When THE HAZEL WOOD came across my path, it absolutely sounded like it was my kind of book. Fairy tales, but the dark side of them, blending into reality. What wasn't there for me to enjoy? Plus, the cover art is absolutely stunning. One hundred percent I was into this book. And I was delighted to find that it seemed to absolutely live up to every expectation I had.

...Yeah, you hear that "but" coming too, don't you?

Alice Crewe is the granddaughter of an author, named Althea Proserpine. (I think I'm spelling that right; unfortunately I ended up reading this as a library book, and my loan's expired.) This author is famous for having penned a book of rather dark fairy tales, and then locking herself away in her estate (the Hazel Wood) never to be seen again. Alica and her mother Ella (the fairy tale names are a bit thick here) live as nomads, never staying in one place for too long, since bad luck seems to follow them around. Alice takes this as normal...until one day, the world flips on its head and she begins to wonder what exactly her mother has been running from all this time. And perhaps more importantly, whether or not she ever should have been running. Maybe it's about time to meet this mystery grandmother, and read the tales she wasn't permitted to as a child.

All in all, the story is essentially predictable, but that's not a mark against it. There are only so many plots in the world, and only so many ways you can twist it to your will. The companion Alice meets on the way, the Althea Proserpine superfan Ellery, is a welcome addition, and a nice dose of both fanboy nature and reality check for Alice, who doesn't deal well with the former and hasn't really experience much of the latter in her life. The Hinterland--the place where all these fairy tales take place--is a fascinating concept, and I honestly wish we got the full proper stories of all the Tales from the Hinterland. But the reasoning behind Althea's reclusive nature and why it's always so hard to find a copy of Tales from the Hinterland is all detailed well, and leaves the reader with a comfortable knowledge of why we can only know so much.

What really let me down about the book, unfortunately, was the ending. It takes all the wonderful beginnings we saw...and leaves half of them unanswered and the others tossed aside for reasons unknown. The choice for Ellery's plot line equally baffles me and makes sense, though I feel like her was built up to be so much more of a character than he ended up being. The explanations of it all at the end seemed rushed, and never seemed to give a deep feeling for what was actually happening.

But here's the kicker, and this will have mild spoilers, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. ... At the beginning of the book, it's always the mantra of "Alice and Ella against the world." Nothing else gets to come in, nothing stays, it's just them. And that's all well and good...but at the end, nothing's changed. I mean, Alice herself certainly has, but it's still just Alice and Ella, with no one else. Can they start finding that life to settle into and find other people? Sure, but we don't see that far into the denouement as it were. We see mom and kid at the start, we see a thousand amazing potentials along the way, and they're all cast off by the end. It leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth, the bitter tang of wasted development potential. While I appreciate the choice not to hold tight to the teenage love story, Ellery's loss to the story comes just shy of making me feel like his role there was pointless. He was a tool, and when the tool was no longer needed, he was discarded. Ellery's a better character than that. Why else were we told so much about his family? To prove he was disposable? Eh.

In any case, it's still an enjoyable read that kept me up until close to 2 in the morning so that I could finish reading it, because I had to know how it ended. Even though it didn't live up to everything I'd hoped for, it's still definitely something I'd tell people to read if they found it on a shelf near them. I'd love to see what else the author has done, because she's got a nice way with words.

Rating: **** (Recommended)

Alice and her mom Ella basically live like gypsies, moving from one place to the next, usually staying with a friend, until the bad luck catches up to them- making them "bad luck guests". After the death of her estranged Grandmother Althea, a woman Alice never met and Ella refuses to talk about, but has a strangely large cult following for her odd fairytale book, Ella decides they will settle down. And then Alice gets a new family of sorts with her stepfather and stepsister- both she barely tolerates for her mother's happiness, and it seems everything is peachy. That is until a man from Alice's past shows up and then Ella goes missing.

Everything about this book was odd and super creepy and I absolutely loved it! This was such an interesting adventure, with different types of "fairytales" and scariness and twists. I was so into this book, more so than any other than I have read recently. The mix of adventure, scariness and random dark humor filled my heart with joy and I found myself laughing at the most inappropriate of times. And ps mentioning crickets are creepy (which they are) made this book my soul sister.

"The air around her shivered and prismed like the heat over a blacktop. She was what I was looking for, the hot moving point at the center of this island of charged quiet. I watched her with a feeling I couldn’t name—fear or awe or recognition."

I read a review recently where someone compared this to Alice in Wonderland and I can totally see where that reviewer was are coming from, but I personally mean that in the best of ways- it was an epic, dangerous, crazy journey with some wonderfully strange encounters that I just ate up. I would gladly take another adventure in these same circumstances, no complaint.

The few stories recited from the Tales from the Hinterland were absolutely horrifying, amazing and I need to get my hands on them asap. They were just the way I like my fairytales, scary and surprising. No feel good fairy godmother here.

My one teeny tiny complaint with the story was that the ending felt a little anticlimactic, but as long as I know this is not the end end, I can pretend I am content. If this was a standalone (which is 100% what the ending felt like and I would have assumed so if I hadn't already seen on Goodreads there is another book for next year), I would have been really disappointed. I will try not to get too desperate while I (pretend to) patiently wait for more from the Hinterwoods. In case I was too subtle, I really loved this book.

Stop by and say hi at https://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/

Though I liked the book, I made the decision when I finished not to review it on my site because it didn't fit into my editorial schedule. I may include it in a review post or possibly a book list post in the future.

It reminds me of a fairy-tale version of The Thirteenth Tale in YA format. I did like the part about an alternate reality

Overall the novel strong start but weakened in the 2nd half The main character started out likeable but became less so throughout the duration of the book. Some of the character development started out better than it finished. I would read this author again but hope that she is able to carry the story at the same pace and quality from start to finish.

In one word: this book felt Dark... Which is a growing trend in the Young Adult/Teen genre, so thank you to the Brothers Grimm for providing us with such incredible source material?

I definitely considered this one of those divisive 'LOVE it or HATE it' titles; which is rather ironic, since I find myself on the fence. Ultimately, I found the premise fascinating and truly appreciated the themes running throughout--family, loyalty, the fight to choose your own destiny and allow those around you the same choice. That said, it still left me feeling a little lost? Hollow? I cannot quite put my finger on it, but I just wanted a little more of...something. And I will be honest and I say that maybe with a reread my opinion and rating would lift a little because I am just that torn (and sometimes particularly stingy with my stars).

Ultimately I would still recommend this to anyone who loved the original fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson and company. That aspect of the book was absolutely incredible and worth exploring! It was just not my favourite read.

I loved this book a lot!! Albert took the essential delight and longing we have for fairy tales and coupled it with things from the Brothers Grimm’s nightmares to give us this book. Spooky, gripping, vivid, the perfect dark fairy tale. Highly recommend. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DNF
I loved the sound of the book and the cover completely drew me in. Going in, I was very excited. However, I struggled to connect to the writing. Therefore, I decided to set it aside.
Thank you to publisher for considering me for a review copy.

The Hazel Wood is a solid book for a debut author. I loved Melissa Albert's world building and wish she had focused even more than she did on Althea's novel and the stories of the Hazel Wood which I found more compelling than that of her main character Alice. I hope she returns to this world in the future.

Alice has lived a nomadic life until now. She and her mother forced to keep moving after they are stricken with bad luck circumstances everytime they stay in one place for too long. Finally, they are able to settle in New York City. Alice and her mother are living the life of luxury, for better or for worse, when their bad luck suddenly catches up with them. Alice's mother is stolen away and Alice is left to try to make sense of family herself and her family history.
Melissa Albert has created a stunningly original fantasy world where fairytales are real. Unfortunately the fairytales are not those of the princesses and ponies where the characters live happily ever after. Hinderland is more alike the original Grimm fairy tales of blood and gore. I would highly recommend this book and await the sequel with bated breath.

I just had trouble getting through the book. It just did not hold my interest. I can see others enjoying the book. It’s not the first book I would recommend. I did enjoy the world the author created and the descriptions.

Oh, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one? it's gorgeously written and utterly imaginative, and Alice is a fierce blade of a protagonist. I think the bits set in the human world were my favorite part, as eager as I was to get to the Hinderlands, as for some reason, the story didn't quite match my expectations from that point on. expectations being different, not bad, to be clear. I *should* have loved this one, I really should have, and I think I just didn't quite connect with the fairytale motifs of the Hinderlands in the way I needed to fall under its spell.

as an aside, I really loved how being a fan wasn't villainized via Finch, so I just wanna mention how fantastic that was to see.

Although you may think you know where this story is going, Albert veers off the beaten path and trailblazes deep into the Hazel Wood. This one's darker than some, and will appeal to those who preferred Struwwelpeter to Disney fairy tales. Recommend to readers who enjoyed Datlow & Windling's fairy tale series or Kat Howard's Roses and Rot.

Fairy tales have become a thing of popular culture, though they’ve always been popular in a way. More contemporary stories that have been retold by Disney tend to sugarcoat and change elements so that the work remains “appropriate for children”. Fairy tales however have been used more frequently as cautionary tales, reminding us of why it’s not okay to talk to strangers or walk alone in the dark.

Alice is a girl who always wants to be normal, but nothing is never normal for her. Bad luck seems to trail Alice and her mother wherever they go. Having lived on the road for as long as Alice can remember, she struggles to fit into the life that’s come around after the supposed death of her grandmother Althea. Her mother, Ella, has married a businessman she met while she was working as a waitress and the pair have moved into his upper East Side apartment in New York. Still, she’s unable to shake the uneasy feeling that the bad luck isn’t over with yet. Alice is proved right when disaster strikes, her mother disappears, her stepfather and stepsister are kidnapped and returned only to hold Alice at gunpoint in the entrance of the home since the father blames her for the trouble.

Without a place to be and without her mother, Alice is forced to call on the help of a classmate, Ellery Finch, to try and find her way to the Hazel Wood, her grandmother’s sprawling estate that she and her mother inherited at the death of her grandmother. Determined to find her mother, Alice embarks on the quest to find the answers and the truth. In part psychological thriller, park twisted fairytale, Alice’s mission blindsides her to the fact that Ellery has his own reasons for helping her, only to find out when they’re almost to the Hazel Wood that he sold her out to some of the other characters from the Hinterlands, the book that made her grandmother famous and full of twistedly dark fairytales.

Eventually, Alice does stumble upon the truth. She is part of the Hinterlands stories, Alice Three Times, and her “mother” Ella, stole her away from the woods that surrounded the Hazel Wood in an effort to save Alice from her fate. Thus she broke the story, leaving everyone in Alice’s story broken except for a single character who tried to return Alice when she was 6 to break the story for good. While she meets with the omnipotent character of the Storyweaver, Alice demands to know if there is a way to break her story and to escape. The Weaver, of course, assures her that there is, but inquires why she would want to when she can live in a predictable and normal life for herself in the Hinterlands.

Tricked into returning to the place where everything started, Alice struggles to fight against returning to the story, but ultimately succumbs. For an unspecified period of time, Alice remains trapped in her story, struggling to remember and to break free of her fate.

Albert’s storytelling is a fiery thing, capturing the reader in a rich and reality twisting story. She manages to engage readers with twists and turns that one wouldn’t expect. I look forward to seeing what comes next from Albert’s world of the Hinterlands and how Alice and the other story characters who escaped the Hinterlands will survive in the reality of our world.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For all her life, Alice has always felt like trouble is following her and her mother, Ella. The pair don’t stay in one place very long, so Alice knows that it’s a matter of time before they leave New York and her mother’s newest husband. There is one big mystery in her life though, her famour author grandmother, Althea Proserpine. Althea live in a mansion, The Hazel Wood, and wrote a fairy tale compilation that has its own cult following. When Alice was younger, all she wanted to do was know more about her mysterious grandmother, but Ella always shut down her inquiries and kept her from reading her grandmother’s book.

When Ella and Alice get word that Althea has passed away, things start to get weird, and then Ella disappears. Alice knows that she has to find the illusive Hazel Wood and enlists the help of her classmate Ellery Finch. Things start to get weird very quickly as characters from the magical place, the Hinterland, start to show up. Alice and Ellery head out on a mission to find the Hazel Wood before it’s too late, but there is no way that Alice could hav ever predicted what would be waiting for her once they finally arrive.

This novel was dark and magical and way more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I am glad that it wasn’t a typical fantasy novel, I liked that Alice lived in the present day world, and the magical things found her there. I do think that there was a lot of time spent leading up to the Hinterland exploration, leaving the last half of the book to be run through very quickly. I think that the novel could have been better flushed out during the whole Hinterland part, but Albert definitely filled this novel with twists and turns and it was just the right amount of dark and creepy. I’m curious to see how this series is going to progress, and would really like to read the compilation of fairy tales. Recommended for large libraries and libraries were fantasy is popular.

This one one of the best standalone books I've read! I'm usually more into series than individual standalone books, but since I was given an ARC I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

I honestly can say, I almost never had any idea what was going to happen next in the story. There was one thing I figured out ahead of time (but I can't say anything without spoiling it! Let's just say it relates to Ella!) but other than that I was sitting on the edge of my seat.

It was a tiny bit slow to start, but once I was about a quarter of the way in I could not put it down and I finished it in a day. There was something haunting about the way it was written that made me cling to every word, it almost seemed to pull me in, just like with the "Tales of the Hinterlands."

My childhood consisted of a staple literary diet of Enid Blyton's fairy tales. I was (and still am) a great fan of stories of wee folk (brownies, fairies, goblins, elves, etc.) that dwell just beyond the veil. I always imagined that the fairy tale dimension overlay the real world and that there were certain places in either realm which were more permeable and acted as a gateway to the other.

As such, I was thrilled to come across this book -- although it was the cover design which first caught my attention -- a story where lore bled out into the real world. In part, it's a story of feeling like you don't belong in the place where you are and feeling out of sorts, that is, thinking / feeling that you may be more at home somewhere else.

The behavior of the protagonist, Alice, sometimes felt two-dimensional and juvenile, but when she reaches the Hazel Wood, where she is then in her 'element' and the pieces start to fall into place, it all makes sense. Again, this is a story where the margins of reality and imagination blur and the characters from each world cross over into the other. As these different worlds have their own rules of conduct and operation (a different 'atmospheric viscosity', if you will), the characters operating in the dimension not of their own act somewhat awkwardly and stiltedly, so if you read this and find that you are not liking the book on account of some of the characters and/or their behaviors, keep this in mind. For me, it all made sense as the book progressed and it all came together in the end.

I look forward to the sequel, and to the eventual (and hopeful) publication of a collection of Hinterland tales.

I loved this! I thought the character building and plot lagged at some points, but the world building was incredible! The Hazelwood "fairy tales" and all the magic that went with them was absolutely incredible. There are so many things I didn't seem coming, and although I had a feeling about Alice's own back story, I was still blown away when it was all finally revealed!

a great addition to any YA collection. I really enjoyed this title and I believe other readers who enjoy similar genres would as well.

WHY DID I LISTEN TO THE HAZEL WOOD BY MELISSA ALBERT?
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert has the most deliciously dark intricate cover. You all know how I cannot resist a good cover, right? So, upon seeing this cover I KNEW I had to read this book. Plus, there’s the whole fairy tale allusion thing. I am SOLD on that without a doubt. Now, as I am whipping through my outstanding Netgalley queue, I knew I had to borrow this one from the library. I thought this would be an engaging book to listen to while on my commute.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood follows seventeen year old Alice who has grown up always living with her mother and having zero clues about who her father is. Alice and her mother have had a bit of bad luck that kind of follows them wherever they go. They never say anywhere long enough to put down roots. In fact, they are always on the road. However, Alice’s mom meets this wealthy man and marries him. She gains a stepsister who is not evil. Alice ends up going to kind of a good school where she meets this boy, Ellery, who is obsessed with the stories about the Hinterlands that Alice’s grandmother wrote. So, okay, one day Alice’s mom goes missing. Alice believes it has something to do with her grandmother and the Hinterlands, so she enlists Ellery’s help to find her mother.

Alice is about to uncover some family secrets. She just might not like what she finds. You see, Alice is going to find out the reason why she and her mother have all this bad luck. Plus, she gets to learn the truth about her parentage.

HOW DID I LIKE THE HAZEL WOOD?
Eh, I liked The Hazel Wood alright. I don’t think I will be continuing with the series. However, it really is quite imaginative. The book was a bit darker than what I had initially expected. Just, for me, I found myself not entirely connecting with the characters or really caring. Still, there is definitely a big audience for this book. For example, if you are the kind of person who does not want to read a book with romance or a book centered around romantic/sexual relationships, you will probably like this book.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook is narrated by Rebecca Soler. I’ve listened to books narrated by her before and never really had an issue. Nor, however, do I have an issue now with the narration of this audiobook. I listened to it via Overdrive (shoutout to the greatest library system I have ever had the privilege to be a member of). This is an audiobook that was just fine listening to on a higher speed. Overall, I do not really have a strong opinion about this audiobook except that it is OKAY and not my favorite.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I read The Hazel Wood awhile back when it was first being released to the masses. I told myself I’d review it later, then life happened, and well, here we are. Despite its sometimes scattered narrative, what stuck with me all these months is the writing. Albert has mastered the art of disguising a whimsical voice and purple prose within the dialogue of a seventeen-year-old girl named Alice. If you enjoy dreamy magical realism and metaphors, this is for you. The novel embodies a dark fairy tale within a modern setting - there’s mystery, words that mean nothing and maybe something, and misdirect.

It took me a few times on the subway to read this. (It’s definitely not a fast-paced book, and meant to be enjoyed or mulled over.) The Hazel Wood opens up on the relationship and background of Alice and her mother, Ella. Most of Alice’s life has been spent on the road due to a string of bad luck clearly linked to the elusive Althea Prosperine (Alice’s grandmother) and her collection of dark fairytales - Tales from the Hinterland. Alice has never met her grandmother, but when her mother is seemingly kidnapped, she teams up with grandma and #1 Hinterland groupie, Ellery Finch, so she can use his knowledge of the stories to find her grandmother’s secret estate - the famous Hazel Wood.

The whole story plot pace is hinged on fairytale logic. You know, the when you want to find it, good luck, but when it wants you to find it, tadaaa, and less on the intelligence of the characters. Alice was sometimes hilarious, sometimes cold and distant. (To be fair, the girl doesn’t really have a past.)

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

Ellery (I think) is a hipster, or at least a hipster wannabe with the veneer of an academic.

The Hinterland is very similar to Alice in Wonderland (not the Disney version). And in the end, I wanted to hear more of the fairy tales from Tales from the Hinterland rather the adventure of Alice and Ellery. If Albert ever writes a collection of Hinterland stories, sign me up. The stories we were able to read were creepy, dark, and exactly what I was craving.

Overall, would recommend to people who love fairytale retellings, a little bit of nonsense, and a novel that can be enjoyed without thinking too hard.

The Hazel Wood: 3.25 stars