I never wrote a review for this, and for good reason.

This book contains so much of what I hate in fantasy plots. The book isn't downright problematic, but it's finely tuned to a frequency of events that I just... hate in books.

The pacing is VERY off, the characters don't exist to have any other motivation other than what's obvious (for me), and the most interesting aspects of the world are skimmed over. Alice was a character I could not relate to in any way, and as much as I tried, her every motivation seemed contrived to just be... over dramatic. I could almost feel for her when she had quiet moments about her mother, but then they'd be ruined by her next impetuous action.

I really had high hopes for this book, the cover is beautiful and the premise sounds exactly like something I would eat up, but it just didn't do anything for me other than cause frustration. The writing, concerning both style and skill level, was good, but just not enough to outweigh my disappointment in the story.

I don't want to go on and on and drag this book to hell, but if you read this book and feel like it missed the mark for you, please give The Starless Sea a try, it matches this book in world objective but does everything in a way I loved, rather than in a way that was a disappointment.

I absolutely loved this book. It falls into the category of one of my favorite young adult books. I loved the modern darker fairy tale world. I got sucked into the mystery behind who Alice's grandma was, and who had Alice's mother and finally, who Alice really is. I liked the relationship that developed between Ellery Finch and Alice. This book contains strong characters, interesting worlds and a subtle darkness. I couldn't wait to read book 2 when it came out. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This text is totally lacking a strongly built world and has a problematic and honestly irritating narrator as its protagonist. I wanted to love this, but it just felt shallow to me.

Confession…so I’ve realized that I am really bad at reading the synopsis of a book because I don’t think I read the synopsis for The Hazel Wood really well because it ended up being very different from what I was expecting and it was really good!

I felt like I was kept guessing as to what happened next. It was also pretty weird, but in a good way…if that makes sense. There were a lot of things that happened where I had no idea what had just happened (again, in a good way!).

I liked Alice and getting to know more about her past and her being on the run with her mom. Ellery Finch was also an interesting character and I loved watching his interaction with Alice throughout this whole book.

The one complaint that I do have is that I felt like what happened to Ella, Alice’s mom, was too basic – I kind of wish something more complex had happened. I loved how this was both magical realism and fantasy, and just how unique it was.

This was a great debut novel and it was the first novel I have read in a novel that kept me intrigued in a while. I am looking forward to reading more of Melissa Albert’s works and it looks like her next is going to be The Tales from the Hinterland, which I am really excited for. I gave this book 4/5 Stars.

Mystical and enchanting and horrifying. I absolutely enjoying reading this strange and macabe world of the Hazel Wood as well as the unique fairytale-esque stories within the novel that just fascinate.

Beautifully written and gorgeously crafted, The Hazel Wood was a stunning debut. I haven't stopped thinking about this book.

Did not like this book and found it problematic in some areas. But I did love the magical fairytales. I want more of that!

What do we want? Fantasy! When do we want it? Now! When did we get it? Not soon enough…

“The Hazel Wood” was a nice, easy read but it did not deliver on its genre and promises to me until around the midway point, which made it hard to get engrossed enough in the beginning.
The book has a certain darkness to it, which I loved. However, it did not hit the mark when it came the overall plot and character development. It is also pretty slow to kick off.
The book is creative and interesting but comes off more as a novel mystery work rather than a fantasy and the ended left me feeling like something was missing.

A copy of the book was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

A good and creepy "magical hidden worlds" fantasy. Many reviewers complain that the main character is mean, or unlikeable, but that's her well-reasoned and explained character! Her history and provides perfect reasoning for her characterization and gives extra emphasis to her development and the additional obstacles she must overcome to change. And just a note: basically no one complains about male anti-heroes.

Mysterious happenings in the past!
Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read and review The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert!
Alice and her mom have led a transient lifestyle and they’re the only people that they trust and feel close to. That changes when Ella, Alice’s mom goes missing. Alice needs help finding her, so she asks rich boy, Ellery Finch, for help. Little by little, Alice confides in Ellery and he’s there for her one hundred percent. Ellery is a huge fan of Althea Proserpine, Alice’s grandmother and famous, mysterious author. So Ellery helps as a friend but also out of curiosity and awe. Together they discover the danger surrounding Althea’s writings and the truth behind them. The closer Alice and Ellery get to the Hazel Wood, the more the stories come to life. Both of them get sucked in to the Hinterland and its tales, changing their lives and who they are. The Hazel Wood weaves a mysterious, fantastic story, 4 stars!

To be honest, a little disappointed by this novel. The premise I loved, but poor on execution. I found it put-downable. Finished, but not engaged. Disappointed.

Alice and her mother Ella have been on the run from bad luck since she was a child. Never able to stay in one place for too long, Alice had grown accustomed to the constant bag packing and switching of homes, schools and cities. Of course, sometimes the bad luck would creep in too closely. Like Alice being kidnapped by a man in a blue Buick at the age of 6, promising her a meeting with a grandma she had only known by name, only to have Ella find her and take her back. But no matter where they went, Alice always felt an anger eating away at her.

So when her mother suddenly disappears, she is forced to turn to the one person Ella has kept her away from her entire life: her grandmother, Althea Proserpine – a famous writer of dark fairy tales about a world called The Hinterland. Now, Alice must learn all she can about The Hinterland and how to find it and the estate that her grandmother lived in before her death: The Hazel Wood.

But Alice will quickly learn that she is chasing more than just fairy tales, and that even her story is yet to be finished.

“Look until the leaves turn read,

sew the worlds up with thread.

If your journey’s left undone,

fear the rising of the sun.”

Where do I even begin?!

The Hazel Wood is the YA Fantasy story for fairy tale obsessed readers who like an unconventional tale. This may not be the fluffy sort of story most are accustomed to, by way of beautiful Disney Princesses and romantic happy endings. There isn’t just one evil-doer, and there are more than just poison foods that can kill you in a flash. No, this is definitely not a tale of good fortune. It’s The Brothers Grimm meets Once Upon A Time, and it is wickedly good. The characters are oddities in their own right, with addictive quirks and flaws aplenty. It is set in a world of ruthless caliber with threats of death at every turn, and it is written like classic dark folklore with descriptions and haunting poems that twist your gut while making your heart sing.

“My love he wooed me

My love he slew me

My love he buried my bones

His love he married

His love I buried

My love now wanders alone.”

The center of this story is Alice’s dear grandmother Althea, whom she has never had the pleasure of meeting. When we meet Alice, we learn that she knows of her grandmother and her legacy. She is a famous writer of a collection of fairy tales called The Tales of The Hinterland, and she lives on an estate called The Hazel Wood, where her mother Ella grew up as a child. Though Alice has only ever once come across one copy of any of the elusive and ultra-rare stories, she had been forbidden by Ella to ever read any of the tales her mother wrote about. She is also warned to stay away from her grandmother’s crazy obsessed fans, who seem to always track Ella and Alice down, begging for information about Althea and The Hinterland. Naturally, we need to know WHY!

So when Ella disappears and Alice is left all alone, she turns to a schoolmate that is the closest thing she has to a friend. Ellery Finch is a strange boy she knows from school, but one who shows her kindness…even if he does know who her grandmother is. It turns out, Finch is one of those crazy obsessed fans Alice is supposed to stay away from, but she enlists his help as he is the only one that has any information on her grandmother. Together they begin searching for clues as to the whereabouts of The Hazel Wood manor, all the while trying not to be killed by strange creatures.

The Hinterland is, well, wicked. It is dark and seedy, magical and dangerous, and alluring yet completely frightening. It is crawling with eerie beings who are both human and not, and I can only visualize it as Wonderland dropping into The Upside Down. The book is basically little fairy tales put into one giant fairy tale. It reads just like the dark folklore that makes your skin crawl while tickling your fancy. There are strange and curious characters at every turn, like a grandmother moon or Twice-Killed Katherine. There are stories of a spoiled girl who makes a deal with the Night Women, a young woman who kills to seek death, and a princess born with black eyes.

It is such an incredibly strange tale, but one I am completely enraptured with. I have already began reading book two, The Night Country, and I can say that I am just as hooked. Though I did find that The Hazel Wood was a little slow at times, it wasn’t enough to make me want to put it down or sway my interest. I’m addicted to the odd and gritty nature of the book as a whole, and it just feels like a story I have been patiently waiting to be written. It is for the readers who, like me, want a little darkness poured into their magical teacups and just want to get lost in the woods.

Though I can’t say much else without giving everything away, I highly recommend this read for those of you who haven’t already read it. It is exactly what a YA Fantasy should be, and it is written like a dream with ripples of fog blurring the edges. I cannot wait to see what happens next!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from THE HAZEL WOOD! For some reason from the cover and the synopsis, I was expecting this to be more lyrical and flowery as well as set more in a high fantasy-type world. I mean, re-reading the synopsis, it seems pretty clear that it’s not, so I don’t know if the synopsis changed from its initial posting back before the book was released… Who knows. But for some reason I had that thought in my head before I started the book, so it was an interesting start!

I actually really did enjoy the beginning despite my weird preconceived notions! I was in the mood for something a little lighter and this hit that desire. The beginning pulled me in and set up some interesting concepts! I liked the intrigue of Alice’s grandmother Althea and it was really interesting that Alice had become intrigued but yet had never read Tales of the Hinterland (Althea’s book). Clearly there’s a connection and an important reason why and I was certainly sucked in to find out what that reason was!!

I enjoyed the connection between Alice and Finch and I really liked their chemistry! It wasn’t a forced romance (it kind of wasn’t even a romance at all) and they were able to connect in a few different ways. I also though the relationship between Alice and her mother was also interesting! They had a great connection and it was a great draw and connection throughout the story.

THE HAZEL WOOD was delightfully creative and it was an interesting fantasy concept! The beginning felt a little bit more like magical realism and then we learn more about the world and we find out exactly how fantastical this world really is. Things kind of fell apart for me a bit once Alice gets a bit more into the fantasy part of the story. Without spoiling things, the shift further into the fantasy world kind of lost me. I think it was because we spent so much time in the present-day world with only getting clues in to the fantasy side that I just wasn’t in the mindset for a full-on switch. I was preparing more for a magical realism-type concept from what I read in the beginning and I am not good with things that are too whimsical or fantastical. It felt like there was a kind of free-for-all in the fantasy section of the book and it was a bit too much all at once. I enjoy high fantasy worlds with great world-budiling because the rules behind them fascinate me and I love seeing the inner workings of a magic system and political fantasy world. When things are introduced quickly and a character experiences so many things for the first time all at once as Alice did here, I tend to get lost in all of the new, non-sensical things. I almost wish that section had been split off into a second book and we got to focus more on that development so the reader could spend time exploring this new world and everything it had to offer, as well as how it affected Alice and her family.

THE HAZEL WOOD was interesting and kept me entertained, but I think it really lost me in the end when things felt a bit rushed and I didn’t get to enjoy the details when things got really colorful! I wanted to give more attention to the things that set this whole book into motion and I feel like I didn’t get to experience that like I wanted to because everything unfolded so quickly.

Started out very strong and interesting. The idea of stories coming to life is always an interesting one and I always like a twist on fairy tales. Got a bit hard to follow toward the end. Not really sure where she will go with book two. I would like to see the author publish the book her grandmother wrote to be able to read all the stories.

Captivating plot; I really liked the characters and I found the fairy tales really fascinating. I'd have loved more focus on the Hazel Wood itself, I feel like the setting wasn't explored properly but I know this is a series so maybe in the sequel there'll be more space for it!

I somewhat enjoyed this dark take on fairy tales and thought that the twists in the plot were interesting, surprising, and a lot of fun. However, the story seems to take on a life of its own about halfway through and got a bit too chaotic for my tastes. There were too many loose ends and weird things that seemed to happen for no reason other than for weird things to happen.. I wanted to like this more than I did - great on concept, not as great on execution. I see there is a second book. Not sure I will check that out, but I may since sometimes a sequel can be stronger when the first book has too many loose ends.

Loved the story and characters. This has been one of my top books to recommend to readers—of all ages.

This was alright. Nothing new when I read it. I guess it kept me interested enough to finish it but I dont know I was like underwhelmed.

I can not get this book out of my head. The beautifully down twist surprised me and kept me reading well into the night. I look forward to reading the sequel. The character development was so well done. Very dark take on fairy tales while delightfully full of hope.

A highly inventive and creepy metafictional take on fairy tales. Melissa Albert's debut excels in both writing and mood but falls a bit short in characterization. I read this one straight through and anticipate the sequel.

The first half worked for me much better than the second half. Depending on the kind of reader you are, that could be swapped. Once the plot really gets going, things got a bit too weird for me personally, and I wasn't invested enough in the characters yet to really connect.