I started The Hazel Wood knowing close to nothing about what it was about. And I think that is honestly the best way to read certain books. I love it when I don’t know anything and everything just surprised me. The book was a bit different from how I thought it would be, especially at the start, but I truly enjoyed it! The story is about Alice, whose grandmother is an author of fairy tales and she lives with her mother and travels around constantly, to get away from the bad luck that has been following them all their life. If you’ve not yet read the synopsis above, I would recommend you keep it that way and keep the mystery!

“When you finish a story,” she said patiently, “it begins again. Until I stop telling it. 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 book is like a dream that slowly turns into a nightmare and then turns into something that’s not quite either but something in between. It’s dark, mysterious, and makes you want more. The way Melissa Albert tells her stories is so well-done. Her writing is, for the lack of a better word: fairytale-ish. It’s magical, whimsical and fun, but also dark and creepy at times.

"I turned slowly in place, alone in a clearing in the deep dark woods.

That’s when I entered a fairytale."

Alice was a great protagonist, and I loved following her through the story. What made her stand out was how she has been dealing with anger issues her entire life, and she’s also sarcastic and a little blunt. She has been alone with her mother her entire life and that shows in her character. I loved how she and her mother had such a close bond.

“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.”

I am giving this book 4 stars because  I really enjoyed reading this book! It was very different, written beautifully and the story was really engaging. A few minor things that made me give it a star less were that I found the second half sometimes a little confusing and the ending could have been wrapped up a little better, I think. Overall, I would really recommend this book to anyone who loves fairytales, especially dark ones!

I thought The Hazel Wood was amazing. 

I love fairy tales, the darker the better. I dislike attempts to make fairy tales cute. Fairy tales should be terrifying. 

I knew I had to read The Hazel Wood as soon as I read the blurb and I was not disappointed. 

I loved everything about this book. I loved Alice, her mother Ella and the fleeting glimpses of her grand-mother Althea. The relationship between Alice and Ella is quite dark and twisted at times. Why do they always move? Why has Ella cut Althea out of her life? What do the hints of violence really mean? 

I would have loved to read a copy of Althea’s Tales from the Hinterland. I loved the idea of the obscure book having a massive fan base. I would have been part of that club. 

The Hazel Wood offers the perfect fairy tale quest, Alice must journey into darkness to find her mother and unravel the truth about herself and Althea’s stories. I loved the concept of the book, that Althea’s stories are real, stolen from a world where fairy tales life and breathe. 

The book is pretty dark at times, like the perfect fairy tale. I was stunned when Alice discovers the truth about herself, her connection to the Hinterland and her place in the Hinterland. 

My favourite bit of the book is when Alice and Althea’s uber-fan Finch decide to go to the Hazel Wood to rescue Alice’s mother. The Hazel Wood is the name of Althea’s mansion but it’s a lot more than a house. 

The Hazel Wood is fantastic. Well worth a read.

I feel like the description of this book is not accurate, i gave this book 2 stars purely for the two fairy tales written inside. The rest of the book was unfortunately just not my taste! I really wanted to love this book about a darker fairy tale but that just was not what it was, the book was more like a mystery road trip until about three quarters of the way through when the fantasy began. I would however definitely buy a collection of the grandmothers fairy tales as they where amazing.

So I have seen this novel all over my bookish social media and I couldn't help but request it when I saw that it was available on Netgalley! thank you so much for the opportunity! 

I absolutely loved it, it was one of my favourite first reads of any year so far. I enjoyed reading the characters and found that I was wanting to keep reading to find out what was happening. 

I loved the character of Alice and Finch and their chemistry and I was constantly wanting to see more of it and see how that developed as they moved along in the journey. 
I also loved how the fairytale characters were brought to life in a different way to the regular characters and were given an aura that showed the reader they were characters from a book within a book. 

The writing gave such an amazing eerie feeling to the novel and managed to have me gripped from the very beginning and I was constantly wanting to now what was going to happen next and what fairytale would be the next one to appear. The writing was done in such an amazing way that the transition between the novel and the re-tellings of the fairy tales was so straight forward and seemless. They were able to fit in so well and the fact that the author not only created the novel and the world within it but ontop of that created a bunch of new fairy tales and a world within the novel world. 

I have given this a 4/4.5 out of 5 stars and have already recommended this to a variety of my friends. My only reason for not giving it five stars is the fact I would have loved to have found out more about Finch and his adventures in Hinterland as well as what he got up after.

Wow, what a roller coaster of a ride this is! And when it does finally stop, you get off on wobbly legs and think - exciting, amazing, scary, thrilling, but with this book, it is also dark, creepy, poignant, captivating, uncomfortable, painful and heart wrenching.  It has been a long time since I have come across a book like this one and although one part of me loves it, there is another that says it will be a long time again before I am prepared to go down that rabbit hole again.  

It is definitely not a cozy comfortable read, where you can put your feet up with a hot cup of tea and a biscuit.  It is a gripping and sometimes confusing read, where your eyes rush through to find out what happens next, while at the same time appreciating the incredible images that unfold in your brain.

I think this is one of the books that you either love or hate and because I will not be rushing to read her next novel, I give it 4 stars (I really like it, rather than love it).... although I will probably not be able to resist.  I received an ARC copy form net galley, and this is my honest review.

Fantastic! The story was really well crafted, the characters were well imagined, and though not always likable I always cared about what they were going through and wanted to keep turning pages to find out what happened next. I loved the way that the story starts off in a very recognizable way, this is the world as we all know it, and then gradually as the writer peels back the layers and draws you along into something darker and grittier the magic seeps in and you're carried off into a modern day fairy tale. As a bibliophile I also can't help but love how much emphasis is put on the power of story throughout the novel. I never wanted to put this book down, and if I had to name any gripe it would simply be that I want to spend more time in this world, and with these characters.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for my copy in return for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for a honest review

I was expecting so much from this book, lured in with a beautiful cover, a compelling synopsis and a lot of positive reviews. I couldn’t wait to get reading. 

17 year old Alice and her mother live a life on the road, always on the move, unable to settle and hampered by bad luck. With the death of Alice’s Grandmother, an author of a rare, fabled book of fairy tales, Alice’s life becomes even more complicated. A shadowy figure right from the pages of her Grandmothers book has taken her mother and lures her to the Hazel Wood. Can Alice rescue her mother from the Hazel Wood where her Grandmothers tales began? 
Sounded perfect, my kind of genre but, unfortunately, no. The first half of the book set in the ‘real world ‘ of New York was laboriously slow and drawn out. One dimensional, uninteresting characters and a lead character who was just plain unlikeable. I hoped something dark would eat her. The book promised a dark fairy tale but I thought it really failed to deliver. When we meet the character, Twice - Killed Katherine my hopes were high. A seemingly interesting character and a bright/dark start arose a piqued interest however this was short lived and the character was made dull like the rest of the book. 
When we eventually get to the second half of the book and Alice’s arrival at the Hazel Wood the book becomes a mess of random, disjointed weirdness. It became clear that I really didn’t care what happened and was extremely disappointed. 
The author really missed a trick as the only time the book really worked was when we hear the Tales from the Hinterland, the book within the book. These tales are dark and compelling and really interesting, everything the actual novel isn’t. 
Although critical of the novel the author writes well and some of the prose is quite beautiful. It’s just a shame it’s let down by a lack lustre plot, poor characters and a lack of darkness that was promised. 
2/5

A mesmerising, unusual story that incorporated elements of contemporary, fantasy and mystery fiction. The first half read most like a mystery. It's a little bit eerie with some supernatural elements creeping in, but set in a contemporary world. I absolutely loved the basis for the plot - fairytales written by our protagonist's grandmother that have a cult-like following. Details of these stories, their author and their fans are slowly revealed in a gripping way.

The second half was much more fantastical. Full of lyrical prose, weird and wacky characters and fairytale logic. This is where my investment in the story started to wane. It was beautifully written, but just not for me. The real world, magical realism part to this story suited my tastes much more. 

Recommended for fans of twisted, peculiar fantasy with fairytale elements.

The Hazel Wood is one of those novels that are capable of keeping you up at night, because you need to know what happens next. The thing that I loved the most about this book is the unique way in which the author has structured the storyline: using plot twists and a slow revelation of clues in relation to the main mystery, the Author has been able to keep high the level of suspense for two-thirds of the book, until the truth about Alice and her family is finally unveiled.

I really liked the world-building in the Hazel Wood, the way reality and fairy tales are intertwined in a beautiful, eerie and fascinating mix, together with the existence of many doors and passages in and out the Hinterland. 

The Hazel wood  is a coming-of-age novel, in which Alice will be able to discover who she really is and her place in the world: in order to rescue her mother, Alice will be ready to tackle any challenge and face any fate that has been established for her since her birth, proving that no-one but herself is the creator of her own story.

The only critic that I have is about the finale: I found that the ending was too quick compared to remaining part of the book. I don't know if it was done on purpose, maybe recalling fairy tales endings in which everything ends quickly after having defeated the villain, but I would have liked a few more lines instead of a summary.

That being said, I really loved Alice's story and I have no clue about what it is going to happen next. Can't wait to read The Hazel wood #2.

Alice in Wonderland meets The Matrix meets The Brothers Grimm Fairytales.... 

I think this might be one of the strangest books I've ever read and I'm not sure how to review it, or really what I make of it. I was attracted to this book by its beautiful cover and its promise of a dark & scary supernatural world. However it was more 'twisted fairytales' than it was 'ghosts and ghouls'. 

First off - this book is incredibly well written. Any criticism I have is not of Albert's writing but more that the plot really wasn't my 'type of thing'. Her storytelling though, is on point. It's testament to the strength of her writing that I stayed with a story that normally I wouldn't enjoy. It's quirky, unsettling and at times just downright random. 

I don't usually read many books that have a 'magical' element to them and I'm not really one for alternate dimensions. I prefer my thrillers either based in the world that I live in, or one so fantastical and removed that you can suspend disbelief. For me, this book tried to do both and I wasn't on board for all of it. To that end, I really enjoyed the narrative set in 'our world' and I liked the road trip element of Alice's search for her mother. I also enjoyed her awkward friendship with Finch, although I am glad that the author didn't take that too far down the clichéd teenage romance cul de sac.

When I got to the actual supernatural/fairytale part, I felt a bit like I had walked onto the set of David Bowie's Labyrinth, and, while yes, that is a cult classic, it brought back the uncontrollable urge to scream "What the F*** is going on?!...I'm so confused!" It was heavily reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland - I guess the point is it's not supposed to make a lot of sense, you're just meant to enjoy the randomness of the journey. Turns out I like to have the map....

And so I think the blame on this one lands at my door. Definitely not my type of book, but I can see that if you like magical, lyrical prose in Young Adult fiction, then it would be right up your street.

A creepy fairy-tale that will leave you awake all night. A book full of questions and wonders that is wonderful to read, and described beautifully (or should that be creepily). A few shocks and twists in this magically woven tale. A book you won't want to put down.

I expected this to be a little lighter fairytale style but it worked so much better beinf darker. The atmosphere created works perfectly with the suspense that comes with the mystery.

Every now and then, we get reminded that fairytales aren't the sugar-sweet Disneyfied versions we're fed as children. Oh, no. Remember Giambattista Basile's Sleeping Beauty, where the princess dies after pricking her finger and her corpse is raped by the king? Or the original Snow White, where the wicked queen is forced to dance in hot iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead? The Hazel Wood isn't that dark, thankfully, but it does take us back to the Grimm Brothers roots of all those "once upon a time"s. And it's pretty grim.

There's definitely a larger horror aspect to this book than I expected. The much-obsessed over Tales from the Hinterland, a book-within-a-book that's going to become a real book next year, is like a even bloodier iteration of The Language of Thorns. For much of the story the atmosphere is a simmering creepiness threatening to spill over at any moment. Squeamish readers would do themselves a favour not reading this in the dark. With that in mind, it's remarkable how well everything pans out by the end--plot threads tied up, mysteries explained sufficiently for a reader of average pickiness. Sure, the are a lot of magical elements that stay magical, but this is a fairytale. The mysteriousness works. 

When I say that everything pans out by the end, though, I mean the end. You have to work through the first 80% of the book, some of it less exciting than preferred, to reach the payoff. There's a noticeable shift in tone in the last 20%, which is where I'm guessing Albert decides that she's cooked the suspense for long enough, and it's time to take the dish out of the oven. That's when the pace picks up dramatically and quite a few a-ha moments are lined up in quick succession. It's also, unsurprisingly, the most enjoyable part of the book. I honestly don't know how satisfying this payoff would be without the grinding buildup beforehand, but I suspect at least part of the "boring" 80% was necessary to achieve such a rewarding result.

Even so, The Hazel Wood would be better served taking Alice into the Hinterland much, much earlier. (This isn't really a spoiler because Alice spends almost the entire novel looking for a way into the Hinterland.) The Hinterland is essentially an eerie, secretive other dimension home to the dark fairytales penned by Alice's grandmother, so it's not hard to see why it's a lot more fascinating a setting than New York, where the novel spends most of its time. The many chapters spent wandering around with Ellery Finch feel like an extended prelude overstaying its welcome. This isn't to rag on Ellery, but while he's an alright character appropriately standoffish and enigmatic for the story's tone, he 's simply not compelling enough to warrant the amount of screen-time dedicated exclusively to him and Alice.

Audrey's a bright spot amidst the otherwise monotone chapters she occupies. While a minor character and a bit of an a-hole in all honesty, I was pleasantly surprised by how she turned up later on. Another little thing I noticed is the frequency of references. The book throws out a lot of these, especially at the start. In the space of a few pages, I counted name-drops of Lorrie Moore, Reiki therapy, the Stone Roses, and of course Jane Eyre. Melissa Albert knows her stuff, for sure.

Her stepsister may be the bright spot, but Alice herself is just bright. You'll get no Final Girl here. Alice is self-aware and genre-aware, (mostly) trusting the right people and anticipating the deadly possibilities that other protagonists overlook. She comes into her own in the final 20% payoff, enough so to negate the plodding pacing and cement The Hazel Wood as a book worth reading. More power to twisted fairytales, and the heroines who triumph through them.

This novel had everything I love in it weirdness, magic and yet something didn’t quite gel for me.  At times I thought I love this book at others I was bored.  Sadly it was a classic it’s not me, it’s you.

A good voice but let down by the plot. Why wasn't this picked up by the publisher? A spooky fairytale that simply didn't deliver.

I went into this without knowing much about it. It seemed to be a dark YA mystery thriller with a smattering of fantasy. I was a good third of the way in before the penny dropped and I realised it was a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I have a deep seated loathing of Alice in Wonderland retellings - for one thing it's really overdone. For another no one gas yet integrated the philosophy so the fantasy element is always facile and non sensical. That said this wasn't bad. I didn't especially like the story or the MC but it was an interesting direction to take things in. Not really my thing but I can see others loving it.

I was really looking forward to reading this book as love fantasy and YA books. Unfortunately this book did not live up to my expectations and after trying each day for a week gave up 63% of the way through, which is not like me at all. The storyline could have been good but it was slow going and I found the characters unappealing, especially the lead character of Alice.

The most enjoyable sections were Ellery Finch's retelling of the Hinterland tales.

“Books want to be read, and by the right people.”

The Hazel Wood is one of those books that simply demands to be read; it’s intriguing, well-crafted and impossible to put down. Alice and her mom Ella are constantly moving around, trying to escape from the trouble that just seems to follow them everywhere. Alice suspects that it’s something to do with her mysterious grandmother and the world created in her book Tales from the Hinterland. But is the Hinterland really as far away from reality as Alice believed? When her mother goes missing, Alice is thrown into the world of these elusive stories as our world and the Hinterland collide.

Melissa Albert has crafted an intricate fairytale that keeps you hooked from the very beginning as you are sucked into this world where nothing is quite what it seems. I would thoroughly recommend it for Grimm’s, fantasy and thriller fans as it’s simply unputdownable!

“Stay the hell away from the Hazel Wood.”

I feel so lucky to have been given access to this book before it's published. 

I loved this book. It's exactly what I would expected; from twisted fairy tale to real life situations. Alice and Ella's story gripped me from the very first chapter and refused to let go. Very fast paced, intense and perfect. If they ever make a movie out of this it will be as big as Harry Potter and they'll have to make it as perfect as this book is!

I can't wait to see what's next!

‘Alice in Wonderland’ for contemporary readers seems to be the consensus of some early reviewers. Like Stephanie Garber’s ‘Caraval’ this is a novel that looks like it will inspire extreme responses. With a lyrical prose style, some dark content and a sustained use of the absurd, this book will either appeal completely and be devoured in one sitting, or you’ll admire parts of it but be left generally non-plussed.
I was completely smitten!
Alice has never met her grandmother, a reclusive writer, but her short book of fairy tales is a literary phenomenon. The stories surrounding the writer and her mysterious Hazel Wood estate hint at strange events. The only things Alice knows for certain is that her mother, Ella, is determined she will never go there and that she has spent her life moving from place to place hiding from the strange things that follow them.
One day Ella goes missing. Alice becomes convinced that the odd characters she sees have something to do with it. Mysterious letters arrive for Alice, but nobody can help her. With the aid of super-fan, Finch, Alice resolves to make her way to Hazel Wood and learn for herself the truth about the Hinterland.
Nothing could prepare her - or us - for what she learns.
Having been declined for an ARC from the American publishers of this book I thought I was stuck waiting for my copy to come in February. Then Penguin UK came to my rescue...I can’t wait to read it again, which I think is the surest sign of a book finding its mark.