, dark academia, and forestry happening here, which feels like an odd combination, but clearly, C.G. Drews knew how to weave these components in. The plot of this story is quite linear until you get to the end, which is such a twister for me and unexpected.

There was quite some mystery in this plot that would first leave you wondering throughout the pages, but it didn’t feel abrupt. It adds to that “Am I going crazy?” feeling that the readers are also immersed in with the characters. The forest horror was truly wonderful, and this was a great experience for me as this is the first psychological horror book I’ve ever read. The ending is *chef’s kisses.* I haven’t enjoyed an ending like that in a loooooong time!

Characters: The characters we meet through this story all have unique characteristics that make them special. I loved how C.G. Drews shaped their characters, and I believe that every one of them was captivating in their own way. While this book mostly focused on Andrew’s point of view, I find that we were all able to learn about all the characters equally. I especially loved how Andrew was able to create more relationships later with other students at Wickwood, and C.G. Drews caught the essence of inequities and struggles occurring with adolescents around the age range of both Andrew and Thomas authentically.

Writing style: The writing was wonderful, and I deeply enjoyed the world-building that took place in the first half of the book. I feel that the writing style is appropriate for YA readers, as it can be both easy and challenging at the same time. Overall, the writing flowed quite well, despite some hindering points with repetitiveness that I will soon get into. Also, it was interesting that C.G. Drews wrote in a third-person limited instead of first-person, but reading the book proved why this choice was best!

Critiques: At times, the metaphors and certain word choices became repetitive, and one of the chapters where we get the flashback is double that of all the other chapters, which made reading that part of the book quite draggy and slow. I recommend having that chapter split in half if anything, and the flashback is a perfect spot for it.

My Rating: 5/5

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan, for providing this ARC!

This had such an atmospheric quality to it, I could envision the characters and especially the setting so well, it made it eerie and very memorable.

I found this book to be incredibly atmospheric and horrifying. The YA nature of the text didn't retract from that horror, in fact, the fact that these are teenagers made the horrors that much worse. The horrors of being a teenager are hard enough. I really liked the asexual representation as I haven't read much with that sort of representation and it was really lovely to read about it.

I also enjoyed the unreliability of our narrator, Andrew. He is a fascinating character and I was intrigued to see what he would say next because I wasn't sure if I could trust him or not. The questions of what was real and what wasn't have been haunting my mind since I finished the novel. I think I read that final page maybe a hundred times.

Drews's use of language and the writing style is impeccable. The way the moments flow deep into the back of your mind, viscerally, like the vines and forest itself, is absolutely a huge feat in and of itself. The body horror was a bit much sometimes, but I think it contributes to a greater purpose--like it's not there for no reason, it is there for that horror, for that insanity, for that unreliability of the narrator.

Great novel. In desperate need of a reread already.

I finished my ARC of Don't Let the Forest In over the weekend and it was amazing! CG Drews has a writing voice I absolutely love and the words were achingly beautiful. Also, I didn't realize I needed botanical horror in my reading content, but here we are. The characters are so well written and broken and dysfunctional and they will haunt you after the last page!

I’m kicking this off by fancasting Andrew as another fictional character, Draco Malfoy. Called it. Meanwhile, Thomas can be Timmy Chalamet. And then Dove can go ahead and be the evil sister from Cruel Intentions. It is done. Hope this is the feedback you were hopinh for <3 Welcome to my brain. Please keep up.

I appreciate the craftsmanship here. I found, in particular, the last sentence of just about every chapter to keep my wanting more. There was certainly a hook. That is not to say what lies in between is simply filler – just that it seems that the author put extra care in gripping the attention of readers to keep the pages turning. The dark and sinister academia vibes were GIVING here. It was like a fever dream.

I loved the queer spectrum rep here. The boys were cute; however, I wasn’t a fan of the strange relationship between Thomas and the twins. I think if Dove had just been a dear friend, it could have made that a little less odd. I suppose relationships are complicated sometimes, though.

And the monsters were indeed quite spooky. I was left haunted. Those twists towards the end were NOT expected, despite my mind trying to piece together where tf Dove had been all along. I typically also do not like the “they were mentally ill” all along thing, but it somehow worked here. The ending was great tragic as it became clear Andrew was descending into madness.

I feel like everything here is positive, which begs the question: why not five stars? I respectfully submit that found parts of it a bit dull. I think the best parts were the portions that took place in the woods. Everything outside of it felt like a little like filler and just not as interesting to me. However, Young Adult isn’t typically my vibe. Perhaps a younger reader may find this to be a five star.

This gives me dark “Over the Garden Wall”-vibes and I’m here for it. I want to stay in the atmosphere of this book forever. There’s nothing quite like love that leaps over the line of obsession and sacrifice in a forest of danger and rot.

Even if you’re someone who shies away from YA, I think this is a fantastic book in the way it deals with coming to terms with queerness, codependency, grief, guilt, intrusive thoughts, and negative self-talk. Not all of it gets resolved but as anyone who experiences these things will tell you, it’s messy and sometimes you want a story to just be messy.

Where do I even begin with this visually beautiful yet heartbreaking masterpiece?
This is a dark love story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Imagine If We Were Villains meets Bridge to Terabithia, you get THIS.
The writing in this book made it so easy to imagine in my mind, word for word. I felt attached to every character individually and wanted to give them all the biggest hug. A lot of emotional topics were brought to light including social anxiety and eating disorders, but done so in such a beautiful way. I felt so many emotions in this book, I wanted to yell and throw my kindle from time to time. I cried. I giggled. I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.

Fast, thrilling, entertaining read. Loved the writing and the characters. Very atmospheric, great read for the spooky season!