At the start of the story, I found Alice to be very unlikeable. She calls her mum by her name Ella,which I don't think is normal. She is seen to have anger issues,with her mum needing to calm her down. The anger issues is not what makes her unlikeable,it's the way she treats other people. She seems entitled and snobbish, like she's better than everyone else. She only talks to Finch because she needs his help,otherwise she would most likely would not have met him 'outside of school'. I feel like she took advantage of him knowing about her grandmother's book. By the end of the story she is not as unlikeable and has learnt to talk and interact with people better.

I liked Finch and felt that he genuinely liked Alice and not just because of her grandmother.

In terms of the story, I felt some parts of it were too simple. We find out one thing, it gets solved, on to the next thing. I feel like everything was solved very easily and wanted there to be a bit more tension in solving everything. I liked the fairytale element and her Grandmother's involvment. I enjoyed the first half a lot more than the second half. The second half is where everything got solved really easily.


Overall, I enjoyed this story and would give it 3.5/5.

(rounded up from 4.5)

Alice has spent her life on the road having to move from place to place after strange incidents and bouts of bad luck. Her mum Ella is the only family she has after being estranged from her grandmother, writer and recluse Althea Prosperine who wrote a book of fairy tales that are so rare that anyone who gets their hands on them becomes obsessed with them.

A letter arrives announcing the death of Althea and telling them that they have inherited her estate, the Hazel Wood. Ella takes this as a sign that their luck has changed and settles in New York, not wanting anything to do with her mother’s estate, but suddenly she vanishes. Strange things start to happen as Alice begins see people from her grandmother’s stories walking around the city.

Alice embarks on a treacherous journey to find her mother with the help of her friend Ellery Finch.

So I decided to take a break from my usual crime fiction and delve into a bit of fantasy, a genre I haven’t read for a while. This book is also young adult but I’d say it’s at the older end of the spectrum just because there is a bit of bad language and violence.

I love the writing style, there’s this almost poetic feel to the whole book. My favourite part had to be the very creepy fairy tales that are scattered through the book, which are really dark and twisted with no sort of moral to the story. I really hope the author releases them as a separate companion book in the future.

It took me a little time to warm up to Alice, just because I found her to be quite angry and standoffish. Her relationship with her mother could also be categorised as seriously clingy/sisterly which I always find a little cringe worthy. I did however like Ellery Finch, Alice’s friend, who hides his sadness under a smile and even though she keeps being horrible to him, he’s there when Alice needs him the most.

Yes there was the standard YA trope of the mum getting kidnapped but I can forgive that because the story is so twisty and absorbing you kind of forget.

The Hazel Wood is original, enchanting and a little mind bending too.

I know the next book is due out next year and I’m interested to see where the author will take it next as I felt that it kind of round off the story at the end of the book.

Such a clever book! I couldn't stop reading once I started! Loved it so much! I have recommended it to family and friends because it was so good!

It is not really expected to be but actually really liked the book. The only thing what is a bit irritating me in the book is this fairy tale story is not from the beginning, therefore everything is a little bit everywhere.

I do like the characters and their personal background.

I had been waiting to read this book for over a year. I love fantasy, and I love books that feel like re-tellings, but aren't? If you get what I mean... The Hazel Wood sounded so intriguing with its magical world, and from the synopsis, it kind of gave me a similar feeling to The Raven Boys - a whimsical world just a stretch away from ours. So because of that, and because of my love for The Raven Boys, I was so so so excited...

Alice has spent most of her life on the road, always one step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at her heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her isolate estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice discovers how bad her luck can really get.

Her own mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the supernatural world where the fairy tales are set. Alice's only clue is the message left behind:

STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.

To rescue her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began.

As aforementioned, I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately, it ended up being a very average book. The writing itself was magical, I truly love the way that Melissa Albert writes, and she had such an amazing idea when it came to The Hazel Wood. I just don't think that she executed it as well as she could have done. The plot was a bit of a mess, to be honest. The first half was everything that I could have wished for, and the way I wanted the rest of the book to be written. However, the second half of the book didn't live up to my expectations. It was just a mess.

The second half of the book just felt like a massive info dump of sorts. Too much happened in such a short space of time and I couldn't wrap my head around everything, and it just got to the point where it was getting confusing. Once I had gotten past the halfway point, I was ready for the book to be over. Which isn't good at all.





“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 and things you did too young and things you overheard that you shouldn’t have and secrets you kept or couldn’t and regrets and victories and quiet prides, all the packed-together detritus that becomes what you call your life.”

― Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood





When it comes to the characters, they're not my favourites either. Alice is just mean, even when she has no reason to be. I mean sure, I love a sarky, badass female main character, but Alice wasn't any of those things... She was just mean. And then when it came to Ellery Finch who is a rich boy, who is not like all the other rich boys in his class because *gasps* HE READS! I just couldn't connect to either of the two characters and I just didn't care about them. There's also the point that Alice has such a toxic relationship with her Mom, but I hope that this will get smoothed out in the next book. Yes, there's going to be a second book, and yes, I will be reading it. 

I think, and this is just what I've heard through the grapevine, but I think Melissa Albert is also writing the Tales of the Hinterland book. BUT DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT!

Overall, this book just didn't do it for me. I LOVED the first half, but the first half and the second half just felt like completely different books. Melissa Albert had a great idea here but unfortunately executed it in a poor way.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed the concept of this book and the beginning pulled me straight in with the interesting character background/relationships and setting the scene as the story unravelled and the quest of visiting the mysterious Hazelwood. But my only gripe is the second half felt rather rushed along and at times it felt a different story altogether. However, I picked up on the added literary references which got me deeply pondering and the injected humour was fun.
A enjoyable meander through a eerie twisted fairytale land.

The Hazel Wood is such a hard book for me to review since I had so many conflicting thoughts upon finishing it. Contrary to almost everyone else’s thoughts I actually really liked the more contemporary parts of the story where we had a look at Alice’s every day life, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Hinterland or the lyrical writing. I also wasn’t very fond of Alice, I just simply didn’t agree with all her decisions, but I did love Finch and Albert certainly didn’t do his character the justice it deserved! I also loved the short stories that were interwoven in the main plot and I wish that Melissa will write a Hinterland short story collection for all of us to enjoy. Ultimately this book reminded me too much of Alice in Wonderland and not in a good way.

A fantastic read. Thoroughly enjoyed this and it is not something I would usually pick up. Will look for more from this author in future.

Interesting story, fun read and absolutely beautiful cover which is something that always attracts my attention.

This book held a lot of promise but the story itself was just too simplistic and predictable. The idea of the narrator being connected with a dark other world and some strange fairy tales was interesting but the writing didn't really capture my attention at all. However i can imagine this appealing to the younger side of the YA market, maybe ages 11-12.

The Hazel Wood is a book that has been lurking at the back of my mind since 2017 – it’s a book that sounded absolutely perfect for me. I love a dark fairy tale, so when you throw in a New York setting and fuzz the barriers between fiction and reality it basically becomes my catnip. However, I think that my own expectations got in the way of my enjoyment of this book.

Alice has spent most of her life on the road, always one step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at her heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her isolate estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice discovers how bad her luck can really get.

Her own mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the supernatural world where the fairy tales are set. Alice's only clue is the message left behind:

STAY AWAY FROM
THE HAZEL WOOD.

To rescue her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began...

I really loved the world building in this The Hazel Wood. The blending of realistic and fantastical settings was really well done. Even when they left New York and went to try to find the Hazel Wood itself, which is where the story itself fell apart for me, I felt that it was just so well executed. Albert’s descriptions of the settings, from the hectic city streets to the quiet forests of Upstate New York, really painted a picture for me. Her marvellous world building is one of the reasons that I bumped up my rating from two to three stars – it really won me over.

In terms of plot, the book starts out so strong. The first half was just fantastic. Albert creates an element of tension that adds a level of discomfort and tension to the narrative that I loved. I was immediately swept away by Alice and Ella’s run of bad luck and the life they settled into when it looked like they finally had the chance to settle down. It went a little off the rails after they left the city in search of the Hazel Wood. This was in part due to the plot, but I really found that the characters just fell apart.

Alice is our main character, and while I liked her I really didn’t feel like I knew her at all by the end of the book. We get her motivations and her inner thoughts, but there was just something missing from her and I’m not sure what it was. To me, she just seemed a little flat. There was a lot of potential for her to be a great character, but she fell a little short. This is particularly noticeable as the story progresses and the Hazel Wood reveals its secrets.

The other character worth mentioning is Ellery. I really loved him! It’s funny that he wasn’t a POV character, however I got a better sense of his personality and motivations than I did for Alice. Perhaps it’s that he’s just like the rest of us – he has his troubles, his ways of dealing with those troubles, and he has the nerdy obsessions that he uses to escape, namely Tales from the Hinterlands. I felt myself so much more drawn to him, or at least I did until that point where the plot fell apart. He was really the character that really suffered after this point. His actions felt jerky and bizarre, almost as though you were watching a puppet on strings. Everything I loved about him began to fade away, and it was such a shame.

I loved the twists and turns in The Hazel Wood, along with the marvellous world building and pacing. However, it really began to feel like things didn’t slot together well, as though she had this brilliant idea for a book and couldn’t quite get it down on paper the way she had it in her head. Despite this, I’m really looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

I am a big fan of folklore and fairytales so the Hazel Wood seemed right up my street. Although it wasn’t perfect in my opinion it didn’t disappoint overall. The characters were fascinating and the story was certainly intriguing. I was interestedly to see where things led throughout and found it an enjoyable read.

This is a riveting, enchanting tale with elements that feel like a traditional fairytale, where there isn't always a happy ending.

Alice is a spiky, independent character with anger issues and a bond with her mother that means she doesn't need anyone else, which is good when they have spent all her life running and hiding.

When her mother goes missing, her friendship with Ellery Finch grows, but his obsession with her grandmother's fairytales means she always keeps him a little at arms length.

The story is mysterious and chilling at times, and it is hard to know what is real and what isn't for the reader as well as Alice. The descriptions are magical and eerie, and the setting almost becomes a character itself. I also really enjoyed the snippets from her grandmother's fairytales.

I was completely enthralled by Alice's story. This is a world to get lost in, if you dare. 4 out of 5 from me.

I really enjoyed this book, even more than I anticipated, I must admit I kept putting it aside, as I don't read much young adult fantasy fiction and the first few pages didn't grab my attention, but something about this one drew me in the cover is stunning and when I finally settled down to enter the Hinterland I couldn't put it down.

Think Neil Gaimans Neverwhere meets Grimm and you'll come somewhere close to this beguiling story of dark fairytales and a parallel world.

Alice, the 17 year old heroine, is a misfit and loner many readers will relate to, her story begins when her mother is taken away by unknown people and this rings bells with Alice who was abducted, yet came to no harm as a little kid. With a grandma who wrote a famous book of deliciously dark fairy tales which gained cult status she has been brought up looking over her shoulder for the bogeyman.

Stalked by ill fortune and shadowy figures all her life, in this novel Alice is about to find that things can get a lot worse than having a stepdad you dislike, a series of itinerant jobs and no real friends.

The Wonderland this Alice ends up in is the Hinterland where everyone is part of their own chilling story, and there are inevitable comparisons to Alice in Wonderland, with modern twists.

It is an urban fantasy firmly rooted in the everyday world with delightfully creepy and bizarre characters at its fringes and a rip roaring pace that has you galloping through it.

Thoroughly enjoyable for any age it lacks the tweeness which often puts me off Teen fiction and almost had me believing in magic. I eagerly await part 2 in the series.

The very first paragraph is so evocative. Alice has an early memory of a man who took her as a child claiming to be a friend of her grandmother, Althea. What were his true motives? And why does her mother Ella not want her to know about her grandmother? Constantly moving about, one day her mother Ella gets letter informing them that Althea has died. It is the detail in this tale which catches you. The mystery in this tale regarding Alice’s grandmother quickly thickens as Alice is drawn back to the book of fairy tales about the “Hinterland”. I loved the fairy tale element of this and magic emerging in the real world. It is a book I will definitely be buying a hard copy of.

Even some of my favourite authors have me struggling when it comes to fairytale stories. The fact that I finished it is a testament to the author. It's a wonderful spin on fairytales and should all amused.

Hmmm.....how to describe how I felt about this book. Well a bit disappointed to be fair. It has all the right ingredients, fairy tales retold, magical happenings and a feisty heroine but somehow it doesn't quite come together....

Alice and her mom spend their life on the road, always dodging some unnamed foe, bad luck and the obsessive fans of her grandmother's cult novel of dark fairy tales. When her grandmother dies it seems to act as some sort of catalyst for the bad luck....her mother is kidnapped by people who claim to be from the magical world of Hinterland that featured in the book. Alice's only clue is a message from her mother warning to stay away from The Hazel Wood, her grandmother's reclusive last home. But Alice needs her mom back so ventures there and then into Hinterland itself....

The problem with the book is actually something I'd normally like - it's implicity. I get the author withholds some information for future stories but in doing so hasn't revealed enough to keep this book really interesting and magical nor to make me excited for future instalments. It's enjoyable but it could have been great, as it is it's just ok.

I am a lover of fairytales and even more so a lover of fairytales that have been turned on their heads. The Hazel Wood delivers on multiple levels in this.

"I remembered less from my own life than I did from the books I read."

From the very outset of this novel, Melissa Albert weaves a weird and wonderful story which is reminiscent of the darker side to so many beloved fairy tales. It is in the overlap and slippage between the "real world" and the "fairy tale world" that the true value in The Hazel Wood lies and I found that the book was at its best when it was describing moments when the two worlds coincide, such as when one of the characters from Alice's grandmother's story "comes to life" and is casually walking around New York City. The rules of the fairy tale world and the rules of "real life" don't match up and in, having a character operate outside of their usual system, Melissa Albert cleverly illustrates that the worlds and societies we create are all a fiction, in one sense or another. There is something simultaneously incredible mesmerising but also terrifying about the implications of this, and the narrative of The Hazel Wood was perfectly woven to make its readers feel the disquiet of seeing ideas ordinarily confined to the realms of the fairy tale exist in the same walk of life as their own.

"Hell is caring about other people."

At times, in fact, the novel felt like it slipped from its alleged YA fantasy genre and into a thriller. Although there was always the underlying current of mystery and unease regarding the disappearance of Ella, Alice's mother, when Alice returns home to find Ella missing, the novel almost becomes a thriller. You get the sense that Alice is now racing against time and ought to be dodging people who may very well be after her, and the pacing of the novel in this section is perfectly drawn to make the reader feel the same sense of anxiety, panic, and encroaching dread. There is a scene in which Alice receives a photograph taken of her sleeping whilst she was on the run, and the entire idea of that being orchestrated by someone to taunt her and creep her out made me feel suddenly claustrophobic and paranoid, as she surely must have felt. Into this otherwise "ordinary" setting, the eerie elements of the fantastical are then woven, resulting in the creation of something that, to be honest, was altogether terrifying. And when we get a true glimpse of the true fairy tale world, the Hinterland, which was created by Alice's author grandmother? It is nothing short of the stuff of nightmares, as all good "fairy tales" probably should be.

"There are no lessons in it. There's just this harsh, horrible world touched with beautiful magic, where shitty things happen. And they don't happen for a reason, or in threes, or in a way that looks like justice. They're set in a place that has no rules and doesn't want any."

The characters were well built, and I appreciated first and foremost that it didn't feel like the author felt compelled to make either the protagonist Alice, or her mother Ella, particularly likeable. So often I feel pressured by the authorial voice to like the protagonist of any given book (particularly in YA), but I appreciated that Melissa Albert just let them be without the ulterior motive to make her readers immediately like them. Speaking of, I fell in love with Finch almost immediately, largely despite myself because I knew there had to be more to Finch that meets the eye (i.e. his enthusiasm for fairy tales and his seemingly endless wallet). A friend of mine who has read the book has commented that Finch feels almost like the stock character of the enabler, as his wealth is necessary to aid an otherwise poor Alice in being able to physically move locations - I don't disagree with this assessment, but I do think that this is deliberate as later in the book, Albert interrogates the idea of characters and (more importantly) side characters in fairy tales themselves, particularly those who enable (or stop) a story from happening, those characters who are otherwise on the fringes of the main story/the hero's "quest".

"Few problems were unsolvable when you had boatloads of cash and a lifetime's worth of rich friends. Finch made some calls, and an hour after leaving the park we were ringing the bell at a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights."

When it comes down to it, I adored the concept of The Hazel Wood, and there were moments of genuine brilliance within the story - I particularly applaud its ability to make me feel completely sucked into Alice's quest to find her disappeared mother, to the point of me genuinely feeling the peril and panic Alice was experiencing myself. However, I found this novel to deteriorate as it progressed; I much preferred the opening sections full of mystery and unsettling happenings, to where it ended up leading into the Hazel Wood. Likewise, I'm not sure if it was the author's style or the editor's style which proved the overriding factor, but I did think there was something ever so slightly off about the tone and pacing of the book overall, as if two people (and their ideas of what The Hazel Wood should be) were fighting each other for dominance. In the end, I think I found the execution of the concept a tad iffy on occasion, and the narrative style wasn't quite to my taste enough for me to become fully invested in the story line throughout, but I can't deny that I do still love the concepts behind The Hazel Wood and the way the novel cleverly interrogates the structure and concept of fairy tales, the fictions and worlds which we build around us, and the power of storytelling itself.

"And while they're being told, stories create the energy that makes this world go. They keep our stars in place. They make our grass grow."

This sounded great, and started well, but I just didn't get into it. The characters felt flimsy and unreal, the plot was glacial, the hipster-ness of it grated, and I couldn't make myself care about any of it. Melissa Albert has excellent prose so I'd read more from her, but not in this series.