C.G. Drews returns to the literary landscape with Hazelthorn, a novel that doesn\u2019t so much ease you into its nightmare as it does shove you face-first into poisoned soil. Following her New York Times bestseller Don\u2019t Let the Forest In, Drews proves once again that she understands something essential about horror: the most terrifying monsters are the ones we create when we deny someone their humanity.<\/p>\n
Seventeen-year-old Evander has lived his entire remembered life in one room of the sprawling Hazelthorn Estate, a prisoner disguised as a ward. His guardian, the austere billionaire Byron Lennox-Hall, has given him three unbreakable rules: never leave the estate, never enter the gardens, and most critically, never be alone with Byron\u2019s grandson Laurie\u2014the boy who tried to kill him seven years ago. When Byron dies under suspicious circumstances and Evander inherits everything, those carefully constructed walls begin to crumble, and with them, the lies that have kept him caged.<\/p>\n
What makes Hazelthorn compelling isn\u2019t just its gothic trappings or botanical body horror, though both are rendered with visceral precision. It\u2019s the way Drews excavates the psychology of a boy who has been systematically unmade and reassembled into something more palatable, more controlled. Evander pinches himself to feel alive, counts his breaths, follows rules he\u2019s internalized so deeply they\u2019ve become part of his skeleton. He\u2019s been taught to suspect his own mind, to question his memories, to accept that his episodes of \u201cmadness\u201d require medication and isolation.<\/p>\n
The relationship between Evander and Laurie crackles with a tension that feels genuinely dangerous. This isn\u2019t a romance built on misunderstandings or slow-burn pining\u2014it\u2019s an obsession, raw and tooth-marked. Evander can\u2019t stop thinking about Laurie even as he investigates whether Laurie murdered their shared guardian. Laurie circles Evander with the careful attention of someone handling something precious and volatile. Their dynamic reads less like enemies-to-lovers and more like two people recognizing the same wound in each other, the same rage at being forced into shapes that don\u2019t fit.<\/p>\n
The novel\u2019s greatest strength lies in its commitment to disorientation. Drews writes Evander\u2019s fractured consciousness with such claustrophobic intensity that readers experience his confusion firsthand. When plants begin growing in impossible ways, when Evander finds roots sprouting from his own feet, when the butler who should be dead comes lurching back with a cavity where his organs should be\u2014we\u2019re never quite sure what\u2019s real and what\u2019s Evander\u2019s \u201cillness\u201d manifesting.<\/p>\n
However, this same strength occasionally becomes a stumbling block. The middle section, where Evander plays amateur detective investigating Byron\u2019s death, occasionally loses momentum as it cycles through suspects and red herrings. While the mystery framework provides structure, it sometimes feels at odds with the book\u2019s more surreal, dreamlike qualities. The investigation scenes, with their notecards and logical deduction, jar against sequences where reality itself seems negotiable.<\/p>\n
The pacing also suffers from an overabundance of revelations in the final third. When the truth about Evander\u2019s identity finally emerges\u2014that he is not a boy at all but something the garden created, something Byron dug up and tried to reshape into human form\u2014it arrives alongside revelations about Laurie\u2019s role, the family\u2019s blood-for-rubies legacy, and the nature of the garden itself. It\u2019s a lot to process simultaneously, and some emotional beats don\u2019t get the breathing room they deserve.<\/p>\n
Drews writes with a prose style that shifts between Gothic lushness and clipped, frantic fragments. Her descriptions of the garden are particularly evocative: ivy with leaves like steel razors, flowers that deflate when exposed to light, roses so overgrown they pierce their own petals. The body horror is rendered with unflinching specificity\u2014watching Evander pull roots from his feet or discover bark where his hand should be creates genuine visceral discomfort.<\/p>\n
The novel also succeeds in its quieter moments. Evander lying on his floor, listening to a voice reading stories through his locked door. Laurie\u2019s carefully controlled movements when his surgically damaged wrist causes him pain. The way the garden responds to Evander\u2019s emotions, blooming violent and beautiful when he feels most fractured. These scenes reveal the emotional truth beneath the horror: this is a story about what happens to people\u2014to anyone who doesn\u2019t fit the mold\u2014when they\u2019re told their authentic self is wrong, is dangerous, is something that needs to be fixed.<\/p>\n
In her author\u2019s note, Drews explicitly frames Hazelthorn as a story of \u201cqueer and autistic rage and of being pushed over the edge.\u201d This context transforms the garden from simple monster into metaphor. Evander has been medicated into compliance, had his very identity stolen and replaced with a more acceptable version, been locked away when he couldn\u2019t perform normalcy correctly. The garden\u2019s violence becomes a response to violation, its hunger a manifestation of everything denied.<\/p>\n
The novel doesn\u2019t shy away from the ugliness of this rage. When Evander transforms fully into Hazelthorn\u2014when he stops fighting what he is\u2014he kills. The garden tears through the mansion, feeds on those who tried to harvest it, refuses to be contained anymore. It\u2019s uncomfortable, as it should be. The book asks us to sit with the knowledge that the monster was created by those who insisted on cutting away anything they found inconvenient or profitable.<\/p>\n
Hazelthorn sits comfortably alongside classic Gothic literature while subverting its tropes. The isolated mansion, the family with dark secrets, the unreliable narrator\u2014all present and accounted for. But where Gothic novels often position the house as antagonist, Hazelthorn reveals that the estate itself is just as much a victim as Evander. The Lennox-Hall family bled the garden for generations, harvesting rubies from blood-soaked soil, using both Evander and the land as resources to be exploited.<\/p>\n
The novel also engages with contemporary concerns about medical abuse and the pathologization of difference<\/a>. Byron\u2019s treatments of Evander\u2014the medications that dulled him, the surgeries that literally harvested pieces of him, the isolation presented as care\u2014echo real-world experiences of autistic people subjected to behavioral therapies designed to make them more palatable to neurotypical society.<\/p>\n The book\u2019s structure sometimes works against its strengths. The mystery framework necessitates a certain linear progression, but the story\u2019s power comes from its surreal, cyclical nature\u2014Evander waking, forgetting, being trapped in the same patterns. The most effective sections are those that embrace confusion rather than trying to explain it away.<\/p>\n Additionally, some supporting characters remain underdeveloped. The extended Lennox-Hall family\u2014Oleander, Azalea, Bane\u2014serve primarily as obstacles rather than fully realized antagonists. Their motivations rarely extend beyond greed for the family fortune. This creates a somewhat two-dimensional villain problem, though the book\u2019s real antagonist has always been the system that created them, not the individuals themselves.<\/p>\n The romance elements may not satisfy readers looking for a traditional love story. Evander and Laurie\u2019s relationship is complicated by the fact that Laurie did participate in the sacrifice attempt, even if his motivations were more complex than initially presented. Their final reconciliation asks readers to accept that love can exist alongside harm, that healing doesn\u2019t require forgetting what was done. It\u2019s a bold choice that won\u2019t work for everyone.<\/p>\n Hazelthorn is not a comfortable read, nor is it meant to be. It\u2019s prickly, occasionally unwieldy, and refuses easy categorization. But it\u2019s also genuinely affecting in its portrayal of someone reclaiming an identity that others tried to bury. The ending\u2014with Evander choosing to remain behind the garden walls with Laurie, accepting what he is rather than what he was forced to be\u2014offers a strange kind of hope. Not redemption or recovery in any traditional sense, but acceptance. The garden opens for Laurie alone, and Evander finally stops apologizing for having thorns.<\/p>\n Fans of Andrew Joseph White\u2019s Hell Followed With Us and Annihilation<\/a> by Jeff VanderMeer will find familiar themes of body horror as metaphor and environments that reflect inner trauma. Readers who appreciated Drews\u2019 previous work will recognize her commitment to writing characters whose minds work in beautifully strange ways.<\/p>\n Is Hazelthorn a perfect novel? No. Its pacing stutters, its mystery elements occasionally feel obligatory, and it demands readers accept a relationship that many will find troubling. But it\u2019s also fearless in ways that matter. It says clearly that the cage is never for your own good, that the medication is about making you easier to manage, that the people who insist on fixing you are often the ones who are broken.<\/p>\n In the garden behind the red door, among the Devil\u2019s Tongues and Bloodberries and Heart Rot vines, something wild grows. Drews argues convincingly that maybe wildness isn\u2019t something that needs to be tamed. Maybe the monster was right to bite back. And maybe, just maybe, there\u2019s something beautiful about a boy who\u2019s finally allowed to have teeth.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed Hazelthorn, consider these books:<\/strong><\/p>\n Don\u2019t Let the Forest<\/a> In by C.G. Drews<\/strong> \u2013 The author\u2019s previous work explores similar themes of houses with appetites and the horror of being misunderstood C.G. Drews has crafted something genuinely unsettling with Hazelthorn\u2014a novel that understands horror isn\u2019t just about what lurks in the dark, but about being denied the right to exist as you are. It\u2019s messy, occasionally overgrown with its own ambitions, and absolutely unforgettable. Like the garden at its heart, it demands to be experienced on its own terms. Some will find it too thorny to embrace. Others will recognize themselves in its brambles and feel, perhaps for the first time, that someone understands the rage of being pruned into an acceptable shape.<\/p>\n The garden always knows its own. And sometimes, knowing you\u2019re the monster is the first step toward being free.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" C.G. Drews returns to the literary landscape with Hazelthorn, a novel that doesn\u2019t so much ease you into its nightmare as it does shove you face-first into poisoned soil. Following her New York Times bestseller Don\u2019t Let the Forest In, Drews proves once again that she understands something essential about horror: the most terrifying monsters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Technical Considerations<\/h2>\n
The Verdict: Beauty in the Brambles<\/h2>\n
Similar Reads for Gothic Horror Enthusiasts<\/h2>\n
\nHell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White<\/strong> \u2013 Body horror meets religious trauma in this story of a trans boy becoming a monster
\nAnnihilation<\/a> by Jeff VanderMeer<\/strong> \u2013 The Southern Reach trilogy\u2019s exploration of landscapes that transform those who enter them
\nWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson<\/strong> \u2013 Gothic isolation and family secrets with an unreliable narrator
\nThe Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling<\/strong> \u2013 Claustrophobic horror about what we become when pushed to extremes
\nThe Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling<\/strong> \u2013 Gothic medical horror in a house that won\u2019t let go
\nA Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson<\/strong> \u2013 Gothic romance examining power dynamics and bodily autonomy
\nMexican Gothic<\/a> by Silvia Moreno-Garcia<\/strong> \u2013 A decaying house and the family that feeds off those within it
\nWhat Moves the Dead<\/a> by T. Kingfisher<\/strong> \u2013 A retelling of \u201cThe Fall of the House of Usher\u201d with fungal body horror<\/p>\nFinal Thoughts<\/h2>\n