Thank you Penguin Random House and Netgalley for a copy of this book. I was excited to receive and Arc of this book after all the rumours that I have heard.
17-Year-old Alice and her mother has spent most of her life on the road living in cars and living on people’s sofas running from something and has a constant series of bad luck. When one day Alice’s mother goes missing. The story also talks about Alice’s grandmother who she has never met. A one hit wonder author who wrote a book of fairy-tale called The Hinterland who made it big and now lives as a recluse in Hazel Wood. Alice with her mother Ella find out that her grandmother has passed away. Ellery Finch who is a fan of the book helps Alice go on her journey to Hazel Wood to try find Ella.
The book was beautifully written with its characters and descriptions. I liked how the author merged the ‘real’ world with the ‘fantasy’ world and I like the idea of this story in the first half but unfortunately the 2nd half of this book didn’t grip me, like other books of this genre does and I got confused in some parts and wondered what was going on. It made me skim pages. Sorry I really wanted to really like this book but it’s 3 stars from me.

Many years ago Alice's estranged grandmother published a collection of fairy tales. Now Alice's mother is missing and it seems that the Hinterland isn't as fictional as she thought. An enjoyable enough urban fantasy that throws up many familiar themes rather than breaking any new ground. Alice is a prickly main character and the first-person narrative just manages to stop her from becoming too flat to carry the story.

The pacing is problematic. The foundations of the first half take far too to to become established and too often the most detailed parts were also the least interesting. Once the Hinterland finally begins to emerge Albert's world-building becomes strangely curtailed, as if she was working to a word-limit and hasn't left herself enough room to do her world real justice. The wickedly dark fairytales that we glimpse from Althea's collection are the strongest party of the novel and show the real potential that wasn't quite realised elsewhere. I would love to see these stories collected in their own book.

3.5 stars
This was a well written book. Prose was good. Characters were good.
It's just that... The story sounded familiar. It felt like all the Alice in Wonderland books I've read before.
It's okay though. I don't mind that - it just makes it not the sort of book I'd usually pick up. I reckon a lot of readers will love it though hence the 3.5 stars

It was the cover that first drew me to this book, and once I'd read the description I just had to read it. I couldn't put it down. I loved the creepiness of the fairy tale world (let's face it, most fairy tales are pretty gruesome!) The plot kept twisting, like the paths through the wood, and I couldn't guess what was going to happen next. I will be recommending this to anyone who will listen to me!!!

The Hazel Wood
This is a wonderfully atmospheric YA/Crossover fairy tale with an original gripping plot and intriguing characters. All is not what it seems in this fast-paced, well-written debut novel. Some of the scenes are very memorable - the ballroom one particularly has stayed with me as a lasting, horrifying image. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dark tales with a twist. Thanks to NetGalley for supplying review copy.

I had seen this book every where so jumped at the chance to pick it up. The story follows 17 year old Alice and her mother who seemly have been constantly hounded by bad luck. With Alice's only other family member being an estranged author grandmother living in the mysterious Hazel Wood. Alice and her mother have gone it alone.... together the two of them have spent years and years traveling around the country; living out of cars, staying on sofas and camping out in spare rooms. That is until Alice's mother is kidnapped....

I had such high expectations about this book, I have seen it every where. and honestly it was a good little book. The setting was great, the characters were all brilliantly lovable in their own right and the setting was both dark and disturbing and yet beautifully whimsical in equal measures. But as soon as we stepped into Hinterland I was beyond confused. The pacing was too fast and I had no clue where we were, where we were going nor why. I would of loved for it just to slow down, enjoy the setting, from what I gather it was a forest? I had no idea where the Hazel Wood was in relation to other places in Hinterland nor what purpose the bone and comb storyline served.

That aside, I really enjoyed the read, for a fairytale type book it read really easily and wasn't too bogged down with flowery writing. I loved that Albert gave us the hint of a romance with out it ever taking over the story.

This is the kind of book that keeps you up all night. First, because you are desperate to finish it. Later, because some stories just won't leave you alone, even after you finished them.
In The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, seventeen-year-old Alice has been running from bad luck together with her mother Ella for her entire life. All these incidents and unfortunate happenings somehow tie back to Alice her grandmother, Althea Proserpine. Althea is the author of a mysterious book of dark fairy tales, The Hinterland. After she became famous Althea has led an isolated life on her estate, The Hazel Wood.
When Alice and Ella get the message that Althea has passed away, they feel that this will be the ending of their bad luck. However, they are wrong and soon Alice finds out that her mother has been kidnapped by figures from the mysterious Hinterland.
Now all by herself in New York Alice turns to her crazy rich classmate Ellery Finch for help. Together they start a journey to the Hazel Wood in order to find Ella. However, it appears that Finch has his own reasons for helping Alice.
To me, the synopsis of The Hazel Wood alone seemed thrilling already, but in the book, the real sensation started only after Alice and Finch took off for the Hinterland. Both of them are curious characters. Finch his character scored points with me, which is totally related to a certain affection for rich, preppy, and smart guys from New York that I developed years ago after reading Gossip Girl. Alice is mysterious and has a good taste in books, also she is badass and very independent. And I thought the relationship between these two was so interesting, except for how it was at the end of this book but that is something I cannot elaborate on too much because of spoilers… Let’s just say I would be more than curious to see where it goes in a next book.
This book was so incredibly freaky and dark, but just the right amount. It was eerie, but not very violent in a graphic way. Perhaps because it is in a fairytale setting. Oh, and by the way, the fairytales in The Hazel Wood read as if they have been around for years! But actually, they are all invented by Albert herself. The world she built is enchanting and rich in detail, which is wonderful, but it is the dark veil that covers the entire book that makes it even more interesting and almost addictive.
I would like to elaborate more on Alice her journey to find her mother, but this was such an unexpected plot twist for me, that I am so anxious about giving even the smallest of spoilers that I really do not know how to do this. It was so good though, and certainly not what I expected. However, this part certainly required to keep my attention focused, otherwise, I would have lost the storyline in a matter of sentences. Not sure if this added to the books’ allure or that it was more of a flaw to me.
All taken together I rate The Hazel Wood with 4 out of 5 stars. Mainly because it was super freakishly good, but I need to know more about the mysterious being of Ellery Finch.
I received a digital review copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own. My review is susceptible to changes in the final copy of this work.

Not my normal style of book however I really enjoyed it. A very warped sense of fairy tales but a really good read!

I'm not normally one to gush...I'm gushing! I loved this book from beginning to end. Original, creative, suspenseful, unpredictable and beautifully written. The author cleverly throws in in poetic descriptions but it's so subtle that instead of pretentious, it art-fully weaves this magical world. And neither does she rely on cheap thrills but rather inventive, captivating storytelling. So much respect for this talented author who has both the craft and an original idea!

I'm not sure a description does it justice but here goes:
Alice and her single mom, Ella, are exceptionally close and estranged from their famous, hermit grandmother. They have a history of bad-luck but have managed to stay ahead of the game...until now. Alice's mom disappears and she is forced to enlist the help of a classmate, Finch, in her search. Together they find themselves on this roller-coaster journey, where fairy tales seem to become reality. Just do yourself the favour, and read the first page...you wont put it down after that.

The Hazel Wood was an interesting book but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea.
I liked the writing style and the descriptions, and the first half part did captured me with its mysteries, but I lost interest in the second half. The story itself was too strange and a little bit off, I didn't feel captivated emotionally. Plus, it reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, (but more mysterious and dark, in a way) and I'm not a huge fan of it. So, maybe this is why I didn't love it as I expected.
Overall, if you like/love strange stories set in strange worlds, then you'll be satisfied by this one.

In perfect Alice in Wonderland style, this book couldn't be more confusing, unusual and just plain weird. But somehow it works, in exactly the way I suppose Alice did for Carroll, and so I liked it. It perfectly captures the mysterious oddities of that universe, but adds a new perspective on things so it's not an exact replica.

It's clear from the start that the blurb does nothing but confuse curious readers even further - not one bit of it indicated to me that this was going to be a sort of retelling of a well known tale such as that. But the mystery does nothing but continue as you progress through the book, still pretty unaware of what on Earth you're even reading about, until eventually that light-bulb moment happens and you realise the plot is unravelling. The question really is, can you be bothered to wait it out for that eventuality? Because sometimes it was a tough slog for me.

Alice lives with her mother who eventually goes missing (not a spoiler, the blurb has that covered). She teams up with a boy named Finch who seems to know an awful lot about Alice's grandmother (sadly deceased) and the book she is famous for having penned. So off they head to The Hazel Wood, a dark and deceptive place of mystery, where they believe they might find clues about her mother's whereabouts (and maybe some answers to explain all this bad luck Alice has been attracting). Alice and Finch are your only buddies in this book though so don't expect a massive cast of interesting or fantastical characters as with Wonderland.

What I liked about Alice was that she definitely knows how to follow a hunch, which makes for interesting reading. Finch also has that kind of likeable yet quirky character trait which I find easy to mesh with. He's much more interesting than Alice in fact. On top of all this, Melissa Albert does a good job of making this book pretty dark and eerie - a must have for fairy-tale-esk books right now!

Sadly, this story takes such an incredibly long time to take off and wasn't the beautiful, alluring craziness of the original. It is slow, sometimes overly descriptive and the dialogue is often quite uninteresting. If I had clicked more with Alice I might have found it an easier ride, but sometimes she just comes off as snarky and kind of mean! Not a character I can invest in comfortably without having the urge to shout at her through the pages about her terrible manners (I mean, Lewis Carroll made Alice particularly proper, if not a little nosy and sassy, but never mean).

The story is eventually worth the wait, but the journey isn't as weirdly whimsical or viciously exciting as a spin off of a much loved fairy tale ought to be. I'm sorry to say I probably would lean towards recommending Heartless by Marissa Meyer to fans of the Alice World, rather than this one, for a more action-packed, fantastical adventure.

ARC provided free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For seventeen years Alice and her mother Ella have moved from state to state, school to school, and home to home. They’ve been on the road for as long as Alice can remember, trying to stay ahead of the bad luck clipping at their heels. Then they get a letter about Alice’s reclusive grandmother, the author of a rare book of fairytales The Hinterland, who has passed away and left them her estate, The Hazel Wood. Believing they are now safe they stop moving. However, for Alice, her luck doesn’t change. Her mother gets kidnapped and she meets the fairytale characters from her grandmother’s book. Her mother had just one message for her: stay away from The Hazel Wood.

There were some things I really liked about The Hazel Wood. I loved the atmospheric writing, it felt enchanting and mesmerising. At times The Hazel Wood was haunting, creepy, and suspenseful. I, initially, really enjoyed the mystery surrounding the book of fairytales, The Hinterland. But then the halfway mark hit and things got really… confusing and muddled for me. The slow pacing and confusing plot really did lose me a little bit and it did struggle to capture my attention again. However, the last 20% or so really picked up again and I was dragged back into the story and mystery.

The Hazel Wood does, admittedly, have a very Wonderland feel to it, and Melissa Albert is definitely a talented writer. What I actually enjoyed most about this were the fairytales from The Hinterland, I would actually read a whole book of these fairytales. They were dark and brutal, just my kind of fairytale.

I really enjoyed the fantasy setting we saw in the last half of the book. I do have to give it to Albert, The Hazel Wood was very unique in this sense. I loved the aspects of Story’s and the Story Spinner, it really added a fresh spin on the typical fairytale books out there.

Alice, our protagonist, is not a character anyone will easily like. However, I love the development she goes through throughout the novel. She’s easily angered, but she’s smart and motivated.

The Hazel Wood is a mesmerising and magical read that lost its footing for me sometimes in the middle, and it is a book that I imagine will be either a hit or miss for most people. For me though, it just sits somewhere in the middle.

I thought The Hazel Wood was amazing.

I love fairy tales, the darker the better. I dislike attempts to make fairy tales cute. Fairy tales should be terrifying.

I knew I had to read The Hazel Wood as soon as I read the blurb and I was not disappointed.

I loved everything about this book. I loved Alice, her mother Ella and the fleeting glimpses of her grand-mother Althea. The relationship between Alice and Ella is quite dark and twisted at times. Why do they always move? Why has Ella cut Althea out of her life? What do the hints of violence really mean?

I would have loved to read a copy of Althea’s Tales from the Hinterland. I loved the idea of the obscure book having a massive fan base. I would have been part of that club.

The Hazel Wood offers the perfect fairy tale quest, Alice must journey into darkness to find her mother and unravel the truth about herself and Althea’s stories. I loved the concept of the book, that Althea’s stories are real, stolen from a world where fairy tales life and breathe.

The book is pretty dark at times, like the perfect fairy tale. I was stunned when Alice discovers the truth about herself, her connection to the Hinterland and her place in the Hinterland.

My favourite bit of the book is when Alice and Althea’s uber-fan Finch decide to go to the Hazel Wood to rescue Alice’s mother. The Hazel Wood is the name of Althea’s mansion but it’s a lot more than a house.

The Hazel Wood is fantastic. Well worth a read.

So I have seen this novel all over my bookish social media and I couldn't help but request it when I saw that it was available on Netgalley! thank you so much for the opportunity!

I absolutely loved it, it was one of my favourite first reads of any year so far. I enjoyed reading the characters and found that I was wanting to keep reading to find out what was happening.

I loved the character of Alice and Finch and their chemistry and I was constantly wanting to see more of it and see how that developed as they moved along in the journey.
I also loved how the fairytale characters were brought to life in a different way to the regular characters and were given an aura that showed the reader they were characters from a book within a book.

The writing gave such an amazing eerie feeling to the novel and managed to have me gripped from the very beginning and I was constantly wanting to now what was going to happen next and what fairytale would be the next one to appear. The writing was done in such an amazing way that the transition between the novel and the re-tellings of the fairy tales was so straight forward and seemless. They were able to fit in so well and the fact that the author not only created the novel and the world within it but ontop of that created a bunch of new fairy tales and a world within the novel world.

I have given this a 4/4.5 out of 5 stars and have already recommended this to a variety of my friends. My only reason for not giving it five stars is the fact I would have loved to have found out more about Finch and his adventures in Hinterland as well as what he got up after.

Wow, what a roller coaster of a ride this is! And when it does finally stop, you get off on wobbly legs and think - exciting, amazing, scary, thrilling, but with this book, it is also dark, creepy, poignant, captivating, uncomfortable, painful and heart wrenching. It has been a long time since I have come across a book like this one and although one part of me loves it, there is another that says it will be a long time again before I am prepared to go down that rabbit hole again.

It is definitely not a cozy comfortable read, where you can put your feet up with a hot cup of tea and a biscuit. It is a gripping and sometimes confusing read, where your eyes rush through to find out what happens next, while at the same time appreciating the incredible images that unfold in your brain.

I think this is one of the books that you either love or hate and because I will not be rushing to read her next novel, I give it 4 stars (I really like it, rather than love it).... although I will probably not be able to resist. I received an ARC copy form net galley, and this is my honest review.

Fantastic! The story was really well crafted, the characters were well imagined, and though not always likable I always cared about what they were going through and wanted to keep turning pages to find out what happened next. I loved the way that the story starts off in a very recognizable way, this is the world as we all know it, and then gradually as the writer peels back the layers and draws you along into something darker and grittier the magic seeps in and you're carried off into a modern day fairy tale. As a bibliophile I also can't help but love how much emphasis is put on the power of story throughout the novel. I never wanted to put this book down, and if I had to name any gripe it would simply be that I want to spend more time in this world, and with these characters.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for my copy in return for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for a honest review

I was expecting so much from this book, lured in with a beautiful cover, a compelling synopsis and a lot of positive reviews. I couldn’t wait to get reading.

17 year old Alice and her mother live a life on the road, always on the move, unable to settle and hampered by bad luck. With the death of Alice’s Grandmother, an author of a rare, fabled book of fairy tales, Alice’s life becomes even more complicated. A shadowy figure right from the pages of her Grandmothers book has taken her mother and lures her to the Hazel Wood. Can Alice rescue her mother from the Hazel Wood where her Grandmothers tales began?
Sounded perfect, my kind of genre but, unfortunately, no. The first half of the book set in the ‘real world ‘ of New York was laboriously slow and drawn out. One dimensional, uninteresting characters and a lead character who was just plain unlikeable. I hoped something dark would eat her. The book promised a dark fairy tale but I thought it really failed to deliver. When we meet the character, Twice - Killed Katherine my hopes were high. A seemingly interesting character and a bright/dark start arose a piqued interest however this was short lived and the character was made dull like the rest of the book.
When we eventually get to the second half of the book and Alice’s arrival at the Hazel Wood the book becomes a mess of random, disjointed weirdness. It became clear that I really didn’t care what happened and was extremely disappointed.
The author really missed a trick as the only time the book really worked was when we hear the Tales from the Hinterland, the book within the book. These tales are dark and compelling and really interesting, everything the actual novel isn’t.
Although critical of the novel the author writes well and some of the prose is quite beautiful. It’s just a shame it’s let down by a lack lustre plot, poor characters and a lack of darkness that was promised.
2/5

A mesmerising, unusual story that incorporated elements of contemporary, fantasy and mystery fiction. The first half read most like a mystery. It's a little bit eerie with some supernatural elements creeping in, but set in a contemporary world. I absolutely loved the basis for the plot - fairytales written by our protagonist's grandmother that have a cult-like following. Details of these stories, their author and their fans are slowly revealed in a gripping way.

The second half was much more fantastical. Full of lyrical prose, weird and wacky characters and fairytale logic. This is where my investment in the story started to wane. It was beautifully written, but just not for me. The real world, magical realism part to this story suited my tastes much more.

Recommended for fans of twisted, peculiar fantasy with fairytale elements.

The Hazel Wood is one of those novels that are capable of keeping you up at night, because you need to know what happens next. The thing that I loved the most about this book is the unique way in which the author has structured the storyline: using plot twists and a slow revelation of clues in relation to the main mystery, the Author has been able to keep high the level of suspense for two-thirds of the book, until the truth about Alice and her family is finally unveiled.

I really liked the world-building in the Hazel Wood, the way reality and fairy tales are intertwined in a beautiful, eerie and fascinating mix, together with the existence of many doors and passages in and out the Hinterland.

The Hazel wood is a coming-of-age novel, in which Alice will be able to discover who she really is and her place in the world: in order to rescue her mother, Alice will be ready to tackle any challenge and face any fate that has been established for her since her birth, proving that no-one but herself is the creator of her own story.

The only critic that I have is about the finale: I found that the ending was too quick compared to remaining part of the book. I don't know if it was done on purpose, maybe recalling fairy tales endings in which everything ends quickly after having defeated the villain, but I would have liked a few more lines instead of a summary.

That being said, I really loved Alice's story and I have no clue about what it is going to happen next. Can't wait to read The Hazel wood #2.

A creepy fairy-tale that will leave you awake all night. A book full of questions and wonders that is wonderful to read, and described beautifully (or should that be creepily). A few shocks and twists in this magically woven tale. A book you won't want to put down.