REVIEW: Hazelthorn by C. G. Drews
Just when I thought I had somewhat recovered from the emotional rollercoaster that C.G. Drews put me through last year with their debut Don’t Let the Forest In, they are back to yet again tear my soul asunder with their newest botanical body horror Hazelthorn. It’s a hauntingly tragic tale of an orphan teen with missing memories who inherits a crumbling gothic manor with a carnivorous garden and has to solve a murder mystery together with his ex-best friend who tried to murder him seven years ago. And if that isn’t a killer premise, then I don’t know what is.
“He is just a boy who was once buried alive on an estate full of monsters. And he doesn’t know what else about him is real.”
Now, Hazelthorn is one of those books where you’ll know from the very first chapter if it is going to be the right fit for you. Similarly to Andrew Joseph White or Cassandra Khaw, Drews has a very particular way with words that you are either going to love or hate, full of wild metaphors and tragically beautiful imagery that goes from lush and flowery to grotesque and disturbing to create an intensely visceral experience that is utterly breathtaking to me. Their ability to capture the feelings of mania, of anxiety, of rage, of obsession, of ‘what is wrong with me? why can’t I be normal?’ is honestly second to none, and I just live for the emotional turmoil of it all.
Then add to that our delightfully unreliable narrator Evander, who you just can’t help but root for even as he deeply loathes himself and makes you doubt anything and everything that you’re experiencing with him. My heart broke a little more for him with each new secret about his past that was unearthed, and I loved the brutally raw exploration of what dangerous things can happen when queerness, mental illness, and neurodivergence are misunderstood, shamed, and treated as something monstrous.
“This is what it is to be awake: pain that eats. He is a hollowed-out gourd of a boy-shaped thing, pawing at the soil as he drags himself away. He must get away. That’s all that matters.”
For me, the murder mystery investigation is actually the least thrilling and compelling aspect of Hazelthorn, especially because there is already more than enough mystery and tension woven into Evander’s inner journey and his intoxicating dynamic with Laurie, who is a beautifully complicated mess of a character in his own right. He absolutely captured my heart with his devilish charm and dangerously sharp tongue, and I really appreciated how his constant prickly banter with Evander offered some humour (albeit very dark humour) to counterbalance all depravity, desperation, and despair. These two broken, traumatized boys are just the epitome of hate to love romance to me, not even so much because their hate blooms to love, but more so because for a long while they hate the fact that they love each other, which was just beautifully twisted to me.
Also, the queer yearning is absolutely delicious, and the way that Drews captures Evander’s toxic obsession with Laurie made me feel things I didn’t even know I could feel. My words can never do Drews’ writing justice, so I will just let three of my favourite quotes speak for itself. Like, why say “He loves him.”, when you can say: “He really needs to pull apart the wicker cage of his ribs and see if he can find the reason he’s so obsessed with that boy hidden amidst the rot. He craves him. He thinks about him all the time.”
Or maybe this: “Laurie. He is wrecked with this terrible, gnawing need to splay Laurie out on the floorboards like a butterfly with broken wings and put pins through him to make him stay still as he takes him apart. Carefully, reverently. To think like this, to be consumed by this want, is ridiculous right now, when they are both hiding and hunted— but maybe they deserve this distraction. He has been locked in a room for seven years. He has been starved for this.” Or how about this: “He is gasoline poured into Evander’s open mouth of flame, and the worst part is how he likes the taste.”
If that all didn’t give it away, everything about Hazelthorn is incredibly intense and just a little bit unhinged, but that is exactly how I like it. You don’t have to come looking here for clear logic and neat answers, but if you are willing to just accept the wild weirdness of it all, then this book hits so damn hard. Between the hauntingly gothic atmosphere, the feverdream-like mental spirals, the toxic family drama and secrets, the deadly garden, the obsessive yearning, and the disturbing body horror, Hazelthorn is just one of those deeply unsettling stories that will make you go “what the actual fuck?!” with each turn of the page, and I love it all the more for that.
“He knows what it is to be buried alive, the feeling of dirt in his mouth and the quiet fitting around him like a well- tailored grave.”
I am just as obsessed with this dark genre-blendy gem of a book as Evander is with Laurie, and I am not ashamed to admit that I devoured it in a single day (or did it devour me?!). The ending might not have left me as shocked and hollowed out inside as Don’t Let the Forest In did, but I still think it’s a brutally bold conclusion that will haunt me in all its devastating beauty. Please do not let the YA label fool you, Hazelthorn is an unapologetically dark tale full of trauma, hurt, and rage, and isn’t afraid to strangle you with its twisted vines.
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