Shae

Where do I begin with this book?

Don't Let The Forest In follows Andrew and Thomas, who along with Andrew's twin sister Dove, make up a group friendship. However, this school year is different. Dove is not speaking to Andrew or Thomas after a big argument the previous year, Thomas is lying to Andrew, and Andrew himself is coming apart of the seams. Andrew plays our narrator, often unreliable and skewed but exactly as I would expect a teenage boy to be. His love for Thomas is unhealthy, reckless, and brash. But at the same time innocent and made of that awestruck naivete one would expect.

“But his ribs were a cage for monsters and they cut their teeth on his bones.”

With rich, delicious prose and violent, downright horrifying imagery, CG Drews paints a story that is simultaneously beautiful, heartbreaking, and unsettling. The story winds us through dark forests, darker fairy tales, and the unrestrained and codependent love so often seen in youth. The twists and turns in the plot keep you guessing until the last few chapters, and the ending left me numb and staring at my reader in disbelief.

“Life didn't fit against his skin and it never had and sometimes everything was just too much.”

This hit my craving for horror perfectly, and is a dark fantasy fairy tale at heart, both grim and beautiful. The cast is diverse and portrays mental illness so well, as well as asexuality which is so rare in fiction. At some points, the reader has to suspend belief a bit, but let's be honest, most horror and dark fantasy are similar in that way. Overall, this has been one of my favorite books this year, and I am so eager to see what else CG Drews puts out.

“... maybe you could love someone so much you ruined them, and then you ruined yourself.”

This book, along with a very select few, has stuck with me decades after reading. It struck me in school when this book was first assigned, just how beautiful and poignant the subject matter was even when it was written in the 90s. It has only become more so as time has gone on. Especially when read as part of the quartet it was written into, this book has an excellent lesson to carry on.

If I could give this book 6 stars, or even more, I would.

I am not a scifi person, let me start there. I've rarely read scifi, and certainly not this type. Project Hail Mary kept coming up on my social media as a high rated book and eventually one has to give in to that kind of pressure with nearly no negative points. Fast forward to me reading the first chapter and then not stopping until I was done. I cried multiple times, I laughed so hard. This book is an incredible hopeful, beautiful look at humanity, life, and what lengths we'll go to in order to save ourselves and those we love. I don't know if any book this year will top this one, but I know I will be thinking about Grace (and Rocky) for months to come. 

This was a stunning book. It was heart breaking and sad and beautiful. I can't quite go into the full reasons why so soon after reading, but I truly wish I had more time with Conor and his mother. That's really the biggest reason it isn't a full 5 stars. 

This was a beautifully written book, I simply wasn't the target audience. I found myself both missing detail and feeling like there wasn't enough. This is a short book, and I wonder if that was a flaw in that there couldn't be as much world building, mythos, etc as I usually prefer in my books. If you like your books snappy, with fairly quick emotions and very quick plot, this is likely more for you.