Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away-by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”
Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.
The Hazel Wood is a dark fairy tale that doesn't care whether you like its heroine. Alice is abrasive, profane and quick to anger, and that's the point. Kirkus gave it a star and loved her toughness. Other reviewers found her self-centred, though still compelling. Decide early which camp you're in, because she narrates every page.
The best parts may be the grandmother's tales, woven through the story. They're told cold, with the unsentimental brutality of the old Grimm collections and no tidy moral. Kirkus and The Nerd Daily also note that mystery and bonds between women drive the book, not a love plot. That's rarer in a heavily marketed YA fantasy than it should be.
The seam between the ordinary world and the Hinterland is where the book wobbles.
Kirkus gave it a star and later named it one of the best books of 2018. Publishers Weekly was also positive, praising the allusive debut and Alice's cynical voice. Gulf News enjoyed the premise but felt the middle drags and the finish is rushed, leaving threads loose.
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The Hazel Wood
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Melissa Albert is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of the Hazel Wood series and Our Crooked Hearts, and a former bookseller and founder of the Barnes & Noble Teen Blog. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and included in the New York Times’ list of Notable Children’s Books. She enjoys swimming pool tourism, genre mashups, and living in Brooklyn with her hilarious husband and magnificently goofy son.
(Source: Goodreads)
