It hadn’t hurt, the day he had cut out his own heart.
Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews
LENGTH: 327 pages
GENRES: Fantasy, Horror, LGBT+, Young Adult, Fiction
PUBLISHER: Feiwel & Friends
RELEASE DATE: 29 October 2024
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him.
Kill for him.
High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality – Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, 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 won’t say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork – whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew’s wicked stories.
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 Review
Below them something scraped softly over the snowy path. The world smelled of sweet cloying decay, rotten leaves, and earth.
Happy Friday the 13th! What a perfect day to review a horror novel! Anyway, I really liked Don’t Let the Forest In. I had a feeling that I would, but my gut isn’t always correct when it comes to books, so it was nice that I was right this time.
The characters were all very compelling. I liked the main character, Andrew Perrault. From the get go, it’s immediately apparent that he has flaws and that there’s a lot going on with him. He’s a more reserved protagonist, but I didn’t mind that at all. He’s also one of my new favorite unreliable narrators. Thomas Rye was also a great deuteragonist. His personality both contrasts and complements Andrew’s very well, and they match each other nicely. They’re a writer and an artist – a perfect pairing. I enjoyed the side characters as well, like Lana, Chloe, as well as Dove, Andrew’s twin sister.
I really liked how surreal the story felt, both because of the prose and because of the way the narration is. There’s something not quite right about everything going on and it itches at the back of your mind throughout most of the plot, until things finally come to a head near the end of the novel.
“I think someday you’ll hate me.” Thomas’s voice stretched with a loneliness Andrew had never heard before. “You’ll cut me open and find a garden of rot where my heart should be.”
Andrew let the silence sharpen between them, waited until Thomas’s breath caught in quiet anguish from being made to wait. “When I cut you open,” Andrew finally said, “all I’ll find is that we match.”
The romance was also well done. I’m not always into books where most of the romance is just yearning. But because of all the horrific things going on, it felt fitting. It really fits in well with the rest of the narrative. And it also helped that Andrew and Thomas both had a lot of natural chemistry.
The horror aspect was probably my favorite thing about Don’t Let the Forest In. I preferred it over the last book I read that focused on horror, Snow Drowned. (Though I do appreciate Eldritch horror sometimes as well.) I tend to prefer it when it’s macabre and surreal like it is here. The way the writing is also accentuates this facet of the novel really well, with the unnatural line breaks within sentences and paragraphs, as well as emphasized and repeated words. I’ve heard people found it reminiscent of E.E. Cummings, and I find that I agree.
Sometimes there was no stopping pain. There was just seeing how much you could swallow before it spilled out your throat.
I also found several elements about the book reminiscent of The Other by Thomas Tryon, an old horror book from the early 1970s. (If you’re also read it, you’ll know what I’m getting at.) And because parts of this book reminded me so much of it, I was able to catch many of the twists extremely early on (I figured out one of them by chapter two or three). This isn’t even close to a bad thing, because I love getting to the end of a book even if I’ve figured things out and being validated that I guessed correctly. The author’s writing style itself is entertaining enough where it also kept me very engaged through the whole novel, as well.
Last but certainly not least, the art here was also amazing, and not just the cover either (though I love that the most). The interior sketches are phenomenal, and they help highlight so many of the scenes that they’re included in. It was great to get a visual of some of the monsters. I also liked the little writings from Andrew’s notebook scattered throughout most of the book, too.
To write something nice, he’d need something nice to say. But his ribs were a cage for monsters and they cut their teeth on his bones.
So yeah, Don’t Let the Forest In was an absolutely solid book. I enjoyed basically everything about it honestly, though not quite enough for a perfect star rating. I’m not sure why – maybe because I’ve read The Other already, and that had already set such a high standard. This was still an excellent novel though. Definitely recommend it.
Anyway, as always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
See ya ~Mar
