ARC Review: YA Horror

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

Publication Date: October 29, 2024

Summary from NetGalley:

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…

ARC provided by Macmillan Publishing via NetGalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This story is dark, hauntingly beautiful, disturbing and full of teenage angst and I continue to think about even a week after finishing it. I felt like I was peeling back the layers of what these boys were feeling and finding something totally unexpected. This book was both terrifying and beautiful and it was really hard to let it go.

Andrew is the sole narrator of this story, and even from the beginning, before all of the horror begins, you get the sense that he is not a reliable narrator. We know from the start that something bad happened at the end of the previous school year, that has broken the friendship between him, his best friend Thomas, and his sister. Andrew is friendless except for Thomas, and his grief over what is going on is palatable from the start. His unreliable narration continues as the monsters reveal themselves and the barrier between reality and nightmares becomes blurred. By the end of the story I still wasn’t sure how much of the story was real or imagined by Andrew. I really felt Andrew’s pain as he tries and at times fails to navigate his emotions about himself and those for Thomas, and even why he is protecting a school that has never protected him. I loved the beautiful relationship between him and Thomas and fragile it was at the beginning, but it eventually becoming something stronger.

The writing was what I really liked about this story. It was so beautiful and so descriptive that I had no trouble imagining the monsters and the horrors that these two boys went through. I was right there with them in the forest and the halls of the school as they fought to save each other and the school. I understand that there will be illustrations in the final book, which will add a marvelous layer to the story. The pacing was solid, with some nice quiet moments between the characters after the horror of the monsters. The blending of the themes of friendship, love, grief, discovering and accepting yourself amongst all of the horror was beautifully done. The ending was somewhat open, in that we are not sure what happens to the boys, but there was some implied closure, that while not happy, was at least an ending.

This book won’t be for everyone. It is disturbing in some ways, and if you don’t like unreliable narrators, than this isn’t for you. But if you like emotional stories about grief, acceptance and self discovery hidden inside a horror story, this is one you don’t want to miss.