🌟🌟🌟 🌓out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
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.
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.
I have a huge issue with magical realism and tend to dislike books that involve it. When I read The Hazel Wood it felt like magical realism so I think that is why I didn't love the book. I was still able to enjoy it which I would attribute to the element of fairy tales and a story within a story.
I really liked the darkness of the story and how the hinterland tales were not the typical fluff /sparkly clean fairy tales. It was the element that kept me reading the story because plot itself felt fragmented and the characters were unlikable. I found Finch to be naive and selfish. I had liked him at first but I didn't like the changes in him as the story progressed. Alice was so rage-filled and didn't seem to care about anything or anyone except for her mother which could have redeemed her but she treated her mother poorly at times as well.
Overall, the story was okay but nothing that I would say has to be read by everyone. If you like dark fairy tales then I think that you might enjoy this book. It is a quick and interesting read.
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