Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an Advanced Reading Copy. Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews follows our main protagonist, Andrew, and his best friend Thomas as they fight the monsters invading their boarding school, seemingly appearing from the stories Andrew writes and the pictures Thomas draws.

The pros:
The book is heavy on atmosphere. There is an autumnal setting, and is a perfect read for the spooky season. I finished this around Halloween and it fit the vibe.
The descriptions of the horror and the monsters are very visceral, and invoke the type of feeling that I believe the author intended.
The "twist" was well-written into the story, and I think will surprise a lot of readers and lends itself well to re-reading the book and seeing if there was any missed foreshadowing.

The cons:
- I didn't ever really grow to feel any kind of connection with the characters. I'm not a reader that needs to have likable characters, but the ones in this ARC didn't feel developed enough for me to be invested enough in their stories.
- The story was heavy on vibes and a little light on plot/characters/believable dialogue for me.

Overall, this is a solidly gory and ghoulish horror that works well for the season. I like an open ending, and appreciated how some things weren't wrapped up at the end of the book, and I think there was a lot of promise for future books by this author - I would pick up the next one.

Lush prose perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab! This dreamlike book is like a long, lush poem about that tangle of longing and terror that is a first love and fear of loss.

From the moment Thomas bounced in between Dove and Andrew when they were 12, the trio has been inseparable. Dove, the confident, brilliant, bulwark of the group, keeps Andrew from falling to pieces mentally, scholastically, and socially, and he reigns in Thomas’ simmering antagonism and explosive temper. At the end of junior year, however, something fractures between Dove and Thomas, and with Dove silent and Thomas unreachable all summer, Andrew is in the dark. He keeps his panic at bay by assuring himself the two will make up and set right his capsized world. Yet, Dove eventually ices him out as well, and Thomas keeps secrets and pushes Andrew away.

Every night, Thomas sneaks out the window and comes back trailing dirt, exhaustion, and turmoil in his wake. Andrew can’t force his lifelines to intertwine, but he can follow Thomas. What he sees is the stuff of nightmares—a monstrous creature made of forest rot and imagination pulled straight from Thomas’ sketchpad.

Thomas has been fighting to keep his creations away from the school and his friends, but now the eldritch woods have tasted Andrew. Inside him is a pressure like being buried miles underground, the dirt a compacted and rotting mass of fear, rage, sorrow, and unspoken words the forest loosens and feeds upon. While the pair desperately try to stop the monsters from attacking the school, the forest slowly invades Andrew. With the threat growing and time running out, he and Thomas may save Wickwood Academy, but can they keep Andrew from being hollowed out?

Don’t Let the Forest In is a story of twisted fairytales, twisted emotions, and the monsters entangled within. It’s full of conflicted obsession, psychological distress, and ugliness grown from an all-consuming codependent love. The horrors that bloom from Wickwood’s forest plant roots into Thomas and Andrew’s lives to claim the bruised and bleeding hearts the boys have silently pledged to each other. The mystery of the hows, the whys, and the path to extermination pulls them along in a cloud of unreliability, repression, and despair. The writing is flowery, but those flowers are full of barbs that trapped me in Andrew’s world. Everything is glassy and sharp and its edges never dull. Andrew has no peace from himself, his bullies, or the forest. Even in scenes of normality, there is always an underlying tension. The boys’ terror and turmoil are tangible, and the metaphors and imagery are brutal and beautiful. The story has a dark academia vibe, and Andrew carries all that Gothic inside himself. From his first angst fueled words, I heard “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again” and his mind holds all the lush inner melodrama and discombobulation of narrators from Gothic classics, but with the overt harshness of modernity.

Andrew only feels stable and complete when locked behind Wickwood’s walls with Dove and Thomas. They blended their needs and personalities to create a comforting and unchanging circle, but it fed their worst impulses as well. Thomas is the almost feral fae-like boy who’s allowed to channel his riotous energy and volcanic emotions into his art and being Andrew’s rabidly protective prince instead of dealing with his suppressed trauma. Andrew attached his well-being to Dove, and eventually Thomas. They speak for him, take care of him, and shelter him. They let him lie, skirt unpleasant truths, and increase his insularity. Dove is a regal and rigid princess, their beloved shining star that keeps the boys from spiraling out of control. It’s a constant, thankless job and it may be more than her love that tethers her so deeply. Her drive for perfection can border on mania; being their center and needed so completely seems to grant her an essential amount of control. Together they are beautiful, but quietly dysfunctional, something that could not sustain beyond Wickwood. Without Dove and faced with insidious horrors, Andrew’s world is a chaotic mess, with the hurricane that is Thomas in the center.

Andrew has a very strong narrative voice and being in his head is intense. His brain is constantly firing bright pulses of discord that keep him tightly wound and pained. He is also isolated and non-confrontational to a detrimental degree—plugging his ears, hiding in pantries, or zoning out and telling himself stories until people go away. It keeps him blind to the cause of Dove and Thomas’s fight and adds fuel to the uncertain and treacherous situation. His inability to cope is so severe his panic is always just under the surface, and he hides from everything, especially his feelings, asexuality, and love for Thomas. He wants him, but wants things to stay the same. He wants Thomas to love him, but fears Thomas’s love and sexuality. Andrew’s thoughts are obsessive and circular, and he’s tormented by his inability to speak his words instead of hiding them in metaphor on a page.

His exterior is that of a cowed animal, but even cowed animals bite, and Andrew’s inner bite is vicious and vindictive. Its teeth are his underlying anguish and fury at himself—for being the weak twin, for being unable to fight his own battles, for being unable to deal just once. He can only be glorious and strong in his pain-filled crevices. He is a cancerous mass of insecurity, sexual confusion, and a bitter selfishness. It all coalesces into a black sludge he partially expels in his cruel macabre stories. Dove loves them, but doesn’t understand them. Thomas does and loves their darkness. He sees the inky abyss with its terrible and strong roots underneath Andrew’s anxiousness, and loves it because it’s part of Andrew. Thomas cherishes Andrew’s nightmares and makes them a morbidly beautiful connection between them that the monsters greedily consume.

With the uncertainty built into the tale, there is some unevenness and a feeling of suddenly being jerked into different situations and head spaces; actions, emotions, and/or information within a scene don’t always mesh or feel related. The writing is very evocative, but can be overwrought and singularly focused on describing Thomas, and Andrew’s continued ignorance about the rift relies heavily on vague and/or cut-off sentences. However, I think Drews makes the trope believable. I also think the jagged areas, inconsistencies, and Andrew’s brooding and redundant fixation on Thomas are integral to the atmosphere and story. Andrew’s focus on Thomas is a function of his tortured, artistic soul, and it’s also not only about Thomas. Thomas is the avatar of Andrew’s fear of himself, love, and change, and of his dueling desires to move forward and stand still.

Don’t Let the Forest In is a dark and haunted exploration of love’s power and how ruinous it can be to oneself and to the ones loved. It’s about shattered glass and creating truth from the broken shards. It’s about where and how far the hidden depths within heartbreak, loss, and survival can take someone and the toll of carving out a life from the aftermath. In the words of the author, “If you’ve turned the last page and are now frowning at the wall, then everything is as it should be.”

Just ok. More eerie and confusing than spooky and mysterious. Not really my vibe.
I think my issue was with the main character who was just a little too obsessive for my taste.

5 ⭐️ oh my GOD. i am not exaggerating when i say that this book is going to HAUNT me (in the best possible way) — holy god above i am gonna need months to process this.

i am a little late in this arc review but i could not have stopped reading it if you paid me. absolutely RIP my sleep schedule.

c.g. drews has a haunting, beautiful, evocative way of writing that evokes ancient ballads. the tension started building and building and at no point was i ready for what happened next. the balance of the monsters against the gothic, dark-academia setting was perfection. andrew and thomas are absolute disasters, completely shattered and broken but so tragically in love that it truly transcends anything i can put into words.

this is psychological horror and an unreliable narrator and beautiful, painful, twisted love written the best. it was creepy, ominous, haunting, and macabre but also so beautifully, heart-breaking lovely. this book deserves every single accolade and 5 star review and more. frame it and put it in the louvre, the met, the smithsonian, everywhere.

thank you netgalley for this arc — and because i bought my own hard copy, everyone needs to get the beautiful barnes & noble edition with the artwork, absolutely STUNNING.

c.g. drews — thank you for absolutely wrecking me with your book. it was an honor to be ripped to shreds by your work.

<i>"I don't care how dark the world gets for you. I'll hold out my hand until you find it, and I won't let go."<i>

How do I even begin to describe how AMAZING this book was. It was everything I could have hoped for in a dark cottagecore horror. Each snippet of dark, twisted fairytales had me obsessed because it reminded me of writing as a child with severe anxiety issues. Andrew's mind was so relatable and disturbing at the same time. If I could crawl into this book and never come out, I positively would. I lost myself in the writing and story building just like Andrew lost himself in the forest.
The greatest part of this whole novel for me was the slow burning but fantastic love story between Andrew and his best friend Thomas. These two were every bit as obsessed with each other as the other one was. The way they held together the whole book, bloodied and slightly insane, is everything I wanted. In the foreseeable future you may find me crying over my new ship, drawing fanart in an attempt to feel like Thomas, and writing fanfiction late into the night to honor my dear Andrew. If memes, fanarts, and fanfictions do not release for this book soon I will wither away quicker than Andrew's ability to stay sane.
Speaking of staying sane... WHAT was that ending? How do I even begin to process that kind of information. It was plot twist after plot twist for several pages. Maybe some of you readers saw it coming, but I did not. It was thrilling.
I very kindly received this book through Netgalley, so a big thank you to the author, publishers, marketers, etc, who made it possible for me to hold this deliciously moody book in my kindle.

5/5 stars
0/5 spice (but you'll love it)

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Don't Let the Forest In follows teens Andrew and Thomas in their senior year of high school, as mysterious events begin to happen around Thomas.

Don't Let the Forest In is one of those reads that sweeps you in and won't let you go until the book is over. From an engaging plot to perfectly creepy atmosphere, everything about this book drew me in and kept me there. Andrew and Thomas were fantastic characters to read from, and I loved the way the book balanced their interiority with what was actually happening around them. I loved the poetic writing and the twisty plot, which was deliciously predictable and perfectly executed. I will say, this is quite a dark book, potentially triggering for some readers, but I loved the bold commitment to fully portraying the horrors of this world.

The plot was interesting, but I didn't t like the book. I didn't like the writing or the characters. It was boring and felt like nothing was happening for a lot of the book.

This book was so well written and utterly captivating. The prose was so poetic and it made the monsters in the forest feel real. You really got a sense of Andrew’s anxiety and I loved the way he went from weak to strong as Thomas depended on him. As the story progressed, I started having questions about what was going on and how it was going to end. I loved how all the loose ends were tied and the ending was left in a haphazard bow. My mind is blown. I haven’t read a horror book in a long time and this was everything I needed.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the eARC copy of this book!

This book made me lose sleep. It was unpredictable in a good way and I will think about it the rest of the year.

At first, I thought it was kinda slow because of the first few chapters and how they didn't make sense to me (in the context of the title and synopsis.) But once it started to talk about the monsters, that's when I couldn't stop reading.

I am undecided on who's my favorite character because Andrew and Thomas are tied but as an aspiring amateur writer, I'll choose Andrew. He is the kind of character I would like to meet in real life and have a serious talk with (even though he probably would avoid me.)

My favorite aspect of this book is how everything is told in a careful way so nothing really spoils what's to come but it gives the reader just enough curiosity to think "is this what I think it means?"

The end killed me (and I ended up crying but I also blame it on the cold I have at the moment.)
Overall I enjoyed reading this book and it definitely has a place among my favorite ones.

This book was hauntingly beautiful. The writing was so atmospheric and descriptive. I had to switch to audio otherwise it would have taken me forever to finish because I just wanted to take tiny bites of the story.

The characters were complex and flawed and beautiful. And the twists at the end blew my mind.

This kind of eerie young gothic love makes one wonder if it's true love or diabolically insane with a dash of sinister. Tread lightly, or this might just capture your entire soul.

Happy Halloween.
Surprisingly I actually have a spooky book review for today.

Bound by shared secrets and a growing obsession, Andrew and Thomas must confront the deadly monsters and nightmarish creatures that threaten to consume anyone they care for. As they fight side by side, their connection deepens dangerously, leaving Andrew to wonder if saving Thomas might mean risking everything, even the boy he can't bear to lose.

Aside from my dislike for YA motivations I really enjoyed this read! The spooky and eerie vibes and the relationship between Andrew and Thomas really mirrored each other well. Both Andrew and Thomas were presented as realistically flawed humans, them exploring what they mean to each other, and even their youthful motivations were presented in a way that ‘the what if’ is really just as scary as the monsters that are after them.

If you love earthy monsters, exploration of identity, academic settings, and a mix of mystery solving this would be a great read! I’d skip if you really don’t like YA motivations and slightly (and really I mean very slightly) predictable plot. I definitely didn’t see it coming, but I did have a brief thought about the ending. I will say this book reminds me of a spooky version of another ya novel, I won’t share which one because it’ll spoil the ending. But if you’re curious and want to know, DM me! I would also say if you enjoyed Ace of Spades, I believe you’d enjoy this one as well.

Things haven't been the same for Andrew, Thomas and Dove since their argument at the end of last year. Thomas broke his phone so twins Andrew and Dove spent the summer without a word from him. They used to share a love of Andrew's grim fairy tales and Thomas' sketched depictions of the monsters that fill the darkness of them. Now the new year is beginning, their senior year and Andrew is determined to make things right between the three of them, but that means hiding his feelings for Thomas and finding out why Dove keeps avoiding him. He will also have to face the demons of his own stories, as Thomas' drawings are coming to life in the forest just outside the schools walls.

I have been following CG Drews on Bookstagram pretty much since I started on there, so when I saw that her newest book was coming out, I snatched up an E-Arc from Netgalley.

When I read the synopsis of Don't Let the Forest In, I thought it sounded like a great fantasy read, but I was wrong. While there are fantasy elements, this book definitely leans more into the horror genre in the style of the original Grimms Fairy Tales. I absolutely loved reading the bits of Andrews stories and I think I was more engrossed in the descriptions because I didn't have Thomas' drawings to lean on (you'll find some of them in the print edition).

This book is the perfect mix of character and plot focused. The world building doesn't come at you all at once but in vibrant sprinkles throughout the pages. The characters are so complete that at any moment it feels like they could walk right off the pages, even the side characters with bit parts. Don't Let the Forest In is a completely engrossing novel that will have you hooked from the first chapter.

Author Katee Robert reviewed this book in a reel/tiktok and said that it left her "bereft" and I would have to whole heartedly agree. I never imagined that a horror novel would leave me feeling so grief stricken after I was forced to leave the world behind. Andrew, Thomas and Dove felt so incredibly real to me that saying good bye was just too much and left me crying for hours. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars from me and I would give it a million if I could. This is absolutely in my top 3 reads of the year and I will be telling everyone I know that they NEED to read this book!

How can a story so beautiful, so sensual be so gory and creepy and horrific? I love this book and I love this author and I’ am looking forward to other books they’ll write in the future. Thank you for this arc.

Read this if you like:
-LGBTQ+ representation, including ace MC
-dark academia
-Stranger Things

 
I really enjoyed this dark story about the monsters we create. If your spooky season reading list calls for a book of eldritch forest monsters, dark academia, and love that feels more like hunger, then this book simply must be on your TBR.

The vibes are creepy and tense throughout. Andrew and Thomas battle monsters that are straight out of Stranger Things by way of Holly Black's Elfhame. The dark fairytales woven throughout the story are vicious and memorable. Overall, this is a gripping and entertaining read.

I found the tone to be dramatic at times, but this is a common feature of YA stories. There was some repetition as well, and I found myself skimming the narrative during the monster-fighting scenes. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone looking for YA horror with LGBTQ+ representation and romance, dark academia meets scary fairytale vibes, and characters who would kill for one another.

I loved Don't Let the Forest In and read it in one sitting (at night to add to the ambiance). It follows two high school seniors, Andrew and Thomas, after they come back to their boarding school after summer break. However, they find that their beloved forest near campus is now off limits, but they must sneak out to fight monsters of their creation that show up in the forest at night. From there the book has multiple turns, many of which I didn't expect.

This book was creepy, atmospheric, dark, obsessive, and beautifully written. I found myself highlighting multiple quotes and bookmarking pages. One thing that stuck with me was Andrew describing the short, dark, sorrowful fairy tales he writes as "papercuts". I loved reading these "papercut" stories interspersed throughout the book, and I would read a second book just of them. As an asexual person, I also loved (and cried) reading about Andrew starting to come to terms with his sexuality and his yearning for his best friend. Sometimes I read a book that I really wish had been around when I was a teenager and really struggling with my asexuality myself, and Don't Let the Forest In was one of those.

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced electronic copy in exchange for an honest review. I have not said this in a while, but this is a book I will be buying physically with my own money now that it has released so that I can have it on my shelf forever.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars
The writing in this book is masterfully done, beautifully grotesque and grotesquely beautiful. As someone who typically has trouble visualizing things, stories that are heavily reliant on description to get things across are typically hard for me to connect with, but I didn't have that issue at all with this book. All the descriptions are intricate and well-delivered.
Andrew is such a painfully relatable main character. He's damaged and afraid and wants to do his best but has no idea how. There's a strength in finding that about yourself.
The only reason I'm rating this book under five stars is because of the ending. I'll explain as well as I can without spoilers. While it makes enough sense, the direction it took is one that I personally don't like and am not comfortable with. The perception of that is up to the reader, and this is more due to personal preference than an issue with the quality of the story, but I have reasons for these preferences and stand by them.
I also feel like there are several loose ends that could have been tied for a more fulfilling ending, for me at least. Leaving the questions open-ended gives everything an air of mystery and space for speculation, which was presumably an artistic choice of the author's. While a valid route to take, I personally feel most fulfilled as a reader when all my questions are answered.
So my complaints are mainly due to personal preference, things I found less fulfilling than I had hoped. There were also a handful of moments in the story that didn't quite make sense, but they were few and far between enough to not make a large impact.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed a solid 95% of the book. It was gorgeous and horrifying and painful in the most satisfying way. I absolutely plan to read it a second time for the full experience, to pick up on things that I hadn't known initially to look for.

Spooky times call for spooky stories, and few times are spookier than the week of Hallowe’en. So it is with great pleasure that I present my review of Don’t Let the Forest In, a young adult novel from CG Drews. Don’t Let the Forest In is a psychological horror novel set in a prestigious boarding school, Wickwood Academy. It’s there that Australian-born twins, Andrew and Dove, first met Thomas. This is the trio’s senior year, but even on the first day back, everything seems to be going wrong.

Dove and Andrew have been fighting before they even arrive at the school, and all Andrew wants to do is find Thomas so that the three of them can resume their standard undefeatable crew behavior. Thomas is acting oddly, though, even for him. He seems more on edge than usual, there’s blood dried on his shirt, and he’s not talking to Dove. Previously, Andrew would write stories to vent his darker side. Thomas would illustrate them. Dove would serve as the boys’ connection to the real world, anchoring them and helping them through their academic struggles. Now, police are showing up to question Thomas about his parents’ whereabouts, and Andrew doesn’t know if he can even trust his twin. He doesn’t want to alienate Dove by discussing the way he feels about Thomas, he doesn’t want to risk losing Thomas by admitting that there may be more than just friendship between them, and he really doesn’t want to think about the possibility that Dove and Thomas are already engaging in a more serious relationship.

As the year grinds on and Thomas seems to be more exhausted, though, a secret comes out. He’s been sneaking out of the school into the woods at night to fight monsters, his own drawings come to life. The darkness within Andrew’s stories spilling from the pages of Thomas’s sketchbook now threatens everyone at Wickwood. While Andrew volunteers to go out in the dark to do battle alongside Thomas, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be enough. Even destroying the sketchbook doesn’t stop the horrors from tumbling out into reality. Andrew already knows he would kill to protect Thomas. If it comes to it, could he kill Thomas in order to save Dove and the rest of his schoolmates?

Don’t Let the Forest In is a fantastically dark adventure, and I’m ridiculously grateful to NetGalley and MacMillan for sending me an eARC in exchange for a fair review. It’s out in the world as of yesterday, October 29th, and is an absolutely perfect Hallowe’en read. Go get it.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2024/10/30/dont-let-the-forest-in-a-review/

This book was really compelling. On a sentence level, it was really interesting and I found the concept of the monsters and forest creatures to be super interesting. However, I didn't find the themes tied together well, and I don't think the story resolved well. The fourth act twist didn't really add to the narrative, and all of Andrew's problems went unresolved. Instead it felt like a gotcha twist with an ambiguous ending for shock factor. As a YA novel, I think this failed. I did enjoy it, but I wish it had been more cohesive overall.