The Girl With All the Gifts
M. R. Carey
This book features a dark fantasy world where creatures from folklore come to life, much like the terrifying beings in 'Don't Let the Forest In.'
Don't Let the Forest In
by CG Drews
A feverish, gory, and tender queer horror novel where fairy-tale monsters, boarding-school isolation, and an anxious narrator's unreliable mind blur into something deeply unsettling.
What It's About
Andrew Perrault is a boarding-school student who writes dark, violent fairy tales, and his closest friend Thomas Rye turns those stories into drawings. Then Thomas starts showing up hurt, and the creatures from the pages seem to be stalking the woods beyond the school. Andrew begins slipping out at night to confront them, carrying the guilt of knowing the monsters began in his own imagination.
CG Drews writes in a dense, lyrical style that leans hard into atmosphere: rot, roots, blood, and the claustrophobia of a mind that will not quiet down. Andrew's anxiety and intrusive thoughts are woven into the narration itself, so the reader is never fully sure what is real. Alongside the horror runs a slow-burning, aching romance between the two boys, plus a strained relationship between Andrew and his twin sister that adds another layer of loneliness.
Reading it feels like being pulled underwater. The pace is uneven by design, spiraling inward rather than marching forward, and the book is far more interested in emotional dread than in tidy mystery-solving. It is graphic, with body horror and violence that go further than much YA horror, but it is also unexpectedly soft at its center. Readers who surrender to its strangeness tend to come away shaken and attached to the characters; readers who want clear rules and explanations may find it frustrating.
Read this if you…
- love atmospheric, literary horror that prioritizes mood and emotion over clean explanations
- want a queer YA romance with real darkness and teeth
- enjoy unreliable narrators and stories that make you question what is real
Skip it if you…
- are sensitive to graphic gore, body horror, or depictions of self-harm and abuse
- want a tightly plotted mystery with clear rules for its supernatural elements
Key Ideas
- 1
Monsters born from the creative mind
The book plays with the idea that stories and art can carry real weight, even danger. Andrew's tales and Thomas's drawings become a way of exploring how what we create reflects our fears, our pain, and the things we cannot say aloud. The horror grows from the uncomfortable possibility that the darkness on the page came from somewhere inside the people making it.
- 2
Anxiety as a narrative lens
Andrew's compulsions and intrusive thoughts are not a side detail; they shape how the whole story is told. Drews uses this to make the narration slippery and unreliable, so dread comes as much from Andrew's spiraling perception as from anything in the woods. It gives the horror a personal, internal quality that many readers with anxiety find painfully recognizable.
- 3
Queer longing under pressure
The relationship between Andrew and Thomas is the emotional anchor. Their bond is protective, possessive, and full of things left unspoken, and the romance unfolds slowly amid fear and secrecy. It is less a cute love story than an intense portrait of two lonely boys clinging to each other while something terrible closes in.
- 4
Lush, grotesque fairy-tale prose
Drews writes with heavy imagery that mixes the beautiful and the revolting: flowers, decay, teeth, bark, and blood. The style echoes dark folklore and makes the forest feel alive and hungry. It is a big part of the book's appeal, though its intensity and repetition can feel overwhelming if you prefer plainer, faster storytelling.
Limitations
The prose is the book's most divisive feature: some readers find it gorgeous, others find it overwrought and repetitive. The plot can feel murky in the middle, and the deliberate ambiguity means some questions are never neatly resolved, which leaves certain readers unsatisfied. The violence and content are intense for younger teens, so it sits at the mature end of YA. Secondary characters, including Andrew's twin, get less development than the central pair, and readers expecting a conventional creature-feature may be surprised by how inward-looking it is.
Questions Readers Ask
- Is Don't Let the Forest In appropriate for younger teens?
- It is marketed as YA but sits at the older, darker end of the category. Expect graphic violence, body horror, and heavy themes around mental health and harm. Most readers would place it at roughly 15 and up, and checking content warnings before reading is a good idea for anyone sensitive to gore.
- Is it more horror or romance?
- Both, tightly intertwined. The horror sets the stakes and atmosphere, while the relationship between Andrew and Thomas drives the emotional core. If you want pure scares, the romance is substantial; if you want pure romance, the horror is unusually graphic. It works best for readers who want the two together.
- Does the book have a twist?
- The novel is built around an unreliable narrator, and many readers discuss its reveals with strong reactions. Going in without spoilers is recommended, since much of the effect comes from slowly realizing how much of Andrew's perspective you can trust.
- Published
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9781250895646
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Category
- Young Adult
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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