Book Review: Michaelbrent Collings’ ‘The Forest’ is Love, Friendship, & Nightmare Fuel

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“No, it screamed through the mouth embedded in the palm of one of its outstretched hands. White bits fell from that mouth. Teeth. It’s screaming out its own teeth.” – Somehow with lines like that, international best-selling author Michaelbrent Collings was able to see into my past, capture the things I envisioned were stalking me from the woods behind my parents’ house, and remind me of them all over again. I had never read Collings’ other work, so when the chance for an early review of a new (to me) horror author became available, I was excited to see what he could bring to the table. Collings did not disappoint.

The Forest follows Tricia and Alex, two inseparable childhood friends bound by their intelligence and reluctant to connect with anyone else. As newcomer Sam arrives at their school and immediately impresses them both intellectually, their troupe of two becomes an unbreakable trinity. When Sam’s insane mother physically drags him out of school to their “family cabin” in the nearby forest, Tricia and Alex follow Sam in hopes of rescuing him. There, they would go on to experience unspeakable horrors that their brains would block out. Twenty years go by and Tricia and Alex are married. After dealing with another tragedy, their therapist suggests that they revisit the forest from their youth and face the fears their young minds most likely fabricated.

First off, I would just like to say how much of a huge fan I am of the “coming of age, inseparable best friend for life” scenario. Right off the bat, I was getting vibes of Stephen King’s IT or The Body (Stand by Me) and Dan Simmons’ Summer of Night. Not bad company to be compared to. It’s a scenario that appeals to a lot of people whose idea of friendship went above and sometimes beyond the relationship they have with their own family. I even used the quote, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve,” in the closing of my speech at my best friend’s wedding. The importance of friendship sticks out to me in this book, and although I wish the amount of time the three characters bonded was longer, I understand that sometimes, you just know right from the start.

Collings’ writing style in The Forest was unique, to say the least. The chapters jumped back and forth between each different character’s POV during different timelines in their lives. While I admit this was a little confusing at first, I learned to love it quickly and realized it wasn’t really something I had seen too often. One chapter would be the experiences of Alex; the next chapter would be the exact same experiences, but through the eyes of Tricia. I never grew bored with the book, because the end of a chapter always left me wanting to know how the next character felt about what I had just read. One of the only real issues I had with the book was that Collings broke up some of the excellent flow he had going with “narrator” style, 4th-wall breaking chapters, which felt a little disjointed and out of place. It was almost like growing a huge building crescendo in a musical piece, and right at the climax, we switch songs all together. This didn’t happen too often, however.

The horror aspects and the gore in this book were intense and downright scary. I mostly read this at night before bed, so I would be lying if my brain wasn’t filled with ghosts, whispers, flashing fog, rotting tree creatures, psychopaths, and the pure terror that all those things inflict on the characters. Collings’ description is visceral, haunting, and heart-breaking. I found myself upset when characters were hit with setbacks and cheered as they gained a little ground.

Collings wraps up the book nicely, tying up several loose-ends and answering questions I had from the beginning. I do wish that would have been done a little earlier in the book, as most of the answers came in the last 10-15% of the book. The ending felt a bit rushed and a little more like an epilogue than the final act. Usually by the end of a 400+ page book, I’m ready for it to be over, but I would have supported some more pages being spent on the answers I wanted.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with The Forest. It’s one of those rare books that hits all the major emotions. I loved, laughed, cared, feared, was sad, and got angry. I can’t look for much more than that when reading a new horror author. Michaelbrent Collings has gotten my attention and I can’t wait to read more. The Forest releases on August 18th, 2020. Make sure you pick it up!

For more info or to purchase, visit the pre-release Goodreads page here.

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