My disappointment is immeasurable.

This is one of my best friends' favorite book, so perhaps I went in with my expectations too high. But my god, I dragged myself over the finish line with this one.

The asexual rep is incredibly nice to see, as a person who is also ace and has had the same worries Andrew had in this book. I liked literally nothing else, and even the asexual representation in this book felt clumsily included into the story, even if the representation itself was very well done.

Don't Let The Forest In struggles from the fact that it is, in its premise, literally everything I could want from a book. I've seen many people who rated this book low while still saying the writing was a highlight for them — I'm from the opposite camp. Some aspects of this story worked for me, but one of them was NOT the writing. It was somewhere in between r/im14andthisisdeep and the worst of the "beautiful and haunting" poetry on tumblr. The writing should serve the story and present it. Frame it. In this book, the writing severely weighed the story down.

The book also struggles from being YA. I could not help but roll my eyes everytime one of the characters said "I would die/kill for you." You are 17. As a person who has been 17 before (lmao) I know how big and intense emotions feel to older teens. Ironically, one of the critiques inside the book of stories being "cliché and melodramatic" is exactly how I felt about this book.

The plot was predictable but fine. This is definitely a character driven story, which isn't a bad thing — even something I usually prefer.

How the main character's eating disorder was handled in this book is mind boggling to me. If you are struggling with a restrictive eating disorder, please do yourself a favor and do not read this book. It gives out the exact kind of validation I looked for at my worst. (This is not me saying that eating disorders cannot be written with nuance and that we always have to say 'Bad thing is bad!!' while writing but how 'thin' Andrew was and the constant concern portrayed was a bizarre choice to me.)

One and a half stars. I am so upset, I wanted to love this.

holly jackson's books are like my kryptonite, i cannot be objective about them. she gets me EVERYTIME. i love two people who relentlessly flirt while trying to solve a mystery together. i LOVED EVEN MORE that the central relationships in this story were so complex. i love women. i love sisters. i love this book.