Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Asexual MC, pansexual love interest
Protagonist Age: 17
PoV: Third-person, past-tense
Published on: 29th October 2024
ISBN: B0CM24DGRC
Goodreads

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…

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Highlights

~floral body-horror
~asexual angst
~prose i want to lick
~Australian snacks ftw
~who’s the monster?

If you don’t follow Drews on social media, you really should – they’re one of those rare voices who are a joy to hear, especially if you have any interest in books and writing. Not because they’re fount of practical publishing-industry wisdom, but because they’re constantly making entirely-too-relatable pronouncements that mix bookworm vibes with deliciously gothic/spooky/forest-y imagery. Such as;

why write your book when you could simply rot down in the forest amongst the moss and mushrooms. burrow between tree roots and brambles even, nest quietly there for a while disguised as a leaf. do what you must so your book cannot find you.

Extremely relatable!

Drews’ ability to be funny, nail a widely-experienced feeling perfectly, and work magic with phrasing and imagery all made me incredibly excited for their Horror debut, Don’t Let the Forest In.

AND IT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN I’D HOPED!

While I loved everything, two things especially stood out to me: Drews’ incredibly gorgeous, eminently quotable prose, and the otherworldly horror of the monsters. Very often in YA, I come across monsters who are either not that frightening, or are described in such a way that it leeches the horror from them. (Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us is a perfect example: much is horrifying in that book, but the monsters really aren’t.) But Drews’ monsters are perfect, uncanny and nightmarish with an air of ancient folklore about them, sort of primal-fairytale-meets-plant-body-horror, and the way they’re described makes us feel their presence, makes them far too easy to imagine.

I adored them. Would run screaming if I came face to face with any of them, obviously. But from the safety of the reader’s chair? Adored them.

A stark winter forest, every tree burned white with frost. A boy with horns and roses grown from his eyes held a knife, and he was midway through carving the heart out of another boy with moth wings who knelt in the leaves, his face tilted upwards in supplication. Vines blossomed around them, tangled and unruly.

Andrew and Thomas are both artists – Andrew writes, Thomas draws and paints – and the way in which they feed each other’s art, the way their art comes together – with Thomas illustrating Andrew’s stories and Thomas’ drawing inspiring Andrew’s writing – is a wonderful metaphor for their relationship. It’s symbiotic and obsessive, the two of them inseparably tangled up in each other, to the point that cutting one away would destroy both. The wrong reader will clutch their pearls at how intense and feral these boys are for each other; personally, I don’t care if it’s not perfectly healthy, it’s interesting, and the intensity is so believable (don’t you remember how intense Feels were during puberty?) and so beautifully expressed.

Everyone saw Andrew as shattered and fragile, and maybe he was to them. But when Thomas looked at Andrew’s sharp edges, he thought them dangerous and beautiful–not weak.

Andrew in particular is such a brilliant character – I loved the dissonance between what everyone else sees, and what’s going on inside his head, under the skin. I don’t know how many teenagers feel like monsters, but I know I did, and I know a lot of YA doesn’t talk about that – I suspect many adults have this idea that teenagers are innocent in an animal way, potentially obsessed with sex but having no darkness in them, which just isn’t true. That Drews dug into this was delicious (and validating); as was the exploration of how people have no idea what’s going on inside the quiet ones, what’s buried beneath the meek exterior. Don’t Let the Forest In came along just as I was thinking about the kind of bullying victim who becomes infinitely more dangerous than their abuser/s later, which: excellent timing.

A horribly delicious feeling flooded Andrew’s chest. He could taste pain in the air and for once it wasn’t his, and he loved that.

Plus, this has to be some of the best anxiety rep I’ve ever seen. I’ve known so many people with anxiety who functioned excellently in genuinely high-stress or dangerous situations, but still struggled with ‘basics’ like making friends or being stared at, and I’m glad Drews went in this direction when writing about Andrew. But what’s really special is how well Drews managed to capture what that kind of anxiety feels like, how perfectly they put things I’ve never been able to explain into powerful lines and images.

His skin was a fevered oil slick and they all held matches.

Drews’ signature humour is on full display here too, and somehow, the moments that made me laugh strengthen the horror, make the whole story – with all its many, many supernatural elements – feel much more real. Because people are like this! Even amidst the worst things we can ever experience, someone will crack a joke, someone will laugh inappropriately loudly, it’s one of the best things about humanity. And sometimes the sense of humour here is reasonably dark, and that feels true and correct as well. People who’ve never been through hell are often appalled at the jokes survivors make, but that’s a very human thing too, so scattering that kind of comedy through this horror story drives home how much Andrew and Thomas are going through. It’s a subtle thing, but I doubt I’m the only survivor who’ll notice and appreciate it.

She’d be fine this senior year; she’d own it. Andrew suspected this year would beat him up in a back alley and leave him for dead.

This book probably isn’t going to keep most Horror fans awake at night – although I had plenty of trouble keeping some of the mental images Drews summoned from haunting me! – and I suspect there are ‘proper’ Horror fans who will unravel The Thing way faster than I did. But Don’t Let the Forest In sure as hells delighted me – I stayed up until 7am to finish it! – and I don’t think it’s really the monsters that Drews wants us to linger over. As beautifully horrible as those are (and they really are), it’s the rabid obsession-love between Andrew and Thomas that is the heart of the book; that, and the fervor of being seventeen, the horror of it, the painful intensity of every emotion and thought. And both those things are exquisite here, captured absolutely perfectly.

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.

Which undersells the monsters, and I really don’t want to do that. The monsters are epic! Magnificently horrible! The supernatural horror made me wince and rip at my lips and hold my breath, made my skin crawl, broke my heart. The mundane horrors of bullies and cruel teachers and ooc siblings heightened both by contrast. It’s a love story – between an ace boy and a probably-pansexual one – but my gods, it is far from only a love story!

Moths ate holes in his mind and their wings beat a frantic migraine behind his eyes.

(Except for how the horrors are part of the love story, really, and honestly, this book makes me want to try writing poetry again.)

So whichever you’re looking for – feral queer love story, or gorgeously-horrific monsters, or BOTH – I can’t imagine you won’t be eminently satisfied with Don’t Let the Forest In.

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