The Hazel Wood – Melissa Albert

Hello friends! I am still here!

Read: March 18 – March 22

Rating: ★★★★★

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother’s tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong. (via Goodreads)

Review:

This was a really polarizing read for a lot of people, and I understand that. People’s complaints appear to stem from three things: one, not enough fantasy/fantasy begins too late; two, the racist portrayal of the secondary character, Ellery Finch; and three, the main character, Alice, was just too unlikeable.

I’m not going to talk about point two, because it’s a good point that I understand and agree with, and it’s not my place. And point one I can also understand to a degree – I think it is mainly a flaw in the marketing of the book, and personally I enjoyed the pacing and the juxtaposition of the first half and the second half, but I get that it’s not for everyone.

But I want to talk about the third point – about Alice. Specifically, I want to talk about Alice’s anger. I want to preface this by saying that as a child, I suffered from severe anger problems. Alice’s anger was portrayed so well, as an alive thing under your skin, as something that seems almost separate from you, as something that causes you to do some really shitty, horrible things because it takes you over. The scene with the car and Finch stuck out so strongly to me because I know the feeling of feeling so out of control and upset that it turns you into a different person. It is not safe, or healthy, and it took a lot of work to be able to control that feeling, but it doesn’t make you a bad person. I didn’t see Alice as being a bad person because of her anger.

Not to mention, the entire point of her anger is a MAJOR plot point. It’s not just there. It’s there for a reason and is explained. And I get that the angry girl is hard to love, because I’ve been there for years, but I loved Alice for all that rage that was boiling up inside of her, because I was seventeen and angry once too.

Plus – beautiful cover.

tl;dr: I think this is one of those books where you either loved it or you hate it, but I loved it. I think it did a great job portraying Alice’s anger, and I loved the relationship between Alice and her mother. I would recommend it, but you might hate it anyway.