Rating: 3.5 stars

Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this 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.

High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality―Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more.

But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won’t say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork―whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew’s wicked stories.

Desperate to figure out what’s wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster―Thomas’s drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator…

From beginning to end, Don’t Let the Forest In is a book that had me hooked, eager to know what would happen next. In particular, what drew me to reading this book was the horror that was unfolding, combined with its setting at an academy for wealthy students. I also enjoyed it due to the monsters coming to life were from fairytales that Andrew came up with that Thomas drew. While I feel like there’s never any real explanation given as to why these events unfold, I enjoyed reading about it all to find out what would happen next. There’s just something about monsters coming to life from stories people have written that always draws me in. And this book was no different.

What Don’t Let the Forest In also did well was incorporate themes into the book that connected to what was going on in the story. These themes can be seen throughout the story through Andrew’s character as he struggles to fit in at school and deal with his mental and physical health issues, along with everything that has changed upon his return to school. Even though Andrew wasn’t my favorite character in this book (I’ll discuss that later), I found myself still hoping for the best for him, as he went through a lot in this book.

I also enjoyed the little snippets of the fairy tales Andrew had written that were incorporated at the beginning of chapters, and the pictures of the monsters Thomas and Andrew encountered. I felt like seeing these in this book allowed me to imagine what Andrew and Thomas were dealing with at Wickwood Academy. But it also helped me relate to these characters, as I found I was able to relate to Andrew through his telling of dark fairytales. If anything from reading those little blurbs, I found myself wanting to read the stories Andrew writes to find out what happened in them.

With Don’t Let the Forest In, what I didn’t particularly like was the lack of character development and details in the story. When reading this book, I felt like there was no character development for Andrew at all. Yes, he eventually gets to a point where he’s able to deal with the monsters on his own. But when it comes to everything else that happens in this book, he acts like he can’t deal with anything. And there’s never any discussion around why his character acts this way or anything in the story that explains it. It makes it hard for me to like his character because there’s no growth for him in this book. What also bothered me was the lack of details regarding why these monsters existed to begin with. I figured that as the story went on, there would be an explanation here for why these monsters exist. But if there is one, I didn’t see it because it felt like they just suddenly were at their school. Both these things bothered me as I felt like I was reading a story with missing information that I would’ve liked to have to get more insight into the story.

What I also didn’t like with this story was the sudden twist added to the story and the ending. I felt like the sudden twist that was added to the story didn’t do much other than add shock for the reader and cause Andrew pain. It was also something I felt like was easy to tell had happened, considering how little the character involved was actually in the story. While it did make me feel sorry for Andrew, I felt like it didn’t add anything to the story here for me, other than explain why this character wasn’t as heavily involved in this book as I was expecting her to be. As for the ending, like several of the books I’ve read this year, it was an open ending. And like I said before with previous reads, I don’t mind open endings, but with the way this story was written, I felt like the way it was left made me feel like this story didn’t have a happy ending for these characters. With this book, all I can truly imagine is a grim ending for these characters, which wasn’t at all what I was hoping for.   

Overall, though, I enjoyed reading Don’t Let the Forest In because of the horror in the story and getting to see these monsters brought to life. Also, incorporating a little of the fairy tales Andrew writes and having pictures of the monsters was a nice touch that I enjoyed and wanted to see more of. I just wish there had been more with regard to character development, the twist in the story, and the end of the book, as those were the things in this book that I didn’t particularly care for when  I was reading this. But I still enjoyed it and recommend Don’t Let the Forest In to anyone who enjoys horror stories that take place at an academy.