The Forest

By: Michaelbrent Collings

Narrated by: Robert Fisher

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

One of Amazon’s most popular horror authors and number one best seller Michaelbrent Collings brings you his most thrilling story...and invites you to get lost in The Forest.

Three kids went in.
Now, 20 years later, the two survivors are going back....

For Tricia and Alex, the idea is simple: Find and rescue their friend, Sam, from his insane mother.

But when they enter the forest, they discover that their idea is anything but simple. Because this forest isn’t like any other.

In this forest, a silver mist cloaks the truth. In this forest, a simple trip of a few miles can turn into a nightmare.

In this forest, the monsters are real.

Twenty years later, Tricia and Alex remember nothing of what happened that day they lost their friend. They know only that three kids went in, but only two came out.

Now, they are going back. To find their lost memories. To discover what happened to Sam that day.

To encounter fear itself.

The forest, as Alex an Tricia will discover, is a place where madness reigns. A place where a simple path becomes an ordeal. A place where the past comes to life, and the future is anything but certain.

Because the dead don’t stay dead...in The Forest.

©2020 Michaelbrent Collings (P)2021 Michaelbrent Collings

Amazing story

Really incredible story that starts and one genre but kind of ends in another. I must say I did not see that ending coming at all and I'm still a bit confused. I would definitely recommend this story though. Narrator was great as well but he sounded a bit like Ryan Reynolds to me. Not a bad thing just pointing it out.

"Circles, circles, circles."

The reader is dropped into the middle of the action, the forest, from the beginning: not a place anyone would choose to be. Trees, fog, shadow. Whispers, too, and a mad woman with a knife. Two friends there to rescue a third. A nightmarish situation of horror for both the protagonists involved and the reader, too. A sense of unreality for both as only two of the three teenagers emerge alive com that forest, both very bright, both in love.
The story continues, weaving through different time periods and the perspective of various players, and even several short interjections by the 'author' speaking directly out of the book to the reader, all, thankfully carefully given an introductory title to stop too great a confusion. But it is disconcerting as passages are repeated through someone else's point of view, all furthering the sense of unreality. It is cleverly done. Twenty years after their trauma in the forest, the two main protagonists, now married and having lost a small son, return to the scene, the stretch of forest seperating the two towns of Sunrise and Sunset at the advice of their therapist...

I had been gripped, intrigued and thriller from the beginning of the book but, by some four hours prior to the ending of the eleven plus hours of the story, found myself tired of the repetition and constant screaming in the forest. And, if I'm honest of the two main protagonists, Tricia and Alex, but stuck with it with the promise of a surprise ending. It was a surprise, rather neat, and one which did not fit for this reader.

So how to determine a rating? At first entralling, well written with real visceral horror crawling off the page and a story which maintained the mystery, but which became ponderously long, repetitious and noisy with an ending which really failed to explain? Narration by Robert Fisher was superb, well paced and articulated, infused with emotion pertinent to the text and individually voiced with sometimes surprising voieadily is performance alone easily deserves a five star acknowledgement. So I'll settle for an overall four star.
. Too long, perhaps, but there was a real sense of horror here and for this I would re lender it to anyone find of this genre

Creepy

Lots of weirdness and creepiness. Great narration. Fun. No sex or strong language. Good pacing.