Amy 
Lynnie
fantasy
Alice and her mother, Ella, are always on the run. They move frequently—whenever they start
experiencing “bad luck”. Then, her
mother is kidnapped and Alice teams up with a friend to find Ella in her
grandmother’s world of fairy tales.
Amy's Review
I was absolutely loving The Hazel Wood up until about the 75%
mark. Then, it went from charmingly
creepy to absurdly ridiculous. It was
suddenly ludicrous and infuriating.
Granted, it was creative. But,
the story suddenly lost my interest and failed to pull me back in enough to
care about the characters any more. I skimmed from that point on. I finished the novel to see how Melissa Albert would manage to pull us all out of fantasy crazy town. She went with The Matrix on meltdown. The disappointing ending left me feeling
spent. I’ll give it 3 stars since I
enjoyed most of it.
Lynnie's Review
I have mixed feelings about Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood. Overall, I enjoyed the story--I enjoy fairy tales and was not particularly disturbed by the similarities to well-known fairy tales or stories. The characters were interesting, if not always enjoyable, and I enjoyed that I often felt unbalanced reading the book which kept me from predicting too much of the outcome. The first half of the book is all set up and most of the action happens in the back half; I honestly can't tell you which part I found more interesting.
What tripped me up, though, was the ridiculous purple prose which often had me rolling my eyes as I read. In that way, it reminded me of Caraval (by Stephanie Garber)--another book with excessively flowery language. The Hazel Wood's words were often nonsense and riddles which I guess went along with the fairy tale motif, but generally left me unimpressed.
Still, if you enjoy an odd fantasy tale I think you'll enjoy this one.
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