I don’t really know how to describe this book. 

Don’t Let the Forest In, by CG Drews, has left me utterly speechless and full of questions. However, I’m also left with a feeling of completeness, which is strange for a book that has a very open ending. In a way, I think this book is like a beautiful hallucination, like everyone who read it only imagined they were.

In short, this book felt like a horrifying, bloody, and utterly romantic dream.

Don’t Let the Forest In follows our main character, Andrew Perrault, who is in an upsetting and confusing state of change. He is struggling with his sexuality, his attraction to his best friend, and the ever-increasing state of anxiety he is in.

The only two people who are able to protect and calm Andrew are his twin sister, Dove, and best friend, Thomas Rye, who have been by his side for years.

However, things take a turn when Andrew returns for his last year of high school at Wickwood Academy. Thomas is acting strange and paranoid, while Dove is avoiding Andrew and seems increasingly upset about his association with Thomas. Andrew soon discovers that Thomas is grappling with nightmarish monsters made of the forest near the school and soon joins in to help protect those he loves from these creatures.

However, is any of it actually real?

Starting with the characters in this book, I must say that each one seemed designed as an extension of our main character, Andrew. He is anxious, confused, and uncertain about who he is and what he wants. I loved to see these aspects represented in such a book, but what I loved most about his character is that he is asexual. Representation of this is hard, and what most don’t know is how isolated and unwanted asexuals can feel. CG Drews presents Andrew’s confusion about being ace very carefully and deliberately.

It was handled with a lot of care, and I think many teens will be able to relate to Andrew’s struggles in this way.

As I said before, the side characters seemed designed to be an extension of Andrew. Dove was someone read about a few times but seemed to exist solely as a comfort for Andrew. She, as his twin, was literally created to be a full extension of him. In a way, I saw her as a hidden side of Andrew. Carefully put together and extremely honest.

She seemed a lot like she was a part of Andrew, that manifested as a side character.

Thomas, too, felt that way. His wildness and fighting nature felt like they were aspects of Andrew realized as a character to help balance out the three sides of him.

Andrew himself, Dove, his twin, and Thomas, his wildly brave best friend.

All felt like parts of one main character split into three pieces.

Discussing the villain, there is no true understanding of who that is. Is it Bryce Kane, Andrew’s bully? Is it the monsters in the woods? Is it Andrew himself?

There is no clear answer or representation. All I know is that, at times, everyone in this book felt like a villain. Even Andrew appeared to me as a villain when reading his story. We couldn’t trust his own thoughts or what he was saying, just as we could not trust Dove or Thomas.

Moving to the plot, I don’t exactly know how to describe it. Many themes and emotions are so deeply woven into the lore that it is impossible to sort through everything.

We have horror, which is represented in Andrew’s terrifying stories, and the manifestation of these stories into monsters made of trees and plants. We have romance, personified in Andrew’s desperate and possessive love for Thomas Rye. We also have action, thriller, and so many more genres splashed amongst these pages.

It all feels like some sort of fever dream.

Even Drews’ writing seems plucked straight from my dreams or, perhaps, my nightmares.

Drews utilizes dark imagery and captivating metaphors to describe Andrew’s anxiety and grapple with himself. Her writing style is extremely fresh and unique, with just enough horror and strangeness to make us question whether we are even reading a book. Sometimes, everything felt so real, and putting down this story was impossible. Everything that occurred, as described in Drews’ haunting words, felt real to me. 

But was it?

In the end, I was left confused yet fulfilled. The ending of this book is not conventional at all. It relies heavily on imagery and the reader’s own understanding and perception of the story to make conclusions. What happened to Thomas and Andrew, whose love seems fated to fail? What about Dove, who makes so few appearances yet is so crucial to understanding the book, and, in a way, Andrew? There are so many things left unanswered and unexplored. Even the existence of these monsters is put into question. 

Is any of it real at all?

There is no obvious answer.

But there is one thing I know. Don’t Let the Forest In is captivating and tenderly, yet brutally, beautiful. This is a book I will not be forgetting soon.