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renegades 's review for:
Don't Let the Forest In
by CG Drews
What a strange, gorgeous, devastating book. I didn’t know what to expect from what I assumed would be a straightforward YA horror novel, but I don’t think I imagined this—a gorgeously written, tragic, frustrating, beautiful queer story that shies away from none of those things.
It’s hard to really pick apart what worked and what didn’t work for me, because the whole thing is such a lovely slow burn with a crescendoing pitch near the end that the things that weren’t clicking for me came together when the picture fully rounded out. Does that make sense? Through much of the book I knew it was gorgeous and that it objectively deserved a high rating, but I wasn’t emotionally connecting to it for some reason—but the pitch and slow reveals of the last quarter really made everything come together, including my feelings. Now I keep thinking back to earlier parts of the book and rethinking scenes through the light of new information. I love it when books make me do that.
The characterwork is gorgeous, the writing is just beautiful, and the unshakeable, devouring love between these two boys—how they continue to fight for each other beginning to end—is some of the sweetest and most monstrous I have read. This book is a perfect blend of horror, body horror, psychological terror, and romance.
I don’t know, I stayed up until 4 am finishing it and then I couldn’t fall asleep after. My heart hurts. I love those boys. I’m going to be thinking about that ending for a long time.
It’s hard to really pick apart what worked and what didn’t work for me, because the whole thing is such a lovely slow burn with a crescendoing pitch near the end that the things that weren’t clicking for me came together when the picture fully rounded out. Does that make sense? Through much of the book I knew it was gorgeous and that it objectively deserved a high rating, but I wasn’t emotionally connecting to it for some reason—but the pitch and slow reveals of the last quarter really made everything come together, including my feelings. Now I keep thinking back to earlier parts of the book and rethinking scenes through the light of new information. I love it when books make me do that.
The characterwork is gorgeous, the writing is just beautiful, and the unshakeable, devouring love between these two boys—how they continue to fight for each other beginning to end—is some of the sweetest and most monstrous I have read. This book is a perfect blend of horror, body horror, psychological terror, and romance.
I don’t know, I stayed up until 4 am finishing it and then I couldn’t fall asleep after. My heart hurts. I love those boys. I’m going to be thinking about that ending for a long time.