Status Updates From Hazelthorn

OH?! i’m sattttt

"once the garden has a taste, it wants the rest."

Racing against time trying to finish the audio before it goes back on libby. Crying at 8AM over this book wasn't on my bingo card but what a way to start a Thursday I guess.

Buddy read z Maliną!! :D

+relationship development was done w care and their actions and feelings were earned
+I highlighted so many quotes
+the ending
-not a dam thing

Pitiful male voiced perfectly by Crouch combined with devastating prose by Drews makes for a 5* read of gothic vibes, emotional highs and lows that left me highlighting quotes left and right

+VA, Crouch you're a gem
+botanical body horror phew
+pitiful male
+GAY
+gothic manor, giving victorian (if u ignore the cellphones lol) the vibes are immaculate
+obsession/hunger, hate/love, repel/attract UGHHHHH
+autonomy and consent, the utter frustration this brought me as I watched Hazelthorn just be tossed around like he was nothing

I grew to pity Laurie near the end and was SO SCARED he was going to die and then HE DID and I was devastated but once I thought of that dam garden I JUST KNEW Evander would do the dam thing!

I liked their dynamic in the beginning, I've read many well-written ff with this exact dynamic and knew I was the target audience and then the bittersweet development to the end had me by the throat

Oleander when I catch you!

VERY reminiscent of Don’t Let the Forest In, this author clearly knows what they like and how to do it extremely well

There was a good balance of both mystery/plot and character development/dynamics to keep me entertained the entire time, pacing was great and I just really wanted Evander to be content for once in his life plzzzzzz

he said from the beginning he wanted Hazelthorn, that H can grow them food and they can live in the estate

He kisses Laurie ravenously towing the line between what is hunger and what is lovely desire and thinks of what Laurie said before that once the garden has a taste it wants the rest

OMG

Hazelthorn tells Laurie to lock him in the garden because he is ravenously hungry, Laurie says his blood wasn’t enough of a sacrifice to make a whole human and that’s why it’s needed so much blood and barely gave any gems because it just wanted to be whole again

He locks the door but with himself on the inside and runs to Hazelthorn and they are smothering each other in kisses MY HEART

It was Laurie who unlocked the door after overhearing Byron tell Carrington about how best to cut him and it didn’t matter if he survived, so he dosed his tea to sedate him but it accidentally killed him as he used a dose fit for Hazelthorn

Laurie did a lap of the estate to assess the damage and thinks most of the staff escaped and maybe some family members but Oleander/Bane/Azaelia are def dead and the rest of their lineage will probably avoid the estate forever, maybe even forget about it since it’s so overgrown now it’s hidden

Laurie thinks the garden was holding onto him, he apologizes for naming him after his imaginary friend but he was E to be his and never wanted to lose him, Evander runs and slams a hug into him and behind him a root pierces Dawes

They lie together in the garden with the door open, he feels it is maybe natural for him to be unruly and loud and feral instead of quiet and forcefully fit into a mold

He’s unraveling, the garden oozing out of him as he spirals and he runs into Dawes in the house who was looking for an alternate exit, the garden is hungry and reaches out to consume him but an illusion of Laurie calls him from behind, calls him Hazelthorn, the garden is healing Laurie’s wounds, he says this isn’t like him

He runs through the garden and it aids him, rights him when he makes a wrong turn AW he demands the garden not to eat him, he’s begging him to wake up that he can’t call 911 if he doesn’t help cuz he can’t use a phone (omg this is heart wrenching), the dirt not his body warm (THAT MEANS EVANDER KEPT HIM WARM)