The Hazel Wood: ★★★.5
The Night Country: ★★★.5

If you haven't read The Hazel Wood yet, probably don't read this review??

Well, I didn't get my wish that Alice wouldn't be the main focus of this book and it would instead be about all the other, much more interesting stories as they figure out life after the Hinterland. But oh well, I still enjoyed this one, although not as much as The Hazel Wood.

So what's going on here?
After the death of the Hinterland, all the stories and wanderers within have to deal with life in our world, without magic and all the things that made them them. For many, this is as good as a death sentence. For others, it literally is. Someone is murdering the Hinterlanders, someone with ice in their hands that leaves everyone believing it's Alice herself. So Alice leaves it up to herself to clear her name and solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt, but things are a lot more complicated than she ever thought possible. In another world, Ellery Finch is on another journey, with the hope that it might lead him back home and back to the girl he left behind.

What I loved
As with my review of The Hazel Wood, my absolute favourite thing about this series is the world. I am in love with both portal fantasy and fairytales, and this series gives me both of those deliciously served up on a silver platter. While the world building in The Night Country wasn't as good as it was in the first book, as this was more focused on plot and characters, it still was enough to hold my interest because, and I'll talk about this more in the next section, I'm really only into this series for the world and not at all for the characters and plot. Melissa Albert has created such a wonderful world that I wish I could dive into and live in.


What I didn't love
Again, same as my review for the first book, I really don't care about the characters and the plot very much. The side characters that I loved in the first book weren't in this one unfortunately, and the new characters that were introduced didn't feel fully developed to me. I had a hard time connecting with anyone, or caring whatsoever about any of the stuff happening to them. I enjoyed the parts with Finch world hopping with that one girl who's name I completely forgot (and who was pretty much completely irrelevant?? What even happened to her after that thing at the end? I literally have no idea where she went omg I don't remember), but that wasn't a huge part of the book. I really wish this book had more focus on Finch, he is way more interesting, ESPECIALLY THAT WORLD WITH THE BOOKS TO OTHER WORLDS?? WHAT???? PLEASE GIVE ME A WHOLE BOOK OF THAT!! Anyways. That about sums it up

Overall thoughts
I did still really like this series, it just wasn't what I hoped it would be. There is a whole lot of room for spinoffs though that could potentially give me what I wanted. So hopefully one day Melissa Albert will write those, even just a book of short stories would be cool. I know the Tales From the Hinterland is going to be released at some point and I'm hyped for that, so maybe she'll do a book of Finch's stories too. I can only dream!!