Tom Meredith

Well this is exciting, my first book themed blog post : Thank you so much for being here at the very start of my bookstagram journey!

My name’s Camilla and I am, most definitely, addicted to reading. I always have my nose stuck in a book whenever I have a spare second : on the train, on my lunch break, when I’m waiting for dinner to cook, whenever I have five minutes of downtime. I will happily read anything, but my favourite genres are fantasy, romance, mystery and thriller, depending on my mood. I love a good third act plot twist that makes me go “No WAY!” don’t you?!

I thought I’d kick things off with a book review and the topic is my current obsession, ‘Don’t Let the Forest In’ by C.G.Drews. 

I originally bought this book because I was sucked in by the striking front cover and because it was included in my Kindle Unlimited subscription. I’d heard good things about it, but didn’t know much about the storyline, which I think was all the better as the less you know going in with this one, the better. 

DLTFI tells the story of best friends Thomas and Andrew, who both attend boarding school together. On the outside, they seem to be polar opposites : Andrew is riddled with anxiety, terrified of everything and painfully shy; Thomas is a burning ball of rage : quick to anger, passionate and fierce. And yet, the two have been friends since their first day of school, two sides of the same coin, the light and the shadow. 

Andrew writes dark fairytales and Thomas illustrates them, but one dark night, Andrew sneaks out of his room to find Thomas seemingly fighting one of their monsters come to life in the forest that surrounds the school and so, a supernatural battle begins that pits the two boys against the ever more lethal threat from the woods that surrounds them.

Now, I know this book won’t be for everyone, but personally, I thought it was phenomenal. The whole thing is like a strange, twisted fever dream, with Thomas and Andrew at its white hot centre; their co-dependent, obsessive relationship driving the plot forwards and making the monsters ever more determined to destroy them. They are two of the most intense characters I’ve ever encountered in a story, their friendship at once both beautiful and terrifying; the thing that gives both their lives meaning and the thing that may very well end up destroying them. To say more than this would give away too much, but you’ll like it if :

• You enjoy dark academia, with magical scenes that blur the line between fantasy and reality. 
• You enjoy a story that doesn’t wholly make sense or give you definitive answers, but takes you on a wild, dark ride. 
• You enjoy rich, sumptuous prose. 
• You aren’t put off by blood and gore.

I honestly have not stopped thinking about Thomas and Andreww since I finished reading it, I feel that they will forever live rent free in my head. There are so many beautiful lines of prose in this book that made me, by turn, want to sigh, burst into tears or scrabble for a notebook so I could write them down; there are pages that I read and re-read more than once just to experience them a second and third time; there are scenes that are so devastating they took my breath away. As I said before, I read it on my Kindle, but I’ve even gone so far as to order myself a hard back copy, because I want to go through it line by line so I can annotate and post-it note mark all my favourite parts. Did I mention I was obsessed? I am OBSESSED with this book.

Perhaps that’s the dark magic of Thomas and Andrew which has somehow escaped from the pages and bled into me. But isn’t that the point of good literature, to stay with you long past the moment when you finished the last word and to haunt you long after you’ve closed it for the last time? I wish I could forget all about it just to have the opportunity to read it again for the first time. It’s definitely my favourite book of the year so far and is a strong contender for one of the best books I’ve ever read. 

A solid 5* from me and a plea for you to try it, I hope you love it as much as I do.