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paragraphsandpages 's review for:
The Hazel Wood
by Melissa Albert
I'll be honest, by the time I got around to finally reading this book I was way less enchanted with the idea of it than I was when I first got it from Fairyloot. Almost all of my friends either hated it or found it mediocre, and the standards I have for fairy tale esque stories have raised considerably as well (the fault of [b:Uprooted|22544764|Uprooted|Naomi Novik|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550135418l/22544764._SX50_.jpg|41876730], [b:Spinning Silver|36896898|Spinning Silver|Naomi Novik|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1513872748l/36896898._SX50_.jpg|58657620], and most recently, [b:The Starless Sea|43575115|The Starless Sea|Erin Morgenstern|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554996038l/43575115._SY75_.jpg|66444785] ). So while I went in optimistically, I didn't have high hopes.
In the end, I did enjoy this book more than I thought I would, but I still had way too many issues with it as a whole. There were too many things that weakened the beginning/middle of the book, and while almost every issue did have an explanation, it didn't change the reading experience of that beginning and middle.
My biggest issue was with Alice, our MC. She seems like an honestly horrendous person to be around, let alone travel to a magical realm with. Everything is an issue, in every action there's a fight to pick, someone to hate on or tear down. She's had a hard life, and I get she's angry at the world, but having every other scene be mindless conflict was something I got real frustrated with real fast. This was only worsened when
Another thing I wasn't all that into was the atmosphere of the novel. When I read fantasy and fairy tale novels, the atmosphere created by the description and writing style is generally one of the most important things. Here, the writing style was fairly simple and direct, losing any sense of wispiness or blurred reality that sometimes comes with the fairy tale genre. Additionally, the way the magic book and the stories were used was more reminiscent of horror. And while I can love my fairy tales dark, this book just tried way too hard to make it so. The stories themselves were also just way too obviously trying to be edgy and dark, and it made me not actually interested in the tales that have been hidden from Alice her whole life. Admittedly, the book did finally settle into an atmosphere I enjoyed in the final portions of the book, when, but it didn't really manage to make up for the majority of the book falling flat.
There are a few things I enjoyed about the book, which pushed it up from 1 star to 2 stars, and that's how the romance was handled (in the end), and Finch's character at the end as well. While Finch himself felt occasionally inconsistent, mainly in the travelling period of the middle of the book, I loved the character he ended turning into, and the growth from his beginning book self to his final book self was amazing to see. I also liked that
Overall, this book was a miss for me, but I don't necessarily regret reading it or giving it a try.
In the end, I did enjoy this book more than I thought I would, but I still had way too many issues with it as a whole. There were too many things that weakened the beginning/middle of the book, and while almost every issue did have an explanation, it didn't change the reading experience of that beginning and middle.
My biggest issue was with Alice, our MC. She seems like an honestly horrendous person to be around, let alone travel to a magical realm with. Everything is an issue, in every action there's a fight to pick, someone to hate on or tear down. She's had a hard life, and I get she's angry at the world, but having every other scene be mindless conflict was something I got real frustrated with real fast. This was only worsened when
Spoiler
she started travelling alone with Finch. I loved Finch, for the most part, and seeing her tear him down constantly for things he usually had no say in, no control over, did not make me warm up to her at all.Another thing I wasn't all that into was the atmosphere of the novel. When I read fantasy and fairy tale novels, the atmosphere created by the description and writing style is generally one of the most important things. Here, the writing style was fairly simple and direct, losing any sense of wispiness or blurred reality that sometimes comes with the fairy tale genre. Additionally, the way the magic book and the stories were used was more reminiscent of horror. And while I can love my fairy tales dark, this book just tried way too hard to make it so. The stories themselves were also just way too obviously trying to be edgy and dark, and it made me not actually interested in the tales that have been hidden from Alice her whole life. Admittedly, the book did finally settle into an atmosphere I enjoyed in the final portions of the book, when
Spoiler
Alice was in the Hinterlands and trying to break her storyThere are a few things I enjoyed about the book, which pushed it up from 1 star to 2 stars, and that's how the romance was handled (in the end), and Finch's character at the end as well. While Finch himself felt occasionally inconsistent, mainly in the travelling period of the middle of the book, I loved the character he ended turning into, and the growth from his beginning book self to his final book self was amazing to see. I also liked that
Spoiler
Alice didn't date him in the end, that he found himself and found love on his own in the world he loved. It felt like a more proper ending to his story, and not a turn I see often in YA.Overall, this book was a miss for me, but I don't necessarily regret reading it or giving it a try.