Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan for the opportunity to read this book.

To begin, I thought that this book had a lot of potential! The setting (Who doesn't love a boarding school?) and the chilling mood were right up my alley. The premise of the book itself was also very intriguing because how often do we see characters have to fight off monsters that they themselves have created?

Unfortunately, the book started off slow. There wasn't much in terms of answering small questions, nor do I feel like the characters (outside of the main trio) were properly introduced. I also felt that the writing style was too flowery to allow for the story to build. Every action that Thomas or Andrew did felt too grandiose to be realistic and it took away from the story. Additionally, it follows a routine for most of the first half of the book, without much deviation from it. The story gets a lot better in the second half with the plot twist and the reveal of Andrew's past. Unfortunately, the ending of the book left me with more questions than I would have liked, so hopefully there's a sequel that clears up more of my questions.

YA horrors and covers do not get talked about enough. I’m in my YA horror era and I’ve been so drawn to all the YA covers for a while now. & this one just proved to me how amazing YA books can be no matter how old you are. This was written so beautifully so suspenseful, with stunning and grotesque descriptions. Love that there are fantasy aspects to this book too which I didn’t expect. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this arc. One of my faves of the year.

***Spoilers***

How do I describe "Don't Let the Forest In." Strange. Haunting? Mysterious. Most definitely a "twisted fairytale." It has a MMC, LGTBQIA forward, diverse, and creepy, The synposis does a relatively great job describing the book: two friends attend a private school, and they become closer because there are simply monsters that they create and need to destroy.

Now, I read this much sooner than it's archival and publish date because a fellow bookstagrammer raved about, and I have so many thoughts about it. Here's where some of the spoilers come in... The MMC, Andrew writes these twisted fairytales, and the best friend and love interest illustrates the monsters and characters within these stories. Thomas, the said friend, starts having to kill these monsters, and they are both unsure if the source are the pictures/drawings or the written stories. It's really unclear if these monsters and paranormal activity are real, as there are scenes that affects more than just the two main duo, the classmates and teachers. HOWEVER, we learn that Andres (MMC) had a traumatic event that may have caused him to have quite a mental breakdown, and is now quite delusional. I mean, I think that Thomas is trying to help cover up the murders caused by these "monsters" because he's so infatuated and obsessed with the MMC, that he's also willing to do anything for him, even die himself. The ending is very frustrating, and I wish is was more clear. But I guess we need to leave the readers on a cliff here.

There is a warning about self harm, depression, and borderline eating disorder (anorexia). I don't know if it wasn't for Netgalley that I would have picked up this book immediately. However, I would recommend this book to others who like twisted fairytales and with a dash of dark academia? I'm not even sure that's correct. Either way, it's Grimm Fairytales in the setting of private high school with a fated love for disaster. Thanks Netgalley, CG Drews, and Feiwel & Friends for allowing me to read this fun story!

fairytale retelling
Dark romance
Paranormal
Suspense
Top notch banter !!! Absolutely loved it highly recommend this book if you love dark romance and banter an are a passionate lover for fairytales

One of the best books I've read this year. CG Drews is a force of nature and this novel is a masterpiece.

Don’t Let the Forest In is a young adult (I’d say 13+), about two teens that live at a private school.
We are introduced to the characters when one of the teens is accused of killing his parents, on the first day of school..
Thomas and Andrew were inseparable since grade 9. They share a dorm room, andrew writes little dark stories and Thomas draws what Andrew writes about.
Slowly, the darkness and the creatures that Thomas has created in his art, start attacking the school around 3am each morning, and Thomas goes up against these macabre monsters.
Andrew has vowed to help take on these monsters at night and during the day they’re going to look for all of Thomas’ art to destroy it to keep the forest out.
This plan doesn’t work, and the pace of the book picks up, almost nightly the plan to protect the school gets harder, the creatures larger and more fierce.
Thomas and andrew start withdrawing from each other, wanting to protect the other because everyone they either care about or can’t stand are now creature targets.

There is a romance trying to blossom in the midst of the chaos, they never talk about it until nearly the end. It doesn’t take away from the story, it does add a little tension at parts. It’s very well done, and truly makes you evaluate your own friendships/relationships.

TW: vomit, self harm, bodily injury, bullying

Wow!! Some favorite quotes:

“They looked like twins, Andrew and Dove. Pale skin, honey-gold hair, brown eyes, and not much height difference between them. But Dove was a statue of glittering ice, beautiful and dangerous and impossible to reshape, while Andrew was more like a collection of skeleton leaves, fragile and crumbling.
Dove was the one everyone saw, and Andrew was the one they forgot.”

“You are a nightmare, you are a god of wicked places, to stop your horror maybe we have to stop you—“

This was such a haunting, dark, and twisty story! I will be thinking about it nonstop for the foreseeable future. I quickly fell in love with the characters and the dark academia setting!
I adored the poetic writing and the vivid scenes in this book. I was so immersed from the very beginning! As the reader, you can tell that there is something complex about the friendships between Andrew, Dove, and Thomas. Just when I thought that I knew where the story was going, it kept on surprising me! Adding it to one of my top reads of the year.

Wow. Just wow. You might as well just have a seat one he moss of the forest floor and lets the roots grow over you while you wait for this YA Horror book to release. It’s worth it, I promise!

This book was absolutely enthralling in the most heartbreaking yet beautifully dark way. There’s not a whole lot that can be said about this one without spoiling it. Go in blind. The characters are deep and I loved the three of them. Twins Charlie and Andrew and their friend Thomas. Prepare yourself for an eerie setting at a boarding school with a dark forbidden forest with LGBTQ+ rep. I’m talking pull you into this cottage-core horror and make you forget you’re reading atmospheric. It was dark and decadent but also written with such beautiful delicacy. And a ferociousness that left me wanting me.

This is a forest horror story but it’s also a story about obsession, a story about grief, and a story of how one copes. Dark fantasy meets dark academia in a monstrous kind of way. Fully recommend this to lovers of YA horror who like the cottagecore and LGBTQ vibes! That ending! 🤯 I didn’t want this book to end and it was one of those books that impacts you emotionally and makes you say “wow.” Plus, it has a strikingly beautiful cover I’m obsessed with! 🥀

Don’t Let The Forest In is the story of Andrew Perrault in his final year of boarding school. Andrew sticks to himself, his mysterious best friend Thomas, and his twin sister Dove, but this final year looks a little different. After an incident at home, his best friend Thomas is being accused of a crime he swears he didn’t commit and Dove, well she’s been secretive and avoiding everyone, even her brother. When strange things start happening to Andrew and he notices Thomas sneaking out, he follows him and discovers the world of monsters living in the forest. Thomas’ drawings are coming to life. Andrew has to find a way to stop them, to save Thomas and clear his name, but he wonders if the only way to fix it is to stop Thomas.

I knew from the synopsis and the content warnings that this book was going to be dark, going to be scary, going to be intense, but Christ, it was all of that and more. As someone who is a slow reader, the fact I read this in about four days, proves just how unputdownable it is. There was no room for breathing or calming down and each detail was just perfect. I loved this book.

I would love to pick up Andrew and protect him from all that is wrong in the world. This poor guy went through so much in the span of this book, all he wanted to do was kiss his best friend and write his stories. I was rooting for Andrew, there was a moment when I thought he was going to turn out evil and I still rooted for him. He would do anything to protect Thomas, even almost kill himself and it was heartbreaking. I loved how his asexuality slotted in so nicely into the story, how he found solace with Lana and Chloe and found himself opening up to them. How he didn’t panic over it too much despite panicking over everything else. I adored Thomas’ reaction to it too, not completely understanding it, but trying to, and testing boundaries.

The relationship between Andrew and Thomas is beautiful. The love they have for each other is obvious and gorgeous, the fact it felt like they couldn’t breathe without the other. They lean on each other and tell each other everything. Their argument almost broke me, it was horrible reading it but I was glad to see that Andrew didn’t crumble completely and that he did go see Lana and Chloe and study with Dove. Their kiss in the woods made me scream and it was such a ‘finally’ moment even if it did come with such stress. A scene I loved was them walking around town, and when they went to the roof at night to stargaze. When they started cuddling up together after fighting was adorable and the want to sacrifice themselves for the other was just to die for.

Coming to the actual story, the actual plot, I was amazed. The monsters were so creative, the description of them was perfect I could visualize them so easily. They were mystifying and magical but also scary and gruesome. Despite them injuring Andrew and Thomas several times, I did cheer when they killed Clemens and Bryce. The descriptions of the killing were so intense and skin-crawling. I loved how they were born and killed by art. Thomas’ drawings were the monsters coming to life and Andrew’s stories were how they could be killed. It was so clever.

The mental health rep was also incredibly important. We didn’t see the eating disorder as something dangerous as we were seeing it from Andrew’s point of view. He saw it as nothing to worry about, but everyone around him noticed it. The same is true with his trauma which helped build the plot twist at the end. It is clear throughout the book that Andrew is struggling and we hope that after the ending, he gets the help he needs.

Now, let me talk about the twist, because I did not see it coming and yet I should have. Dove being dead threw me because of course she was. No one was talking to her, Lana had a new roommate and best friend and Thomas and Lana kept talking about her in hushed voices. It was obvious and yet it wasn’t because Andrew had no idea, so neither did the reader. It was an incredible twist and the fact that it was her soul, and her blood in the trees that twisted the forest was such a gorgeous and horrifying plot point.

The ending confused me a little and I did have to read it another time to truly get it, but I think that’s me being happily overwhelmed and a little bit dumb rather than a writing issue.

Overall, I think I have found a new dark favourite. With mental health, sexualities and friendship explored in a mystical horror setting, Don’t Let The Forest In will make you cry and have your skin crawling in the best way possible. It shows that you have to be the one to fight your monsters in the end, but you always need people around you to help.

THIS BOOK! It sucked me in from the very beginning. The author truly painted a picture for the reader with how detailed their words are. It felt like I was in the forest with Andrew and Thomas. It was creepy, it was gory, it gave me goosebumps. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to dip their toes in the horror genre.

Thank you so much, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

TW: gore, blood, violence, bullying, eating disorder, homophobia

In his boarding school, Andrew Perrault finds refuge in his twisty and dark fairytales, in his twin, Dove, and his friendship with the brilliant artist Thomas. But now Dove is keeping her distance, after a mysterious fight with Thomas and Andrew is leaning even more on him. Something strange is happening, though. At the start of the semester, Thomas' abusive parents disappear and there's blood on Thomas' sleeve. Andrew would do anything in his power to protect him, even fighting with him, when Thomas acts strangely and seems to have lost interest in his art. Messy Thomas, with his love for the forest and his lies and fights. Slowly Andrew starts to unravel what's happening and togethere they will face the dangers together. Monsters have come to life from Thomas' art and the only way to protect the school and themselves is destroying them and understand how they are born and how to stop them forever. Even coming to realize horrible truths and their true feelings for each other.

I absolutely loved Don't let the forest in. It's hauntingly beautiful, deliciously creepy and it deals with so many important themes, like bullying, violence, abuse, but also, the power of art, writing and drawing, queer love, intimate connection, in this story about two codependant and in love teens, ready to destroy the world to protect and save one other.
The whole idea of monster coming back to life from art, the power of creating and, also, to destroy, is truly beautiful. The story is told by Andrew's POV and the reader is thrust in this boarding school, with a shy, anxious and struggling with mental issues and eating disorder boy. Andrew is a magnificent MC. He's lonely, struggling to trust and in a world where being quiet and shy means being picked on, so there's bullying and homophobia in this story.
Only with his twin Dove and Thomas he can be himself, he feels accepted, but, with Dove keeping his distance and Thomas being elusive, Andrew is forced to be with himself, struggling with monsters, real or not, in trying to understand what's happening.
I love how the narrator is unreliable in this book. The reader is captured in a story made of real monsters, but, mostly, real problems and mental struggles, with two young best friends, very codependent, struggling with their own feelings, sexuality and orientation and I really appreciated how that wasn't fixed, how Andrew is trying to understand who he is with Thomas and without him, what and who he likes.

The story is creepy, alluring and there's some blood and gore around and it's the kind of book I fall in love with. It's so well written, every sentence seems a poetry and the story, the brilliant characterization, everything is lush and very evocative in this physicological horror.
Also, I loved the setting. The contrast between the boarding school and the dangerous, but safe for them, forest, where they can be messy and "savage" as long as they want, free to express their own feelings and to confront each other with the truths.

“…when something moved in the dark, everyone’s first instinct was to go inside and hide under the covers. As if monsters couldn’t open doors and crawl into bed with you.”

Wow…this book was so good! I read it all in one sitting because it was impossible to put down. It has everything I love—horror, psychological thriller, a little romance, unreliable narrators. I’m sitting here at 4am with just a loss for words. This was beautifully macabre, just like Andrew’s stories. I LOVED that the author included some of the dark fairytales he wrote because they were so wonderful. I also loved that he called the stories “paper cuts.”

If you’re looking for a book with all the things listed above and more, I highly recommend Don’t Let the Forest In. Honestly my only critique is that I wanted more of the story! I didn’t want it to end. 10/5 would recommend. While October is far away, I think that’s the perfect month for this book to release.

I received an advance reader copy and am leaving this review voluntarily.

I can’t decide if I need to sit and stare at the wall for six hours and process, or if I should just jump back in and read it again. Very rarely does a single book take me through nearly the entire spectrum of human emotion, but damn if CG Drews didn’t do just that. This book will leave you feeling intensely unsettled and uncomfortable. This book will have you questioning what’s real. This book will break your heart.


“They could be so beautiful to each other. They could be so cruel.”

“I don’t care how dark the world is for you. I’ll hold out my hand until you find it, and I won’t let go.”

This was so lovely, and dark, and mysterious. An excellent psychological horror, a real pleasure to read and had me hooked right away. It’s technically YA, but didn’t feel like it. Beautifully written and unbelievably unsettling.

I loved the ace representation, this is the first book I’ve ever read with an asexual MC and it was refreshing. As someone who reads a fair amount of smut, it was nice to experience romance that wasn’t so sexually focused (not that I expected it to be, being YA and all).

I really enjoyed Andrew’s stories and wish they had been accompanied by Thomas’ art. I could really feel the dread building in Andrew as things spiraled with Thomas, I’m all too familiar with the anxiety that builds when you’re grasping onto something (or someone) who is slipping away. The monsters were FRIGHTENING. Honestly some of the best monsters in horror that I’ve read, and the END. HOLY SHIT, THE END. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for providing an ARC of this book.

This is the kind of psychological horror that sticks with you.

Andrew is a shy, sensitive teenager that struggles with anxiety and panic attacks. His relationship with his best friend, Thomas, is obsessive, and his twin sister Dove won’t talk to him. Bryce Kane, his bully, has decided to make his life miserable, Andrew is struggling to make sense of his sexuality, and on top of it all, Thomas and Andrew are being attacked by monsters in the woods behind the school.

As the story progresses, the author makes it clear that you can’t trust Andrew’s recollections of things. I found myself rereading passages and comparing different sections to try to make sense of what was really happening. Is Andrew suffering a psychologic break? Are the monsters real? Is anything? The story fills you with a sense of dread, and the tension feels taut as the monsters become more violent (and reverent of Andrew). The ending of the story feels vague in a way that nags at your mind. Admittedly, I was initially frustrated to not get a clear answer. As time has gone on, I’ve been mulling the story over in my brain, picking apart small details throughout the story to try to make sense of the story and decide for myself what happened. It has been almost a day since I finished the book, but I find myself continuing to process and digest in any moment of downtime, in a way that is very similar to how I reacted to the end of The Death of Jane Lawrence. And isn’t the goal of art to affect the person perceiving it?

Don't Let the Forest In was a wonderful, slow, creepy read. I usually don't like books set in boarding schools for rich kids, but this worked really well. The book starts off slow - you find out that Thomas, the best friend of Andrew, the main character, is brought to the principal's office for questioning about the disappearance of his parents. Thomas is acting strangely and is not talking to Andrew. Andrew's twin sister is also not really speaking with him since she got into a fight with Thomas. The characters were well written and I empathized with what they went through. I enjoyed this book and hope to read another book by this author in the future.

This book felt like a wonderful combination of Holly Black-esque style writing, Inkheart (if you were also obsessed with this book as a kid we're automatically best friends), with a dash of Mona Awad's Bunny in that I never knew what to believe was actually happening.

Drews has a beautiful style of writing that I instantly fell in love with, and it had me highlighting multiple times as I was reading. I will definitely be checking out any of her future works.

This book manages to tackle issues of mental health, eating disorders, and sexual identity and seamlessly weaves them into the plot.

The story has a dark academia feel while also feeling reminiscent of a dark fairy tale. I loved all the times that Andrew's gritty stories were mixed into the book and loved seeing his words and Thomas' drawings literally come to life.

The book has an ambiguous ending, and I have found myself coming back and thinking about it multiple times in the days since I've finished it. I really enjoy books like that, and I am eager to re-read it with a different lens next time I pick it up.

Don't Let the Forest In will be released at the end of October and will be a perfect spooky season read. It has a deliciously creepy atmosphere with a sprinkle of brutality and a whole lot of psychological horror.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Publishers for the eARC for review.

"Don't Let the Forest In" by C.D. Drews is a mythical horror set in a dark academic / Victorian school. The main characters, Thomas and Andrew, are seniors in high school who have gone through a lot. Andrew struggles with extreme anxiety and somewhat self-harm issues. Thomas has abusive parents and is constantly getting picked on by kids in the school who are richer and more popular. Andrew and Thomas start noticing these monsters coming to life from Thomas' drawings, but how will they stop them?

"Are you hurt? I'll kill anything that touches you. I swear."
"The boy who loved no one loved him."

This book was AMAZINGLY well written. The fight scenes with the monsters kept me on edge and made me want to never stop reading. I also loved seeing Andrew really figure out his identity and how being asexual fits in to his life. This book was also CONFUSING. But in a good way. In a way that was deliberate and executed well. There were so many plot twists (especially near the end) and mystery to this book that it was impossible to be bored. This book was also so beautifully written in the way that it shows struggles that people with mental health issues go through and also people who grow up in abusive households.

The reason I didn't give this a 5 stars is partly because of the fact that it was very outside of my comfort zone with the gore and the monsters, but also because near the middle of the book there wasn't too much happening. It felt like the middle was really slow but then the ending was rushed and somewhat vague? I didn't really comprehend what was happening in the last few scenes and some of that was good but some was bad.

I would definitely recommend this book! Especially to those who like books with mystery, some gore, horror, LGBTQ+ representation, mental health awareness, and more!

My Goodreads review is linked below! Feel free to check it out!

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley.

I'm typically not a horror type of person when it comes to books/media, but I picked this up because the premise was so interesting. I have no regrets; this book was read in one sitting. The word choices are absolutely visceral, and it's obvious that there was a lot of care taken to ensure it was clear. Without spoiling anything, this is the kind of book you need to read to believe it. Not many books do this to me, but I'll definitely be thinking about this book for a while. All the best to the author for such an amazing debut novel!

Don't Let the Forest In is C.G. Drews' debut in the horror genre, and it's a book that I've been dying to get my hands on ever since I saw them posting about it on Twitter and it was added to Goodreads as Skeleton Boys. It's a bit of a genre change from The Boy Who Steals Houses and my beloved A Thousand Perfect Notes, but those young adult contemporaries contained enough darker elements that I knew I would be safe in C.G.'s hands.

Content warnings for this book include bullying, blood and gore, body horror, death, disordered eating, grief, homophobia, self-harm, and violence.

High school senior Andrew finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality - Thomas, his best friend who turns his stories into whimsically macabre art. And, with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to boarding school, 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 is haunted by something. 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.

My first love about this book is the writing itself, and how it is truly an ode to storytelling. Drews has a gorgeous writing style. The prose is beautiful (which I already knew as an avid lover of their other works) and I'd absolutely be willing to try another book by this author with these horror influences just because of that. This book is hugely atmospheric and dreamlike (or nightmarish?) with hauntingly beautiful imagery that I have taken infinite screenshots of so I can read my favourite lines over and over again. There are also snippets from the stories that Andrew writes that are interwoven throughout in a way that doesn't distract from the main story and leaves me wanting more. I also can't wait until my preorder arrives so I can appreciate the formatting of these pages in person.

The thing that means the most to me about this book is the asexual main character, confirmed by the author on social media, in addition to on-page labels and discussions of it throughout the book. The spectrum of representation in this story is refreshing and touches on themes of identity, mental health, and disordered eating. These are not easy topics to discuss with equal parts honesty and sensitivity, but they are important to talk about, especially for the young adult target audience.

I've noticed that this book is receiving some criticism for how it portrays asexuality, and there's just something about asexual representation that I find people criticise a lot more than other sexualities. (In my opinion, because this is my identity, it's something I pay attention to a little more). With these books, there's always people who review negatively because it doesn't fully represent their own experience, but...that's the whole point, to me at least. Don't Let the Forest In represents an experience that is specific to the author and their character, and also painfully reminiscent of my own, which is why I identify with Andrew so much. But everyone's sexuality is unique to themselves, and no author can hope to sum up (or fully explore) the experience of every individual reader.

Don't Let the Forest In is ultimately a love letter to grief, coming to terms with the complexities of asexual identities, and the dichotomy of warmth and brutality that I've come to love about C.G. Drews' works. It's also completely unafraid to pay tribute to those former weird little kids who lived in their daydreams, and that's something about this book that makes me feel as if I'm going to come back to it time and time again. It's a good fit for readers who enjoy stories about intense friendships, overcoming darkness, and the struggle to protect loved ones from inner and outer monsters. C.G. Drews' debut young adult psychological horror will leave you breathless and hesitant to venture deeper into the woods.