don't let the forest in

and that's a second hit on my book bingo ! booktook made me read this one. 

 

i wish i had half the fun reading this as i did making the collage about it. i rated it ☆☆☆3 stars, only because a younger version of myself still resides in me. i know 11 y/o me would've ate this book up, i would've loved this a teen so much i literally feel sad i couldn't read it back then, and instead i had to endure it now.

it's actually a ☆☆2 stars. it did peak my interest at first, the characters were well written and queer, the horror was fun and confusing, the drawings of the monsters so cool and pretty. i love spooky nature forest creatures a lot, so this was right up my alley. but at some point it started getting long, and boring and just burdensome. for a couple of weeks there i really thought i was gonna DNF it. if not for the audiobook i would've. i played that shit at x2 and powered thru the end. 

don't get me wrong, it's a good book (objectively) just not for me. it's well written, well thought, it makes sense, it's spooky and gay, the prose is very flowery (maybe too much for my taste). it's a pretty book. a very good idea for a story. in theory i should've loved it, but i didn't click with it. i'm still glad i read it, i had some fun in the beginning and it's good to know how it ends, even if i didn't really enjoy it.

if i ever meet my past self i will tell her about it tho, blow her mind ! hahahah she would've had so much fun with the aesthetics. 

right after the first monster appears in the book, i went for a walk with my dog to our favorite forest. we walked so far away i actually got lost, i couldn't recognize any of the trees for a big portion of the walk, it was getting dark and we found this weird looking red fungi (tw trypophobia: picture bellow). and i was spooked (in a good way), it was fun and i kept thinking about the book and imagining scary things hiding in the bushes. this is what i mean when i say teen me would've had fun with this. i had such a wild imagination, i could play for hours just walking around and making up fairy stories. and i know this book would've fed my brain.

 

 ☆☆☆

weird looking red fungi