The Hazel Wood (Hazel Wood, #1)

by Melissa Albert

[Empress of Sass]

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was a bit of an enigma for me, I finished it a few days ago and I'm still not sure what to think about it, or whether I even liked. I'm giving it a 4/5, because it was well written, and I think my disconnect with it was no real fault of the author, I just personally couldn't connect.

It starts off extremely slow, and it isn't until the halfway point that things really start going. I found it to be a bit of a slogging read, especially in the beginning, mostly due to the writing style- which I found to be trying to hard to be mysterious, elusive and deep. I know this style of raining down metaphors and similes and speaking in vague mysterious tones is incredibly popular, but it is not and never has been my "thing". Don't get me wrong, I love a good plot twist, but I really have no love for books that try to be deep. Depth should come from the story, and the connections the reader makes to it, not from overwrought prose. That is my personal opinion anyway.

The characters felt under developed. Even though it was written in the first person, I couldn't connect to Alice. I'm a little tired of the "push the world away angry protagonist", and wish I could have seen her long for connections a little more. Instead she only seems to truly care about one person- her mother, and everyone else matters very little to her, thus because of the first person perspective, they become under developed to the reader.

I liked the book a little more when she finally made it to the Hinterland, but I found the world building there to be a little anemic, the fabric of the world was there, but threadbare and faded. I wanted it to be more magical. That's not to say I wanted it to be less dark, I do enjoy a good dark fairy tale, but I found it to be empty and paper thin, dull where it should be gleaming with malice.

I enjoyed the Story Spinner, and the general concepts surrounding the Stories. The way the Hinterland acted to keep Stories on their path was well done, and I wish we could have seen more of that aspect.

The one character I was really interested in was Ellery Finch, and I think by the end he was done a great disservice by the author. I did not understand some of his choices at all in the last part of the book, and without going into specifics, I did not like the ending at all. If there was a sequel, I wouldn't pick it up.

I couldn't justify giving it less than a 4 though, because I can see that it would appeal to certain readers, it just didn't appeal to me. If I was rating it entirely on personal enjoyment, and not overall quality, it'd be a high 2 for me. It's not a book I have any desire to read again.