The Hazel Wood: A Novel (The Hazel Wood, 1) Hardcover – Illustrated, January 30, 2018

Warning: rambles ahead!So I think it's ridiculous when people get so wrapped up in the fan-fervor of finding a piece of art, literature, etc. that moves them, that they jump down the back of anyone who dares to dislike said thing.We're people. Pernicious consumers of media. Fickle too, something we might love may one day become hated and vice versa.And yet, if you don't like what I like, it's clear: you are an a-hole.Wait, you're not an a-hole? You just have a mind of your own? Logic? The ability to suss out what does and does not appeal to you? Congratulations, we two may be a-holes, but that's neither here nor there and certainly nothing to do with whether or not you loved "The Hazel Wood" by Melissa Albert.But here's the rub, I LOVED it. And even though I think it's RIDICULOUS part of me wants to call you an a-hole if you didn't.That same part of me (the one that thinks she's always right, wants someone to invent chocolate that causes weight-loss, and deep down wishes she had the gumption to let her inner biatch out to rage when people are particularly stupid) wants to pick apart any criticisms of this book, blowing razzberries and flicking boogers at the naysayers who so CLEARLY didn't "GET IT."And here's why: This book was amazing. I loved every bit of this dark twisty fairytale that manages to combine so many elements into a truly unique and interesting story.And not everyone who reads a book comes into it with the same background or the same influences or even the same taste. There's a reason your mileage may vary. As a lover of fairytales and folklore this book was a little bit Grimm Brothers and a little bit "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark." It was a little bit Portal story and a little bit Jasper Fforde. It's a little "Alice in Wonderland," a lot "Nightmare Before Christmas" and at the end of the day it's a story about finding yourself.It's about seeing beneath your own skin to the motivations you may not even want to admit to. And then seeing others the same way. And it's all wrapped in a frayed and bloody ribbon of magic and fairytale, of wandering lost so that you might be found.I truly loved this book. And even though it's ridiculous and I normally get REALLY ANNOYED at people who turn all rabid-fan........ If you don't like "The Hazel Wood" I'm blowing a razzberry at you. And I'm judging you.(And in that same vein for PETE'S SAKE when reading a story about fairytales don't bring up deus ex machina. There is no true logic to fairytales. Why would HORSES have a shot at putting Humpty Dumpty together again?! Do we REALLY think a Huntsman with an ax could cut through a wolf and free two people from inside its belly?! Or that a witch could have a functioning oven in her functioning house of freaking gingerbread?!? Just, ugh. In a fairytale it's reasonable that a kiss dislodges a bit of poisoned apple, that a glass slipper can be danced on without cracking. Leave the critical logic at home and accept fairytales for the lovely and horrifying nonsense they are.Ooh, ooh, last one: To every review that claimed that this book is just an "Alice in Wonderland" knockoff. You. Seriously. Wound. Me. (And genuinely piss me off.)It's like comparing a pineapple and an apple because they're both fruits with "apple" in their names. Honestly the comparison tells me more about what you probably haven't read than it does anything else.There is a longstanding tradition of people going into other worlds in fantasy. Some might fall down a hole or go through the back of a cupboard. Some people travel in boats on the river Styx. Some get swept away by a tornado.... I think it's highly unfair to judge this book, which holds many threads of other tales even as it weaves its own pattern, by reducing it to a tepid comparison.Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" is a girl who finds herself in an odd-ball and terrifying place where logic holds little to no sway; Luckily she's a child and it gives her resiliency.The main character in "The Hazel Wood" is also named Alice. She seeks out a terrifying and oddball place where logic is tied to story and story is a cold and relentless taskmaster. She is too old and broken to be resilient but she's on a quest, darn it.So don't sweat the comparisons. This story is not a re-write but can very much stand on its own bloody two feet. And now I'm off the soapbox and staying in my lane and all that jazz.If you love fairytales read this story. And read it for itself, because it's an amazing book and shouldn't suffer at the hands of reviewers who are comparison happy.Everyone's opinion is valid and holds that reader's truth.But everyone's truth differs and some people are just unreliable narrators. 😂So while I can't offer you a lifetime garrantee that you'll love this book as I do, I can offer you a years supply of turtlewax and the promise that this book has magic.(Just kidding about the turtlewax.)

I was all kinds of crazy excited for Melissa Albert’s debut, The Hazel Wood! It screamed fairy tale book all over! The cover is just gorgeous and bespeaks of the fairy tale delights (or not so delights as real fairy tales run kind of dark) ahead! While I found the book to be interesting for sure, I wasn’t as swept away as I would’ve hoped for. I’m not sure how to describe what I mean, but I will do my best.Alice and her mother Ella have been moving from place to place ever since Alice could remember. They always seem to be running from bad luck of some kind that continues to chase them around. Just as Alice thinks things might be settling down when her mother marries a man and they move into his apartment suite, the bad luck comes back! Alice comes home to find her family gone and it’s not until her stepfather and stepsister return with a story of being taken and that Alice must go to the Hazel Wood if she wants to get her mother back that the crazy adventure truly begins!The Hazel Wood is the name of the estate where her mother grew up for a time and it’s where her grandmother lived and wrote the stories that became known as Tales from the Hinterland. This was a book of fairy tales, not the ones we all know and love, but a completely sort. Odd thing is, try as Alice might, she cannot find a copy of the book anywhere and she tried to find it once upon a time when she learned her grandmother wrote them. I would’ve thought it would be interesting to actually get to read these tales. It might have even helped with my reading if I had a better background on things, for this story sort of revolves around this elusive book.Alice starts a journey to get to the elusive Hazel Wood, for no one really knows where it’s at. There’s plenty of secrets in this book. Joining her in her journey is a fellow classmate, Ellery Finch. Ellery knows a lot about Tales from the Hinterland as he too was a bit obsessed with the book growing up and he had a copy long ago before it was stolen. It seems though that their journey will be anything but easy as they hit roadblocks at every turn!This book was a certain kind of weird. It’s almost an enjoyable sort of weird too! Again, I really feel like if I had known more about the Tales from the Hinterland, I would’ve been able to understand things better. I love fairy tales, so when I see certain elements from the variety of tales I’ve read, I’m able to get a better understanding of where this story is headed. Since Tales from the Hinterland is a fictional book from a fictional book there’s really no source for what they are made of. True, Ellery knows the tales backwards and forwards and will relate them to Alice at certain points, but there is the occasional interruption and truly, this drove me mad!!!If you’re expecting there to be a romance building between Alice and Ellery, well, you’d be sort of wrong. There may be some fleeting feelings and moments between them, but soon other things start to happen and well…there just really wasn’t any romance at all in this book. Which I thought was sort of odd since it was fairy tale like in essence. I mean, a good chunk of fairy tales revolve around a romantic kind of love. Not all of them, true, and in this one we do see those other kinds of love, so that was nice in a sense too.I truly think the thing that kept me from giving this one 5 stars was that I knew nothing of the Tales from the Hinterland, other than what Ellery knew. Maybe that was part of the point, as Alice never got to read them either, but it just made things a bit more confusing for me as a reader because I wasn’t sure what was really happening in a sense. Things definitely got muddled for me in more ways than one. Again, though, I did enjoy this story in some ways. The Hazel Wood was still fascinating and dark and beautifully told. I just feel like as a reader if I knew of the Tales of the Hinterland, I could’ve understood The Hazel Wood a bit more. Totally weird, right? Wanting to read a fake book in order to understand the book that mentions said fake book?The Hazel Wood is still remarkable storytelling though! It’s a dark, twisted tale that will keep you guessing at everyone’s intentions. For we already know not to trust the people within fairy tales, but in reality it’s harder to tell who’s trustworthy and who’s not. If Melissa were to ever do a bonus addition that let us read these mystical Tales from the Hinterland, I’d be all over that! And possibly even willing to do a re-read of this one! Which coming from me, as you know, is BIG!! This is most definitely a book all lovers of fairy tales should read! It contains the classic elements we know and love and it is a truly magical read in essence, if a little befuddling at times. I might just be overanalyzing things too much as I read.Overall Rating 4/5 stars

I purchased this book Nov 2021 and it has been on my shelf since. Being a mood reader, sometimes it’s like that.This book started off kinda slow for me. At first I was struggling to get in to the writing style and how everything was laid out. Around 20% in, things started to pick up. I was super intrigued by what was happening, trying to piece everything together (I love being able to guess the ending of a book before the big reveal). Closer to the end, things got hella weird.When things got weird, it wasn’t too weird to turn me off from a book but for me, the way it was written, I had a hard time keeping up with the visualization of what was going on. It was either written that way as an attempt to keep it fast-paced or was just kinda choppy.Overall, I thought the storyline was super interesting and I was only able to figure out a few things going on as the story unfolded!

*Sigh* This should have been so much better.From the blurb, this story showed so much promise. However, I feel like it over promised and under delivered. It's not often I'll say it about a book I've finished, but it let me down ... with a thump.Why, oh why, did it take so long to get into the grit of the story? I mean, 215 pages before anything remotely fantasy happens... But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Now, I'm not going to run down the plot because six thousand others have done that before me, so I'll try to keep it simple:This is a portal adventure ... without the adventure and, to be honest, without a discernible portal. If you're looking for Narnia, find a wardrobe, you'll have better luck. The Hazel Wood is so fuzzy and incomprehensible that I found that I just didn't care about it. All that build-up and ... it fell flat on its face, as did the hinterland. It could have been a child's 'it was all a dream' story. Again, what a waste.Alice (our intrepid and unsuspecting heroine) is really Alice-three-times, a storybook character, though, three times what, I couldn't tell you because she's as shallow as a teaspoon and as fleshed out as a desiccated skeleton. If she's not whining, she's snapping at people (because that's who she is, right?). Everyone else, forget it. The closest we come to a character we can sink our teeth into is Ellery Finch, who turns out to do ... not very much except betray Alice, then rescue her from her fate (which isn't really much at all), which all passes without emotional content. Unless, you count the 'Finch is a rich brat, but I like him anyway,' moments.The premise of the story is wonderful, which is why it gets an extra star, but it's not even sure what it wants to be. Is it trying to be the 'great American novel', a paranormal romp, or a fantasy adventure? The reason I ask is because it fails at being any of them. Melissa Albert name-drops a bunch of authors she presumably wants to be associated with - Kurt Vonnegut, Nelson Algren, Andrew Lang - yet doesn't have the decency to mention what they're most famous for witing, assuming, of course, that every 17-year-old on the run for most of their life will have read those authors, or would even know who they were! And that's not even the worst literary crime here (in my humble opinion). Albert mentions that well know story 'Thousandfurs', or you might have heard it called Allerleirauh? No? That's not really a surprise. Well Albert seems to believe it's about revenge ... If you can be bothered, read it for yourselves and decide.Yet, one of the most divisive claims is that Althea Proserpine wrote 'feminist fairy-tales' - of which we hear possibly two and a half - that aren't really feminist at all, and are barely worthy of the title of fairytale. They were flat, without feeling, without ambience and without a moral. In short, Althea's tales are pointless, making the story itself pointless.And what's with the Kevin Smith movie language? I mean, this is aimed at a Young Adult audience, which I took as being roughly 12 - 18. I'm not a prude by any means, but if you think the language is appropriate for the target audience, you really need to re-examine what’s acceptable.Then there's the floral aspect. If you love incomprehensible prose, this book is for you. It's also mainly there to pad, flesh and stuff the barely available plot. Wow, some of Albert's sentences run ... and run ... and run, like the moon-dipped mercury slippers of a princess with eternity hair, a voice like thrice-beaten silk, and a longing to spend winter nights in the company of autumn-smelling log-fires that remind you of being alive - if you get my meaning.In short, the characters were hollow, the story was as shallow as a teacup and should have been 100 or so pages shorter, and it isn't appropriate for its audience. As far as I'm concerned, it gets 1 star because I finished it, 1 star for the premise (which, in my opinion, has been woefully wasted).The best part about this novel is its cover. The artist gets 5 stars.

I found this an interesting premise that was reasonably well executed, however it was let down by pacing issues, a sudden change in tone and style half way through and an inconclusive ending. I really enjoy the darker side of fairy tales and so the premise here was right up my street. Unfortunately, you don't really get to see much of that. There are a few short stories intermingled with the main plot that are definitely dark fairy tales, but their impact on the plot is minimal in reality. The first half of the book is fairly aimless, involving a lot of wandering around and an overly long road trip. When we finally hit the actual meat of the story it feels like it might finally come together into what seemed to be promised... and never quite does.This is perhaps because things just get confusing and tangled once you reach the boundary. This isn't helped by the notable change in writing style and despite this being what I was really after, I can't help but think that the slow and aimless first half was better written. The second half devolves into flowery, descriptive prose which could have worked if it wasn't so overbaked but instead fell flat. Strangely, despite this nothing ever actually seems to be explained and explain that contradiction if you would!? Between this and the really slow beginning, I have to admit that it took me far longer than it should of to finish this. I kept putting it down to find more interesting things to do. On the plus side I have a new shiny platinum trophy on my Playstation account...What I did enjoy were the character dynamics - at least most of the time - and the occasions when you got to hear the actual dark fairy tales that are supposedly the keystone of the novel. Alice is interesting - she has serious anger problems that aren't really explained until the final chapters of the novel and this makes her a flawed yet intriguing character. There are moments when her actions border on psychopathic I admit - attempted murder by car anyone? But it did mean that you were never quite certain what she was going to do next. She can certainly be rude and demeaning and in serious need of a slap, but it makes interesting reading, particularly in her relationship with Finch. Finch is another complex character and there is a play on racial tensions and undertones, although relatively subtly. In fairness, the only two properly developed characters are Alice and Finch, so it's a good job that both of them were interesting.So. I was interested at the beginning but the book was so slow that it took effort to remind myself to read it. When we did finally get to the interesting bits it became convoluted and confusing, as well as weighed down by flowery language that didn't do it any favours. So why three stars? Because I did enjoy it. It probably won't stick with me for long, I admit, but I might just be intrigued enough to read the second in the series.

All Alice can really remember from her childhood is being on the road with her mum, Ella.  Always on the run from the ‘bad luck’ that seemed to follow them.  After the death of her grandmother, Althea, author of a twisted fairytale book, whom Alice had never met, Ella thought they were safe from their bad luck.  When Alice is 17, her mother is kidnapped and Alice finds an extract from her grandmothers book and knows that the Hazel Wood is connected to her mothers abduction.  With the help of an unlikely friend in Ellery Finch, Alice is on a quest to find the Hazel Wood and get her mother back.The one has been on my bookshelf for a long, long time and eventually I told myself it’s about time I read it – I’m not sure what I expected but this is a very odd fantasy novel!  This book was all kinds of weird to the point I had to re-read parts to check I read the right thing!  Definitely felt like I was in Wonderland whereby the weird and unusual is normal! I really liked Ellery Finch’s character, despite being a millionaire’s son he was the only one helping Alice and not asking for much of anything in return, he didn’t like his life of privilege and money and found solace in books – which us bookstagrammers can relate to!I have to be completely honest, I was relieved when I got to the end of this book because it felt like a lot to absorb and understand.  Not a top rater in my mind but it might be for others!  If you do pick this book up, I hope you enjoy it!

The concept of this book really intrigued me as I love fairy tales and the idea of intertwining it with the modern world sounded very similar to OUAT which I love.Overall I did enjoy this story, there were parts of it that I didn't expect in it at all. However I felt that halfway through it changed author. I don't know if this was intentional so that the first half was written like a "normal" story and then the second half more like she'd become the fairy tale? That being said I did enjoy how Ella became part of a story to then escape it, but I think that the book was a bit to all over the place and random in the second half for me to really love it.It's a shame because I really felt like it had potential and this type of book is usually right up my street but I felt like I reluctantly finished it.

Alice's grandmother Althea is a famous writer. Alice has never met her grandmother and also hasn't read any of her stories. Ella wants Alice to stay away from her grandmother. She doesn't allow any contact. Bad luck is following Ella and Alice and Althea's estate, Hazel Wood, is the last place they should be. Ella and Alice are constantly on the run and they have moved many times, they leave as soon as what's following them is catching up. Alice is curious about Althea and her dark fairytales, but Ella isn't giving her any information. What is her mother keeping from her?When Alice and Ella finally have some stability in their lives Ella disappears, she's taken by faul smelling people and there's a link between the abduction and Althea's stories. If Alice wants to find her mother she has to become part of her grandmother's dangerous world. However, Alice doesn't know anything about it. Fortunately one of her classmates is a big fan. Finch has read Althea's stories numerous times and he knows a lot about Alice's grandmother. Will he be able to help Alice with her search? Alice's mother warned her not to go to Hazel Wood, but that's exactly where they're headed. Will Alice finally discover her own story and will she be able to locate Ella? Alice is about to deal with dangerous magic, will she survive?The Hazel Wood is a terrific gripping story. I was immediately intrigued by Alice. She has a fascinating multilayered personality. There are plenty of hidden depths in her character and Alice doesn't completely know herself. I loved the secrets that evolve around her, she has dreams, but she's ignorant about most of them and that made me really curious. Althea is a mystery and the worlds she writes about are dark, dangerous and intriguing. I couldn't wait to find out the connection between Alice's bad luck and her grandmother's stories. Alice's adventures kept me on the edge of my seat. While looking for her mother she finds herself in one bizarre situation after another and I was mesmerized by her journey from beginning to end.Melissa Albert skillfully mixes worlds, realities, fairytales and dreams. I loved the way she describes Alice's personality, her family history and the tumultuous road she has to travel. Every part of it is exciting and filled with sparkling energy. I was impressed by the way Melissa Albert tells her story, it's controlled chaos, mixed with surreal twists and turns, devious enchantments and strange and complicated surprises. I greatly admired the creativity of the story, it's truly magical and absolutely spellbinding. I highly recommend this fantastic book.