I absolutely loved this book and didn't want it to end. The writing is stunning, the characters amazing, and the entire storyline is something new and imaginative. I fell in love with Alice's character and all the struggles and triumphs she enduring in this story. I loved Finch as well. The amount of twists and turns, I never anticipated any of it. This story pulled me in and didn't let me go. I felt like I'd been spat out, banished when I got to the end and all I wanted to do was start the story all over again. It was an exceptional read and definitely my favourite of 2018 so far. It's dark in places and you'll find the hair standing up on the back of your arms as you travel with Alice through the Hazel Wood. There's so much to this book. The vivid descriptions, Alice as she struggles to find her place and herself, and the revelations...I just didn't see them coming. If you're a fan of fairy tales and enjoy something a little darker than your standard prince and princess stuff, then this is a must-read. It's not an airy-fairy romance. In fact, there's no romance at all. This is Alice's story (not a wonderland retelling either) and I'm not going to spoil anything. I went into this book blind and I'm so glad I did. The cover appealed to me as did the description and I was thrilled to receive a copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This book gripped me and even though I took my time reading it, savouring every sentence, it still ended and I've found myself at a loss. I'm going to miss Alice and Finch and all the weird and wonderful characters, not to mention the authors command over words. She tells an amazing story and I know I'll be buying every new book she releases.

I've never read anything like this before. Melissa Albert transports the reader to a fabulous otherworldly domain and ensures you keep turning the pages. Brilliantly written!

I loved the mystery element of this book, and the dark twisted fairytale concept made this read so creepy!

The plot begins following Alice, along with her mother, who constantly move around because of 'bad luck', which could be anything from Alice being kidnapped to their house being robbed. Alice has never met her Grandmother, the famous author of the dark fairytale collection Tales from the Hinterland, so when she dies alone in her mysterious estate the Hazel Wood, Alice is plunged into the unknown. Helped by Ellery Finch, one of her Grandmother's fans, they go in search of The Hazel Wood to try to find answers about why Alice's mother is missing, and the bad luck that seems to follow Alice everywhere.

I liked how this book tackles fairytales. Tales from the Hinterland, which is a huge part of the story, is used in a unique way to insert chilling stories into the plot as well as shrouding the story in mystery, since Alice has never read this highly popular collection. Finch, however, is an avid fan, and narrates some of the stories for Alice, allowing the reader to experience them too. I would have loved to read more of the stories from Tales from the Hinterland, and wish that Melissa Albert releases them as a novella!

I thought there was too much of an introduction to this story. The entire first half consisted of unnecessary character and world building that didn't add anything to the book and wasn't needed. This made the story hard to read, as I couldn't get invested and was not engaged in the plot at all. It was a struggle to get through, but after the halfway mark the book does start to become engaging, and the last part of the book was a lot more enjoyable. It was more magical, interesting and gripping than the first half, though I found that some parts went too quickly with not enough description.

I liked trying to work out each character's motives and thoughts, and discovering the threads that connect each of them to the main story. I did like Finch's character, but Alice was a bit annoying at times. Overall I just couldn't connect with the characters, and felt more distant and outside of the story.

The ending was satisfying and makes it seem as though it's a standalone book because everything was tied up nicely, which I liked. But apparently this is going to be a series, so it might be interesting to see where Melissa Albert continues this, and how the next book leads on from the first.
My rating: 3/5 stars
I did enjoy the fairytale aspect of this book, and the mystery woven throughout the plot kept it interesting, but I found the story slightly lacking. The first half was boring and a struggle to read, but it did pick up towards the end. I am a bit disappointed that I didn't love it as much as I was expecting to, because the synopsis sounded like a perfectly creepy fantasy story!

“Once upon a time there was a girl who changed her fate.”

The Hazel Wood is a book filled with mystery and magic and a whole lot of suspense. I think it’s very loosely based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but besides the name of the protagonist and the whole eerie and magical feeling it has to it, I thought that there weren't that many similarities, which is a good thing! I don't like retellings that are too similar to the original.  

The Hazel Wood is definitely a story you want to know the end of! For some reason, though, it’s difficult for me to write this review — probably because I have a few mixed feelings about the book itself. But I’ll try my best to get all my thoughts on paper, so to say.

"Because if you’ve spent your whole life running, how do you learn to stand still?"

Let’s start with the story, because that’s the part I liked most about The Hazel Wood. I think Melissa Albert did a great job here and took common elements, but wove them into a new and unique story. The world-building, too, was interesting and kept me wanting to know what really happened. Because that’s the thing: we had a whole lot of mystery and I really, really wanted to know what’s going on. What was Alice’s story?

The characters were a bit of a problem. Well, not all of them, but Alice herself. She went through a lot of character development, which was great and at the end I liked her a lot more, but at the beginning she was really unlikeable. She was always talking other people down, she was mean, almost a bully, which is something I don’t like to read about at all. After finishing the book I realised that this might indeed was the author’s intention, but not liking the protagonist is not something I enjoy in books. Still, this shouldn’t be a reason to put you off of this book, because as I said, there was a lot of character development.

"Another fairy-tale lesson learned: don’t look back."

The writing was another aspect of The Hazel Wood I enjoyed. The story was very gripping and the mystery part so well down that, at some points, I started to get paranoid myself when Alice felt like something or someone was after her. Pulling you into a story that way, that’s not something every author can do, so that was very well done by Melissa Albert.

All in all I can say that I definitely enjoyed reading The Hazel Wood. It was a gripping story with a powerful message: we can change our fate and write our own story. The mystery parts were the best part of this book, in my opinion, and I really liked the way Melissa Albert told Alice’s story. The reason why I still can’t give a higher rating than 3,5 is that I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and couldn’t really sympathise with the protagonist (at least not in the beginning). I’m a person who really enjoys character driven stories, so not connection to one of the main characters is a huge downside for me. But that’s only my personal preference and The Hazel Wood is definitely a thrilling and enjoyable read.

The debut novel by Melissa Albert has been quoted by some as being like a modern day Alice in Wonderland and having read it, I can see why some reviewers have made that comparison. Our central character is Alice, a teenager who has spent her whole life moving from one bed to another with her mother across America. She has a famous grandmother, Althea Proserpine, who wrote one fairy-tale novel that blew the minds of those who read it, then disappeared from the face of the earth. She has never known a steady homelife, until now with her mother's husband and her step-sister. One day coming home from school Alice discovers that her mother has been kidnapped and her step father literally forces her out of his house at gun-point; she knows that she has no one else to turn to other than Ellery Finch, a boy at her school who is kind-of obsessed by her grandmother's book Tales from the Hinterland. He knows the short stories inside out and is the only one who can unravel the clues to help rescue Alice's mother from the Hazel Wood, the estate where her grandmother lived and died.

The book takes us on a journey with Alice and Finch where no one is really whom they seem and no one can be trusted. Think dark fairy tale here (like Alice Carter) and you will have some idea of what sort of world is being conjured up. This is Melissa Albert going back to the dark fairy tale days of the Grimm brothers, not sugar coating them like Disney does. I wouldn't say this is necessarily a book for younger teen readers as there are some quite dark and violent moments in the story but if you like a twisted fairy tale then this will definitely keep you turning the pages long into the night. My only gripe is that the American cover is so much prettier than the UK version!

A dark and disturbingly delicious take on the fairy tale for an adult or young adult reader, this is a book that does not pull any punches, and will take the reader down many sinister paths as they follow the adventures of seventeen year old Alice. Alice has lived her life on the run, along with her mother Ella, never staying in any one place long enough to put down roots, or long enough for the strange bad luck that follows them to catch up. When they hear that Alice's grandmother, reclusive author Althea Proserpine, has died, they decide to head back to the family estate, Hazel Wood. Before that can happen, Alice's mother is kidnapped, and with the help of her strange classmate FInn,and some clues that suggest there may be more to her Grandmother's fairy tales than it seems, Alice embarks on a quest to the mysterious and magical Hinterlands to find her.
While the first half of the book reads almost like a contemporary YA mystery, as we learn about Alice and her family, and meet the strange yet charming FInn, around the halfway point the magical aspects of the story kick in and take it up another notch. Some of my favorite things about the book were the sinister and almost scary stories from the Tales From The Hinterland that are woven into the narrative, and the characters from them that come to life. It is clear that this book was written by someone with a huge love for the fairy tale genre, and the stories within the story were incredibly vivid. However that is not to say that the rest of the book was not just as enjoyable, though admittedly I preferred the second half of the book to the first. From once Alice and Finn set out to find the Hazel Wood, and wound up in the Hinterlands , the sense of darkness and danger intensified deliciously , making it difficult to put down this magical and mesmerising book

*I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

I have mixed feelings about The Hazel Wood.

The first half seems to be a typical Young Adult coming of age setup: loner teen with a mysterious past trying to live a ‘normal life’. The background on her grandmother and the book-within-a-book of fairytales, Tales From the Hinterland, form an intriguing hook that I should have found utterly compelling.

Unfortunately I was hindered by the complete unlikeability of the two main characters, Alice and Finch. As the plot unfolds Alice’s anger and distrust become more understandable, but in the early chapters she seems to be unnecessarily prickly and unpleasant, making it hard to identify with her or engage in her struggles. Likewise, Finch really feels like he should be a lovable character, but the barriers he has in place against his fictional world seem to also act on the reader…bringing down the shutters on the ‘real’ character and presenting us (and Alice) with a shallow facade.

The strongest points of this book are definitely the fairy story elements, and my favourite moments are when Hinterland stories are retold, and when Alice has to face the Halfway Woods with the traditional three challenges they present, and the riddle to solve. At these points the writing is beautiful and haunting, and I just know that some of the stories and Stories (Katherine) will be visiting my dreams for a long time.

There are obvious comparisons to draw with Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, but Melissa Albert actually references a very broad range of texts and tales, overtly and covertly, making a pleasurable treasure hunt for the alert and obsessive reader (guilty!). Also much like the older Alice, there are points when this story loses its coherence and takes on a dreamlike quality. Fairytales operate on rules, (youngest son/daughter; threes; kindness to elderly strangers and so on) but parts of Alice’s journey in the Hazel Wood and the Hinterland seem to drift from these rules and at these points the plot seems to briefly lose its way amongst dark and unfamiliar trees.

Overall this is a gripping read for teens, young adults and adults who like their fairytales dark and disturbing.


When Alice was born, her eyes were black from end to end, and the midwife didn’t stay long enough to wash her.

– Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood

(Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog)

This book started very good for me and got me hooked until the character Ellery is introduced. After that things got a bit boring. I still liked it. The story is interesting and have lots to entertain. There was a fine balance of teenage drama and family mystery.

Character building was the weakest point of the book. They don't have the depth to justify with their actions. So apart from having cliché characters I think it was alright. I would read the second book.

I had some trouble making my mind up about this one, and even after I mostly, sort of decided what I thought, I found I couldn't actually put in into coherent thoughts. So this is my best attempt at trying to explain The Hazel Wood...



I started out really excited for this. I seemed just the right mix of fairytale, family drama and creepiness. And I have to say, I was hooked for the first few chapters. Very slowly, however, I started losing interest in what was happening: I just felt like we were taking an incredibly long road to get to the core of the story, and my attention waned. When we finally got to the Hinterland which, to me, sounded like the most interesting part of the story, it was over way too fast, and I felt like it didn't have as much substance to it as I would have liked.


I also had some issues with the characters, in that most of them were actually not developed at all, acting as barely more than filler. The main character, Alice, and Ellery, the rich kid who's obsessed with the book Alice's grandmother wrote, are pretty much the only characters that get some sort of in-depth analysis, and even then I had issues with them. They rarely move outside their stereotypical features and their defining characteristics remained fixed throughout the book. Alice was a very difficult character to relate to, particularly due to her bad temper and complete lack of tact, but that wasn't a major deal-breaker, as I often enjoy difficult characters. Alice, however, I just did not care for, and her change in behaviour by the end of the book felt to sudden to be called 'development' - and sorry, the explanation provided for this was just not good enough for me.


I feel like this book had great potential, and I myself was really excited for it. The author's writing style is amazing, and it was really the only thing that kept me going on in reading. The few Hinterland fairytales we did get to read throughout the book were deliciously creepy and original, and I believe the whole book could have been as good as those. As it is, however, it felt like reading a mildly original Alice in Wonderland retelling, with plenty of potential for development in terms of interesting storyline and characters, but never quite blossoming. I would definitely give the author another try, even though this one just wasn't for me.

Fabulous revisiting of the fairytale genre. This is a gothic bildungsroman where a young woman's quest for answers to her past, leads her to a grim and dangerous cast of storybook characters come to life.

I was sent The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert to read and review by NetGalley.
I enjoyed this novel, although it took me a while to really get into it. There were quite a lot of Americanisms that I wasn’t familiar with (my problem for being a Brit!) and it was a bit repetitious at the beginning and very slightly muddled.
However, the premise of the story was really good and the further I got into it the better it became. I feel that the second half of the book had the potential to be extended somewhat, as to me the other stories within ‘Tales from the Hinterland’ (the book written by the protagonists’ grandmother Althea Proserpine) could have been explored in more depth. A good read nonetheless.

This review was meant to go up last week, however I left it pending so that I could review it before posting and then we lost our internet and had to argue with our provider over the fact that their end said it was fine and yet we had nothing...so that sucked, but it's back and so here's the review! (finally...)

I couldn't really rate this any higher than 3 because even though I really enjoyed the beginning and the ending was quite good I did get a little bored in the middle.
It seemed to switch pace and/or direction somewhere around there, I wasn't quite expecting it, obviously, and it threw me off my stride some.
I could have done without the weirdness of the second half, though I'm guessing it was the point? It just really didn't make sense and I have to say I skim read most of it, jumping to more interesting sections.

I don't think I've read a book like this before which was quite nice. It starts off with Alice and her mother having finally settled down after a life on the road. This is new for Alice and she's struggling a little. When her mother is taken and those around her don't care, she asks for help from a school friend and they get sucked into all sorts of weirdness.
Some of it is, quite cleverly, backwards. I'd already worked it out when we got there, so I'm guessing it was pretty obvious, as that's usually something I miss. (No, really!)

There was a little sadness in this book, but as I've watched things like Doctor Who and Supernatural I've developed the bad habit of refusing to believe things are permanent. Especially in fairy or fantasy books. They can still change!
This doesn't always work out in my favour and I won't be telling you if it did here because spoilers....
I don't think I had a favourite character because I was too busy being suspicious of them all. I wouldn't exactly say I liked Alice but she was a nice main character to follow around, by which I mean it was nice she was so different to the ones I usually follow around.

As I was writing this review, I discovered this is book 1, as in there will be more than one book. I thought it wrapped everything really neatly in this one so maybe book 2 will be related rather than a follow on?
Also, book 2.5 is apparently going to be Tales from the Hinderland.
Yeah, no.
Having read a book about why it was a bad idea to read that book, you think we want to read it?!
Because you're totally right...

I found this book difficult to read in places, mainly because I am a timid soul and it gets a bit creepy in places. It took longer to read than usual because I wouldn't read late in the evening in case it inhabited my dreams! But this is an extremely well written fairy tale, and I would like to read more by this author.

Alice is a strong character, but there is an ''otherworldliness" to her that you wonder about; she sees things that other people don't see. Her friend Finch seems normal, if a bit of a geek, and you imagine he is going to save Alice. However he ultimately has an entirely different agenda. He is a sweet, well defined character, and you do care what happens to both him and Alice.

If it seems a cruel, and bloodthirsty fairy tale one has to remember that there were some pretty cruel and bloodthirsty fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm! This book is intended for young adults and I would imagine that they would like it. If the Magic of Harry Potter worked so well with its audience those same people will be fascinated by the strong magical elements here.

Well worth reading.

This is not a genre of YA book I would normally choose to read. However, the Net Galley write-up persuaded me it was a promising book to request - and I’m glad I did.

Alice is left motherless in New York and she undertakes a journey, to the Hazel Wood, to track her mother down, despite warnings not to travel. The first half of the book sees Alice living a modern tennager’s life in one of the world’s most amazing metropolitan cities, coupled with seeing characters from the Hinterland - a fantasy, fairytale world invented by her grandmother, a famous writer who recently died. Along with new-found friend and rich boy, Ellory Finch, Alice sets off. Latter chapters are less exciting - but I realise that, for many readers, this might not be the case. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of contemporary life against intriguing characters and this is what made the first part more appealing for me.

This is, for sure, going to be a popular series. Will Ellory Finch be found? Are there other hidden stories that Alice will discover? The writer will know so it’s up to readers to wait until the sequel is published to find out.

I loved this book so much! Although the really fantastical elements don't kick in until approximately two thirds of the way in there are echoes of Angela Carter and the Brothers Grimm woven throughout the whole story. I would absolutely read more about both the Half Wood and the Hinterland!

Alice is a difficult character (with good reason) but I warmed to her immediately and couldn't help rooting for her. There are romantic elements to the story (oh Finch!) but it remains firmly a fantasy rather than romance tale. Overall, a dark, enjoyable trip through a twisted fairytale land, with a strong heroine and a satisfying (although not neat) ending.

Very descriptive. I liked the movement between fantasy and reality.

It’s a nicely balanced tale, perfect for young teen reading, with a strong lead character going on a journey to find out who she really is. And when that means finding out she’s s fairytale, you know there’s plenty of interesting events to come along the way! A pleasant read and just enough depth for a meaningful story

If you’re a fan of fairytales – particularly the dark, twisted kind – you’ll like this book. It’s about Alice, whose grandmother is famous for writing a volume of original fairytales from the Hinterland. She’s never met her grandmother and never read the book as her mother wouldn’t allow it. Then her mother goes missing, and Alice has to journey to her grandmother’s house and the mysterious Hazel Wood to find her – and discovers along the way that the fairytales might not be fiction, after all.

The book is well paced and interesting. Alice is an engaging character, if not always likeable, and the twists and turns along the way were well set out without feeling predictable. Throughout the book, we get snippets of the original fairytales, which feel very much like the original Brothers Grimm stories, where happy endings didn’t always happen and many people met gruesome ends. I think it’s a book that you’ll enjoy if you like this kind of thing, but if not then it may not be for you (from reading the reviews!).

I was supplied an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is definitely one of those times where I was far too hyped up about a book before reading it. I’ve been seeing countless reviews where people gave this book 5 stars and as a result I was expecting to be blown away by the story. Now, I did like the book, especially the fairy tale elements (I’ve probably mentioned enough by now that fairy tales definitely intrigue me). But I didn’t find it to be a page turner until maybe half way in.

I expected a lot more of the story to be based in the Hazel Wood (well, the Hinterland really) yet it was set mostly in the “normal” world, largely set in New York in the beginning. I do love New York so it was nice in that sense but just not what I was expecting? It was almost as though there were elements of fantasy in an otherwise contemporary YA story before we got to the Hinterland. I appreciate it was probably necessary for the reader to be immersed in the story more but a couple of times at the beginning I found myself getting almost bored as I just wanted to read about the fantasy side.

Characters wise, the main character Alice I felt was being built up steadily throughout the story. She grew up with only her mother Ella, who keeps her away from fairy tales which Alice dislikes at first as she’s curious about her grandmother (who wrote a book called Tales from the Hinterland – a collection of fairy tales). Ella is a strong character and I wish we’d seen more of her in the book due to that. A boy called Ellery Finch helps Alice through the story, as he’s a huge fan of her grandmother’s book. I liked his character, he was like a ray of sunshine in some of the slower parts of the beginning and I found myself preferring his character to Alice at these points.

A couple of the chapters were dedicated to stories from her grandmother’s book, and honestly I loved those chapters. That’s another reason why I liked Finch’s character, without him we wouldn’t even have those chapters. The dark fairy tales that Melissa has created are fascinating and I was very happy to see that there are talks of a whole book full of them. In terms of a follow up to The Hazel Wood though I’m not quite sure about that – I felt that this book wrapped up nicely so I think I’d have to wait and see a synopsis to see if I’d read the next book in the series.

I did enjoy this read, but it just didn’t live up to my too high expectations. I’d definitely adore to read Tales from the Hinterland in full as chapters which were set in the Hinterland were by far my favourite parts of The Hazel Wood, yet ultimately the slow start had me struggling to fall in love with the story completely.