What The Forest?

I was given the opportunity to beta read “The Forest,” by Michaelbrent Collings (one of Amazon’s best sellers in horror).

It’s a horror set in a forest, so you can bet there are chase scenes through the woods from monsters (of human, nature, and unnatural sort). There are also twists that boggle the mind. The big twist I saw coming was only a small part of the revelation. (One concept mentioned through the book is about people who are smart enough to know how dumb they are. Yeah, I was the dumb kind of smart where I thought I knew everything, but I actually knew very little).

This book is definitely the type that you want to read again. I’ve only read it once as I write this review, so I’m still mulling it around and around my head because… circles are a thing.

Funny enough, “The Forest” is a fairly clean horror. It has almost no sexuality; a teenage boy likes to look at his girl friend. That’s not graphic, that’s natural. There’s a make-out session with very little details, and the married couple only talks about their struggle with romance after the loss of their child.
There’s also very limited swearing. There are a few references for h*ll, but this book would be PG… if not for the gore and psychological scares.
Yeah, it’s a horror, so every chapter has something frightening about it, whether it’s one of the multiple gruesome deaths, almost death chases, or terror caused by the unknown.

I bounced back and forth between 4-5 stars because as much as the revelation tied up loose ends, there were still plot holes about the forest itself. But let’s face it; things get messy whenever you mess with time. Considering all the twists and different happenings all at the same time, it’s written well enough to earn 4.5 stars.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This book will be available on Amazon on Aug. 18th.

PS. If you scare easily, I don’t recommend reading this while camping… or in the fog… or during a night-time lightning storm (which was my personal experience).