Review by paulineerika - Don't Let the Forest In

paulineerika 's review for:

Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

I'm a sucker for dark fairytales. In Melissa Wood's The Hazel Wood series, my favorite was the collection of fairytales. So it probably goes without saying that my favorite part of this book was Andrew's stories. And C.G. Drews deftly weaves them into the larger story, which is itself beautifully and heartbreakingly written. Andrew and Thomas are both broken people who don't know how to deal with their brokenness (and in Thomas's case, maybe can't even recognize their brokenness). In parts of the book, you wonder if they could have found healing earlier, but their brokenness kept them from seeing potential lifelines besides each other and Dove.

The novel is haunting and atmospheric. It's obviously easy to see the monsters in the book as metaphors for Andrew and Thomas's pain and grief and mental demons and it's certainly not the first (or last) time an author has done this. But Drews does it so well, blurring reality and making it such that even though you don't know if the monsters are real, they still have very real consequences on everyone around. And it doesn't matter if they're real because they're real to Thomas and Andrew.

I somewhat predicted the twist near the end,

except I thought it would be Thomas who was dead, not Dove

, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. The ending itself is perfect for the book: ambiguous, with hints of both peace and tragedy.

Content Warnings