Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy Read for Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews starting on October 1, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Thank you!

Been reading this this morning, instead of Cuckoo...

Starts off like a typical queer Harry Potter vibes book, fighting monsters in the woods... similar to Carry On...

Then, towards the end (view spoiler)[it becomes a mind fuck, and potentially sad... with multiple characters telling the MC that other characters aren't real, and he's making them up in his head to avoid trauma and have friends...

So either his love interest is in jail and not at school and there are no monsters in the woods, or the other kids are figments of the monsters in the woods...

So, mental hospital plot vibes... (hide spoiler)]

I finished... and damn... (view spoiler)[that was alot darker/different than I expected... real Romeo and Juliet vibes with everyone dying or being dead at the end...

I pulled up reddit, and they did a better job dissecting the book...

Their takeaway was (view spoiler)[Andrew killed his sister Dove, for getting in the way of his hoped relationship with Thomas... and then repressed the memories... this was hinted at by being unable to find him to tell him of her death right away, in the flashback...

Thomas figured this out, protected Andrew from it... and went on his own killing spree later on in response... killing his abusive parents, Andrews bully, etc etc etc...

Things spiral out of control, and end in double suicide...

Most of the injuries in the book were imagined and/or manifestations of their internal trauma, and this is just chock full of unreliable narration (which is what made it easy for me to miss some of the nuance without some reddit help)...

And of course, some of this could still be wrong, since it's all interpretation and me grabbing info from reddit readers... (hide spoiler)]

I also feel like I've read 3+ books in the past month or so, about dealing with grief... Neverending Story, A Monster Calls, and this... (hide spoiler)]

Apparently, there's an Afterword in the physical editions, that basically says if the book left you frowning at a wall at the end, then you get it... lol... I guess you could say that's why I did an immediate google :D