The Hazel Wood

Book Title: The Hazel Wood

Author: Melissa Albert

Date Started: February 26th 2018

Date Completed: February 28th 2018

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, Young Adult
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to Netgalley for this ebook for review ◆

The Hazel Wood is half supernatural urban fantasy and half dark fairytale. And I mean half quite literally since it transitions rather suddenly just after the midpoint. I liked it, but I think it had issues that could've been solved.

I loved the first part of this book. And I loved the second part of this book. I did not love them together. Part 1 is City of Bones (the movie) mixed with Inkheart, then at around 65% we go into what I see as Part 2, which is Alice in Wonderland meets the Spiderwick Chronicles. I adore both of them, but not following on from each other. If you know the stories I've mentioned, you'll probably be able to pick out how they don't run smoothly into one another. A supernatural urban setting with characters going on treasure hunts in a city is one thing - and it can even be moved into a more direct fantasy storyline quite easily - but suddenly crashing headfirst into a dark, whimsical full-on fairytale land with no ties to what just happened is too much too fast. Maybe if this was a two-book series that could work with a break in the middle, but within a page we go switch. As a reader, I have expectations when I'm lulled into a story (and 65% is a fair amount through a story), and it can be really hard to rapidly abandon everything I've learnt about a world if things change. Alright, maybe this is partly a personal preference thing, but I'm sad because I can only remember these two parts compared to one, instead of imagining them as a single story weaved together.

My favourite thing about this book was Finch. He's not the main character but I think he was far more interesting than anyone else. He might have walked out of a John Green novel or maybe Call Me By Your Name (not in the way you're thinking), but he was interesting, (annoyingly) charming, and conflicted. I think I liked him so much because the choice between a relationship and his dream/desire/whatever you want to call it was a choice he genuinely struggled with. So often we have protagonists that are conflicted for ten minutes and then saying 'I'd never give you up'. That's not how it works in real life. The choice between a person and a lifestyle can be really hard. Sadly, compared to him, Alice (the protagonist) was a bit lack-lustre for me. Her big reveal fell flat for me personally because it felt like it came out of nowhere (I guess it makes sense, but it didn't feel like it tilted the world on its head like it should have), and her characterisation was more generic. She played her part, but she wasn't the star of the show.

The Hazel Wood had my favourite kind of ending: life changes and things get left behind - often things we don't want to leave behind - but the world and the characters move forward anyway. I think a lot of people look at those sorts of resolutions as sad endings, and they are in a lot of ways. But I think it's so good when a story can pull off a realist ending where it is bittersweet because the world moves forward as if nothing happened, but this protagonist is never going to be able to go back to how they were, and show that that's okay. The Hazel Wood pulled it off. I just wish it hadn't been tainted by the blatant and abrupt tone shift in the middle. In all fairness, there's a lot of things that I don't think were solved (or I missed them being solved) and some motivations that didn't make sense in the end, but I'll let it slide because my main issue with this book pretty much entirely consumed my attention.

It's not really my style of fairytale - it definitely borders more on the supernatural horror side than traditional faerie - but I still loved its little twists and dark side. The emphasis on the adventure made it feel more like a children's book than Young Adult. I'm not even sure the horror aspects are too much for that audience, it's just the swearing and age of the characters that seems to have pushed it to a teenage audience. I feel like this book wanted to be something that wasn't natural to it, hence the dramatic out-of-place tone shift in the middle too. It had its strong points, but I think it would've been stronger if Albert had let it run its natural course, rather than trying to tailor it to a different audience.