Lush, lyrical, and full of profound longing, CG Drews explores grief, trauma, and loss through a deliciously co-dependent relationship between two outcasted boys during their final year at a private boarding school bordering a forest in Don’t Let the Forest In.
Andrew Perrault hasn’t heard from his best friend, Thomas Rye, in months. His twin sister, Dove, is distant, cool, and aloof. He has scars on his hands that he doesn’t remember getting, and the entirety of Wickwood Academy – or, at least, those who do pay attention to the quiet, stand-offish boy that loves to tell stories – is looking on him with pity and concern. Andrew has a secret. Andrew is full of anger and lies. Andrew has something to hide, and it involves a boy named Thomas Rye.
Because here was the truth about his friendship with Thomas Rye: once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to the 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.
– excerpt from CG Drews’ Don’t Let the Forest In
As Andrew searches the halls of Wickwood, desperate for a sign of Thomas, he’s wracked with guilt and worry; he knows that Thomas’ parents are abusive, and that he has no help, no phone, no means of escape except the halls of their private high school – and, by extension – the dorm room they have shared since day one. His anxiety about Thomas – and life, in general – is palpable, tension mounting through clever writing that is raw, visceral, and real, with Drews exceling when it comes to writing the overwhelming and often overstimulating experience that is generalized anxiety and panic disorder.
The relief that Andrew feels at the first sign of his best friend is a breath of fresh air, quickly stifled when he notices blood on Thomas’ sleeve. Something has Thomas on edge, and his panic bleeds into Andrew, tinging his thoughts. Despite the warning signs, Andew is content to know that Thomas is back, that he has someone to latch on to. Deep down, he knows that he is not okay, but being in Thomas’ company helps him to cope. The edges of Andrew’s obsessive, intrusive thoughts and panic are smoothed in Thomas’ presence, but he remains an unreliable narrator throughout, one that you can’t quite trust, but want to.
He was so tired of suffering because he moved through the world differently from everyone else. This wasn’t only about goddamn monsters. It was about how he never seemed able to cope, how the world didn’t fit against his skin, how he felt too much and hurt too often and couldn’t pack his emotions into neat, palatable boxes. He needed help. He needed someone to hold on to. He needed to be believed. It didn’t matter if what hurt him was an invisible weight inside his head or something that left real bruises against his skin: his pain was real.
– excerpt from CG Drews’ Don’t Let the Forest In
Andrew’s been told – again and again – not go to into the forest, but it calls to him, like to like, as he navigates his final year at a private school nestled in the middle-of-nowhere wilds of Virginia, lost, lonely, and full of existential dread that he pours into dark, macabre fairy tales of boys with flowers growing in their eyes that cut out their hearts. They’re confessions of his own making – on coming to terms with his sexuality and desire for romance; on dealing with disordered eating and mental illness; on the spiraling anxiety and overstimulation and exhaustion that is simply existing – and with each turn of the page, they come to life, Thomas bringing them into realization through stunningly horrific charcoal sketches. Thomas’ voice, his touch, his presence, his drawings – all help to ground Andrew in reality and keep him from drifting off into the forest of his own mind, a thing that is very much alive and rotting away as the year moves forward.
Bullies and insensitive teachers, lunches and QSA meetings, all melt away in the wake of Andrew’s fear – something has been following him. The phantom trace of claws along his skin; breath ghosting at his neck; the soft, eerie fall of footsteps behind him; shadows lurking around every corner when he is alone. Once inseparable, Andrew breaks apart slowly as Dove – and, increasingly Thomas – give him the cold shoulder. Although he would do anything for Thomas and would never, ever judge him, he always manages to say the wrong thing, his supportive thoughts twisted and jumbled and accidentally accusatory, mirroring those of everyone else at the school: Thomas is a murderer. Thomas is a delinquent. Thomas is no good. It drives a wedge between them, and Andrew slowly spirals. It is in these moments that Drews excels, as we never quite know what’s real and what’s not as delusions and paranoia creep in.
But it’s more than just guilt and anxiety. Something really is alive at Wickwood Academy. Andrew can feel it in his throat, his heart, his bones. He can see it out of the corner of his eye, watching, waiting, lurking. There’s truth to be found here, strategically placed by Drews in the form of Thomas’ sketches, inspired by snippets of Andrew’s haunting, macabre fairy tales that speak volumes on love and loss and found family, which are interspersed throughout the narrative. Monsters are real, and they are encroaching on Wickwood. Thomas’ secret is this: the forest is alive; his drawings are alive – and he’ll do anything to protect Andrew from them.
Drews pens a triumph of eerie botanical horror, unspeakable loss and loneliness manifested in rotting plants, broken hearts, and deadly thorns as Thomas and Andrew navigate Eldritch plant horrors, written in story, brought to life in charcoal. The result is stunning, and Drews does an exceptional job in creating a world that is lush and evocative every step of the way, bringing nightmares to life while exploring loneliness and unspeakable longing. Co-dependence blurs with obsession as the two teens navigate their romantic feelings for one another, all while Andrew grapples with his asexuality. It’s raw and real and wonderful to be seen on the page, not just in Andrew’s panic and anxiety, the constant worry and obsessive thoughts, but in his understanding of himself. He dreams of kissing Thomas, but the rest is a blurry mess: a complicated undertaking that he’d like to try for Thomas’ sake but isn’t quite sure about himself. He loves Thomas, that’s undeniable, but he’d rather cuddle – or climb into the boy’s ribs – than contemplate anything more.
He couldn’t fit into a love story the way he was meant to; the way stories were always told. No one would see a point in kissing him and leaving it at that, but he didn’t think he wanted anything more.
– excerpt from CG Drews’ Don’t Let the Forest In
What unfolds in the forest night after night, seeping into the cracks of reality – of the mundane everyday expectations of high school: essays and tests, classes and study hall – is brutal. Blood drips from tree detritus like ink; teeth shred flesh and leave savage bite wounds in the boys’ arms; decaying foliage – mushrooms and leaves caked with rot – clog Andrew’s throat and line his pockets, suffocating him, blurring the lines of reality as attacks become more widespread, moving out of the forbidden forest and into the school, slipping in between cracks in the wallpaper, sandwiched between PB&J sandwiches, and lurking in the shadows of bathroom stalls.
As the teens navigate new horrors night after night, something else blooms between them, sweet and wholesome: love. Deep down, Andrew has always known that he loves Thomas, but his own insecurities and fears have kept him distant. Worried that he will never be enough, he’s kept his heart under lock and key, choosing to share his feelings through stories rather than spoken words. Deep down, he knows he wouldn’t be able to survive without Thomas, and as the two fight off monsters and tend to one another’s wounds, that bond – that dependency – only grows stronger. Moments of hurt/comfort turn into a single, shared bed. Half-eaten Oreos turn into tender, tentative kisses. Affection, pure and simple, in the form of physical touch, is all they need, Andrew’s doubts falling away in the wake of Thomas’ insistent presence.
He wanted to say, you are my everything, too.
He wanted to say, I don’t exist without you.
He wanted to say, kiss me.– excerpt from CG Drews’ Don’t Let the Forest In
At its core, Don’t Let the Forest In is a story of profound loss that will leave you questioning your own reading comprehension. Drews navigates the brutality of teenage angst, the confusing complexities of love, and the lengths we go to in order to avoid pain and escape trauma through an unreliable, yet relatable narrator. Within the pages of this beautifully broken book, Drews explores grief, isolation, mental illness, suicidal ideation, abuse, and disordered eating with great care. The characters – and stories – jump off the page in vivid detail. Lush and atmospheric, Drews pens a dark fairytale of their own: sharp-tongued and biting yet full of adoration and love. Fans of body horror and Eldritch legends will adore this dark, queer love story, and neurodiverse readers, in particular, may see themselves in Andrew.
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