The Hazel Wood is the dark and gripping story of a fairytale gone horribly wrong. Alice, a teenager with a chip on her shoulder, has led a nomadic existence, moving restlessly from city to city with her mother Ella, always seemingly pursued by bad luck. Her grandmother, who she has never met, was the famous writer Althea Proserpine, author of a notorious but hard to find book of dark fairytales, Tales from the Hinterland. When Ella suddenly goes missing and Alice finds herself being stalked by not-quite-human pursuers, she is forced to accept that the Hinterland is more than a story and go in search of the truth.

This book is fast paced and richly detailed, and manages to explore the dark world of fairytales in a gritty and believable way. It’s beautifully written and deeply enjoyable.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this weird adult fairy tale

and believe me it is weird...but compelling to read as you want to know the ending, and it plays with your mind...and sometimes its quite scary in places

This is a book I'd seen so much hype about, like it was one of those where I wanted to get access to it as soon as possible and was lucky enough that netgalley gave me an arc. I think for this it's a it's me kind of thing because I can see how well loved it it. I was so on this thinking it would be a high fantasy, when really we only got the fantasy aspect to it towards the end...3/4 of the way through maybe a bit sooner. It took me so long to read this, I just couldn't get into it. At times I felt like I was forcing myself to read it, I didn't like the main character at all so that put me off as well. I really do wish I had enjoyed this more than what I wanted and it's a shame.

I found this hard to get on with,. The story is good, it does run, but, for me, it didn’t have that frisson that caught my attention. Shame, as it is a good story.

Alice and her mother are always on the run because no matter where they go bad luck seems to find them. Her grandmother Althea is the author of a rather rare and mysterious collection of short fairy tales called Tales from the Hinterland. Alice hasn’t met her grandmother before as Althea turned into a recluse and resides at her estate The Hazel Wood. That is until Alice’s mother Ella gets kidnapped and her only clue is a piece of paper which reveals one of the tales from her grandmother’s book. She Teams up with her “friend” Ellory Finch a fan of the fairy tales who knows more about the stories, to find out where her mother is.

This book is very creepy and dark, however you don’t see that until halfway through the book. I found the beginning to be quite slow and repetitive, and struggled to form a connection with the main characters. Alice seemed very cold and rude towards anyone who took interest in her. It seems though that she would do a lot for her mother. Ellory Finch seemed really nice but i sensed he was after something else and felt like something was off. I can appreciate that fact that it wasn’t heavily based on a romance and more about family.

That saying I really enjoyed the short stories in the Tales Of The Hinterland that Ellory Finch retells and wish we could have seen more. I would love if Melissa Albert brings out a short collection of stories based on them.

My rating for The Hazel Wood is 3 out of 5 stars

The Hazel Wood is a dark fables driven fantasy that evilly makes its readers pleasantly suffer the secret it withholds.

The story starts off with Alice and her mother, Ella, who have always been on the road to anywhere away from the bad luck that seems to keep following them. When one day, they receive a letter claiming Althea's—Alice's grandmother—death. Suddenly, everything appears to be falling in place: Ella falls in love with a rich businessman and both, her and Alice, shift to his high-end residence, Alice gets admitted to a school where only the rich kids usually go to, and she has a job like any other normal teenager would. But things weren't as good as they looked—Alice comes across the guy who had once kidnapped her when she was a little girl and runs off home, only to find her mother missing. Taken by the Hinterland.

I might be one of those who hasn't devoured every other fantasy (I'm a fan but it's still not the first on my list) so this concept intrigued me so much. Fairy tales are my favorite and creatively crafted ones that doesn't hint a happily-ever-after at all, is all the more interesting. 2018 is probably the year for dark perspectives being brought into the spotlight and this debut nails the growing trend. The plot is perfectly planned with all possible pessimistic probabilities (I swear I didn't say this solely for the alliteration) and so much so that even the slightest happy thing makes your ears (eyes in this case) perked up for what might be lying ahead.

Alice had grown up with questions that Ella never answered and her curiosity peaked up even more when she came across a magazine article about The Hazel Wood—her grandmother's multi-dollar estate. A relative she hadn't heard about from Ella because she always refused to speak of her, Althea had always been a far-off star she wanted to touch. So despite of fair warnings to stay away from The Hazel Wood, Alice still takes off to this place because she hopes to get her answers—or her mother's whereabouts—here.

I loved Alice. She is sort of rude, appears to be arrogant at times, gets super furious, and often comes across as expressionless, but the thing here is: she does all that involuntarily; it's her personality traits and have a justification that I would stray away from stating because this review is meant to be spoiler-free. As an expressing-limited-number-of-expressions kinda person myself I could relate to those little things that were meant to be funny (or not, I'm not sure!). Basically, she was a really good character for me that I felt grow up from a confused little teenager to a stronger daughter.

Speaking of that, I also loved the whole mother-daughter relationship portrayal. Ella isn't one of the usual moms but she's nothing less when it comes to protecting and loving her child. Alice isn't any usual either but again, she's willing to got to ends for her mother and that's about what every daughter would be ready to, too. Ella worked as a really good side character that came alive through Alice's memories and past experiences.

While I'm at it, I'll also mention how good of a person Finch was! He's been a fan of Althea's dark fairy tales collection forever and when Alice's connection to her comes to his notice, he doesn't even blink his eye before deciding to tag along with her to The Hazel Wood. He's the smarter person because of his prior knowledge about the Tales of Hinterland which makes him important. He isn't a love interest, far from it; he's a partner in act who gives way to sequences and doesn't simply follow around the main character. His role takes turns at all the right places that you should read to find out because (yeah, I know, I'm being monotonous with this excuse) this is meant to be spoiler-free. All in all, each and every character had a huge impact on the main story line.

Coming on to the writing. I loved it...like everything else about this book! It's lyrical, perfectly-paced, descriptively balanced, and just a pleasure to read. The narration is a first-person viewpoint of Alice and works tremendously to bring that expressionless soul to life. While Alice, out of all, is the most illiterate in terms of her knowledge about The Hazel Wood or the Tales of Hinterland, she doesn't confuse or frustrate the readers because the writing does its job well enough to give exactly what it wants to and at exactly what time. Overall, this is going to be on my fave list and I can't be more excited about the sequel!

I would recommend this to all those who love a good evil fantasy that draws you into a fairy tale land that you would rather stay away from. No, but in all seriousness, this is perfect for the magical, fantasy fans who are always pleasantly surprised by a folklore that hangs in a dark world.

A mother and daughter spend their lives on the run from 'bad stuff' that always seems to be following them. This may or may not have something to do with grandma and a book of dark, creepy fairy tales she wrote years ago.

This is a really original fantasy story. A little slow at times but overall a good read and not too angsty for a young adult book. The main character/narrator is very likeable though a bit bratty at times, but there may be a good reason for that....

I would certainly read the sequel.

I wanted to read The Hazel Wood as I'd gotten a bit bored with my usual crime/thriller genre.and wanted to try something a bit different. It definitely was..
Alice Proserpine is a teenage girl living with her beloved mother Ella. They move around a lot, never staying in one place for long as bad luck seems to follow them everywhere. Alice loves to read and is really into fairy tales. Her Grandmother, Althea Proserpine, wrote a very successful book called Tales Of The Hinterland, but Alice has never been allowed to read it and it's so rare now that it's impossible to find a copy anywhere, She's never met her Grandmother. All she knows is that after becoming famous with the book she became a recluse in a big house in The Hazel Wood. All the secrecy about it all just makes it more fascinating for Alice, Her Mother refuses to talk about it, but she meets a boy at school, Finch, who is a huge fan of the book. and they become friends..
Then strange things start to happen, These strange looking and smelling people keep turning up at her school and the coffee shop that she works in. And then she gets home from school one day and her mother is missing, and that strange smell is in their house. Finch is the only person she can go to for help. When Alice describes the strange people Finch hears striking similarities to characters from the book her Grandmother wrote. They believe her Mother has been kidnapped and taken to The Hazel Wood, so off they go to try and find her. What they find is a portal between Earth and The Hinterland where magical beings from fairy tales can come between the two worlds. They have to find their way from Earth and into the Halfway Forest before they can get to The Hazel Wood. Nothing makes sense here. Time doesn't exist, tree's can talk and there's stories unfolding in front of them. But Hinterland stories aren't nice children's tales, They are scary ones. Will Alice find her mother and the truth?
I really enjoyed learning about Alice and her relationship with Finch as they travel looking for Ella. It all got a bit weird when they get into the Hinterland though. It was a bit like the author had dropped some acid and written about all the hallucinations she'd had. Although I don't think fantasy books are really for me I can really appreciate how well this book was written and marvel at the imagination of the author. For anyone that enjoys fantasy I highly recommend this book.

When you think of fairy tales it is often woods, wolves, castles, princes and princesses with a happy ever after.  The Hazel Wood is nothing like that, it contains fairy tales but they are darker with an underlying feeling of dread to them.  Reclusive and mysterious author Althea Prosperine published her only novel Tales of the Hinterland.  Her granddaughter Ella has never met Althea, never read the book, but is aware of it.  In fact not many have met Althea of even have a copy of the book.  Ella and her mumAlice, move around a lot, keeping their heads down, always trying to keep ahead of the bad luck that seems to shadow them.  This story is how Ella learns about The Hazel Wood, the book and the bad luck.

This is a brilliantly woven story using the basic premise of a fairy tales and twisting them into a dark and brooding journey as we follow Ella and Alice.  There are things that are seen out of the corner of Ella's eye that gives feelings of supernatural, with mysterious darker undertones, shadows that linger people that don't quite fit in their environments all adding to a feeling of tense suspense.  As the story unfolds there are several twists that I didn't expect, they are clever and make this an extremely addictive read. There are several characters in this story and they are easily remembered and play their parts well, they have good backstories, and while I didn't like all the characters I found them intriguing.

Once I started this story I could not put it down, the descriptions give a vivid and imaginative picture.  I loved the style of the writing, at times it had the fairy tale feel you would expect, but also a darker much more intense feel that was far removed from fairy tales.  I would like to see follow on from this book, there were several characters that I would like to know more about, and some that left me with questions. But overall it has been beautifully put together and is one I would absolutely recommend.

So if you like a dark and twisty fantasy read that has some roots in magical fairy tales then this is a book for you.  It is a young adult read, that an older adult loved.

Brilliant. Magical. This is a grown up fairytale. It is different from anything I have ever read. I got totally caught up in a dark magical world. Alice's adventures are very well written and are definitely worth reading.

What little girl wouldn’t want to be named after a fairy tale? We all loved fairy tales as a child. They are myths and legends which have been retold so many times they become part of the collective consciousness. But you just need to look at the original Brothers Grimm to know that most fairy tales do not have a happy ending.

The Hazel Wood is one of those fairy tales. It’s not a “faerie” novel though - half of the book takes place in present day New York City, and Alice is a very modern protagonist. Even if you don’t normally read fantasy, or you think you’d never pick up a YA novel, I would recommend this book. It’s dark, it’s creepy, and when I finished it made me want to turn back to the start and read it all over again.

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review)

I absolutely inhaled this book! I didn't even realise I needed a skewed, vicious and modern fairytale in my life until I began this.

The descriptions were unbelievably vivid and each new location was a treat to discover. There were eerie undercurrents at every major moment for the reader to be reminded they were not reading a 'happily ever after' tale; the Hinterland simply does not do compassion or kindness. And why should it, if it lends such an dark and thrilling tone that entices you to read on?

I loved the narrative voice and how caught up Alice became in each moment. Also - I genuinely wish I could get a hold of the obscure collection of stories from the novel!

A great and twisted adventure that I will definitely be recommending. :)

I received a free advanced e-copy from Penguin and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Hazel Wood is book 1 in the series.

Firstly, I absolutely loved the cover and thought the blurb was very interesting, which made me request this book!

It took me a while to get into it... And I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to. I did not like any of the characters. The start of the book was just too long. There were a lot of metaphors and descriptions, some which did not even seem to make sense.

Overall, the creep factor was well done and the idea of stories and other worlds was good, but it didn't meet my expectations and I just did not enjoy it.

From what I see, people either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, I'm on the dark side. I really was eagerly waiting for this book release, and the cover is so nice! I think there's a big problem at how this book is marketed as well. You expect a YA fantasy book when you enter it, then wait, wait, and wait for it. It doesn't come for more than half of the book. Maybe if the expectation is set right, then disappointment will be less.

Plot is very slow. On top, not liking the main character doesn't really help. Alice comes out as a very annoying, selfish, rude character. It's very hard to love a book, when you don't like or care about what the main character is going through.
Overall, the writing is nice. Unfortunately, the writer didn't complete it with a captivating character, or interesting enough idea. At times, it was confusing.
Maybe, it was not the book for me, but it was a highly anticipated book that ended with unmet expectations.

I like a grim(m) fairy-tale retelling as much as the next person, and a dark, modern re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland sounds fab, does it not? And yes, for the first third of The Hazel Wood, I was excited. Engrossed, even.
The premise is mysterious and enticing: Alice, our teenage protagonist, has been moving from place to place her entire life, her mum her only constant. She's never really known why her mum keeps packing them off different places, but best she can tell it's to escape the vicious "bad luck" they can't help but encounter.

There's something creepy about the bad luck that follows Alice and her mother, something eerie and supernatural, something that may be connected to Alice's grandmother Althea: the enigmatic author of an out-of-print collection of dark fairy-tales. But when Althea passes away alone in her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice's bad luck magnifies. Her mother is kidnapped 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 leaves behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

The bait was set, I was immediately reeled in. The story was set up so well, I appreciated the colloquial and humorous writing style with a touch of poignancy. I really enjoyed Alice, not your typical protagonist. She had a tough upbringing, and she's riddled with anger issues and a smoking habit to boot. Yeah she's not entirely fond of life, but she doesn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. She's angry, sure, but she felt rounded and real. I'm not the kind of person who needs a protagonist to be "likeable" in order to like them, so Alice, with a bit of a temper, seemed fab. I eased into the story, desperate for answers to the mysteries surrounding the Hazel Wood.

Wow, did I wait for those.

Look, mystery is a great plot device and I'm all for it. But you can't take the piss. You can't string it out for over half the book without giving us anything! I didn't find the plot slow, there was more than enough going on, but honestly most of that was mere teasing. For more than half of the book, mysterious and creepy stuff just keeps happening. More and more questions start to appear. Do we get any answers? Nah. And that's just plain annoying. And what am I going to do when I don't get any hints and I've started to get irritated? I start noticing the flaws.

I didn't appreciate running around with these characters for 200-odd pages, being teased, and really not seeing any character growth. Alice, who I liked initially, got dull. She seemed promising, but showed her true colours in the end: two-dimensional and ultimately uninteresting. I like an alternative, kinda-dicky character, but you've got to give them depth. The only other memorable character was Alice's sidekick Finch, who was so boring I've got nothing else to say about him. It was such a shame. It started off with such promise!

But then, eventually, the answers started appearing. And for the time it took them, they could have been better. I'm not knocking them: the denouement and climax of the story were entirely reasonable, but by this point I had stopped caring.
My fantasy of an epic, dark Alice in Wonderland retelling? Where was that? Sure, Alice ends up in the Hinterland, which is otherworldly and strange, but it is not even remotely reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's airy, Dadaist masterpiece of nonsense. The closest thing The Hazel Wood resembles is Eastern European folklore, but even then that's a bit of a stretch. The most enjoyable and recognizable attempt at recreating the genre were two short chapters which were stories from Tales from the Hinterland, Althea's book. They were fabulous, I'd take more of those in a heartbeat. But we only got two (the relevant ones), and they were dispersed in weird places throughout the main plot, distracting from the story and immediately taking my mind out of the world. Ideally what we could have done with were lots of really condensed versions of the story scattered evenly throughout the novel between chapters. I'd have enjoyed that a whole lot more.

At the end of the day, this isn't just a one-star novel for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning, I did like Melissa Albert's fairy-tales, and I think the overall plot arc was decent. But I really feel a lot more work could have been put into the execution. I needed characters with more depth, a less drawn-out mystery, and honestly what was that whole "white privilege" scene about?!

If you're looking for an eerie fairy-tale retelling or something with that kind of vibe, there's a few books I'd recommend above this one. Drown by Esther Dalseno and Cuckoo Song by Francis Hardinge spring to mind.
It looks like Melissa Albert is set to release the actual Tales from the Hinterland in a few years as a collection of her fairy-tales, which is definitely something I'd look out for. But as for
The Hazel Wood, I feel this tale should be left in the Hinterland where it belongs.

don’t know what to think of this book, I was bored, I found it long and I didn’t appreciate the story even if it was original.

I think all of this is unfortunately related to the heroine who annoyed me throughout the book. She has such anger and hate in her that it’s irritating. She is never happy, she hates people, and she treats them badly when they try to help her.

I really found her horrible with Finch, so yes he’s not perfect but it’s not a reason.

One thing I liked was the fact that the story is linked to a storybook, but the other stories are not developed enough for my taste.

My review will be short since I did not like it.

Quick Word: A book that could have been interesting if the heroin was not so irritating.

This book is aimed at Young Adults, I'm not but I did enjoy it.
I was very quickly drawn into the story but It felt a little slow at times, the characterisation was fairly good. Alice was a little annoying, a flawed character but it does make a change and the reasons for her flaws become more apparent as the book progresses.
Real fairytales aren't all sweetness and light & good overcoming evil, the Brothers Grimm spring to mind. Overall not a bad read.

The Hazel Wood was utterly dreamy and whisked me away into the bustling city of New York and the eerie forests of the Hinterland.

Alice Prosperpine and her mother never stay in one place too long. Wherever they go, bad luck and peculiar incidences follow them. But when Alice's mother is kidnapped by characters claiming to come from her grandmother's book of dark fairytales, Alice and her friend Ellery Finch run headfirst into the danger, trying to find their way to her grandmother's mysterious estate, the Hazel Wood.

This book reminds me so much of the books I would read when I was younger. It is exciting and mysterious and just a little bit creepy, and it feels like magic is always lurking around the corner. The writing draws you in completely and the story is filled with twists that have you constantly questioning where the characters would turn next. Alice is a complicated and angry character, and made a really compelling lead. I loved how prominent the bond she had with her mother was and how powerful their relationship was. Alice's dynamic with Finch was also brilliant because of how different yet similar they are, and I loved seeing their relationship grow to acknowledge this.

As hooked as I was on the story, in the latter quarter of the book I found it a little difficult to follow what was happening. It didn't subtract from my enjoyment of the book too much, but I'd sometimes get a little lost along the way. But this is very possibly a me thing because I was tired and didn't want to put the book down, and I suspect will be amended when I re-read it!

The Hazel Wood has the perfect balance of character, story, and atmospheric writing that is so easy to fall into, making it addictive on all fronts. Reading it feels like dreaming; it's one of those books that makes the whole world around you disappear, which is a rare thing that should be treasured. I look forward to reading more about where Alice goes next in the sequel, but I will be thinking about this book all the time until then.

This was so dark and lush. The writing was flowery and full of depth and I very much enjoyed the way Melissa Albert created this very twisted tale. It was different and more original than I expected. I read a couple of other early reviews and saw that a couple of reviewers opinions whom I trust were actually saying it was a little too similar to Alice in Wonderland. And the fact that the main character's name was also Alice made me think it was a retelling. But even though it was a kind of portal fantasy and there was a lot of whimsical nonsense, I couldn't predict anything about this story so the plot and character traits were very different from 'Alice' in that way. This may be an unpopular opinion but Alice in Wonderland is probably one of my least favourite classics, I just don't enjoy it very much. And yet I loved this book. So if you aren't sure about whether to pick up this or not because it doesn't really seem like something you would be into, I would urge you to give it a go because for me it was well worth the read and I am so glad I requested it.

“Everyone is supposed to be a combination of nature and nurture, their true selves shaped by years of friends and fights and parents and dreams..."

The protagonist, seventeen-year-old Alice alongside her mother Ella has spent most of her life on the road running away from the overwhelming bad luck that seems to follow them wherever they go. But one day they get a letter saying her grandmother, an introvert author of mysterious, and deeply dark fairy tales dies alone on her estate; the Hazel Wood. Then things take a turn for the worse and her mother Ella is stolen away by a person whom isn't really quite a person. Someone who actually belongs in the Hinterland; the origin place of her grandmother's stories.

“You might think you have a really good reason, but nothing could be worth this. Nothing could be worth feeling this way. I feel like a changeling wearing someone else's skin. I can't remember what I liked, or what I wanted, why I worked or left the house or did anything. It's all gone... I think whatever I used to be, it dropped through the binding. I wish the rest of me had gone with it.”

I thought it was clever how the author intertwined the various smaller stories and tales inside the one main plot. I actually want to know more about them. There are so many possibilities for great stories within this world. How they all worked together to create a sort of puzzle, made the read overall very mysterious. Also the lyrical verses and rhymes made it even more eery to read.

“There are no lessons in it. There's just this harsh, horrible world touched with beautiful magic, where shitty things happen."

I fell in love with the side characters as well, one of my favourite things was the fact that all these strange individual characters were very fleshed out and each of them had a depth to them. None of them felt superficial and I applaud the author for this because there is usually always a side character in a story that is lacking somewhere. But when it came to this book, I didn't feel that way at all. Maybe it's because I was so intrigued by the 'fairytale' characters and I wanted to know as much about them as possible. But I ate up all the extra intricate details. Speaking of which, the world building was astoundingly intricate and the descriptions left nothing to be desired. I easily imagined this story and it was so vivid in my mind.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful queen who thought words were stronger than anything. She used them to win love and money and gifts. She used them to carry her across the world.”

At first I was pretty torn on what my feelings were. It took me a while to get fully invested in the story and the characters. The first third or so of the book felt very jumpy and disjointed but the flow definitely improved eventually. It was creepy and odd and made me laugh a lot. Some things were just so weird that I couldn't help cackling. (If you've read it then you'll know about the car/water scene, that is just one of the instances where I laughed way too much, but honestly it was great.) I do however feel that the first half of the book could have been done in a quicker way and the last half more spaced out. Because it went from, forgive me for saying this but, kind of boring to fantastically captivating and fast paced. Almost too much so toward the end. But the interesting plot twists made up for it.

"I feel like I’m playing a part in a movie where all the sets have burned down. And the script got erased. And the cameras have no film, and we’re in a haunted movie lot in a bad part of town."

Overall I found this a very captivating read and would recommend it. I will absolutely be looking out for more from Melissa Albert especially the follow-up novel to this book and the Tales from the Hinterland.

RATING: 4 Stars

Thank you to Penguin and NetGalley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars. Wanted to love it, but it fell flat.

Before I read The Hazel Wood, I was super-excited about it. I read the blurb on Goodreads a couple of months ago. The book sounded like the kind of magic realism I really enjoy. It brought to mind The Bear and the Nightingale and The Raven Cycle, and I couldn’t wait to read it.

The first couple of chapters drew me in, although I felt the writing was quite monotonous and lacking the rich description I expect from this genre. As the novel went on, this became a recurring issue and extended to the characters, including the protagonist, who I felt were rather one-dimensional.

I kept reading because the writing is good and I wanted to see if the story would suddenly develop into something that would warrant the buzz. However, I became more and more confused and I’m still not really sure what the book was actually about. I kept rereading passages to try and figure out the chronology, even the characters’ setting, but it was very disjointed.

I also found a few of the pop-culture references cringeworthy (although I appreciated the Francesca Lia Block mention). There was one in particular about Etsy that I found really jarring and not in keeping with the solemn tone of the narrative.

On the FLB note, I did feel the author was heavily inspired by her, but The Hazel Wood lacked the sparkle-and-glitter of FLB’s tales. There was no one to root for here; no heroine. FLB writes amazing heroines.

The pace was off, too. The first part really dragged, then the ending was very rushed.

Overall, I was disappointed by this book. I was so excited to read it based on the blurbs, but it just fell flat.

I received an ARC copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.