Today we're going to talk about The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. She calls it fantasy noir, which is a pretty good description of the mood. Its about Alice, her weird family, Ellery Finch, and secrets. So even though its a weird time in the rest of the world, we're going to continue in the normal fashion.
Characters!
- Alice- Alice is Alice. She's lived her entire life moving from place to place with her mom, Ella, running from bad luck. She's not particularly spunky, that's not to say she's just blah but she's not my favorite protagonist ever. Her grandmother wrote a book of fairy tales called Tales From the Hinterland, and she's never met her grandmother.
- Ella- Alice's mother who's missing for most of the book. That's basically the plot, Ella goes missing and Alice has to find her. She's weird and just wants the best for Alice even if she goes about in weird ways.
- Ellery Finch- His name is actually a lot longer but I don't really want to type it out and he goes by Ellery anyway. He's a nerd, and a rich nerd at that. His father is really rich, and his mother is dead. And to top it all off he's low key obsessed with Tales From the Hinterland.
Plot!
So like I said, Alice and her mom have spent her entire life moving from place to place running from bad luck. Alice's grandmother wrote a book, and is very wealthy because of it. But Ella hates her mother, and as a result has kept Alice as far away from her, and her estate, The Hazel Wood, as possible. You know how I said that Alice and Ella were constantly running from bad luck? Well Ella gets news that her mother has died and they finally settle down in New York City. Ella meets a guy, they get married, he turns out to be a jerk yada yada yada. Then Ella gets kidnapped, and had only one thing to say to Alice "Stay away from the Hazel Wood". Well Alice can't do that. She just has to go and find Ella. Well Alice met Ellery at school and he found out who she is. And they became friends by virtue of his minor obsession. So she manages to drag Ellery out to the Hazel Wood on an adventure to find Ella. Of course chaos ensues because they find the Hinterland, and all of it's messed up stories.
My Opinion!
The Hazel Wood was pretty good. It's not the best fantasy I've ever read but by far not the worst. The plot gets really confusing because well if you have a series of stories with in a story and the world the stories are set in really exists it can get confusing. That being said it was really good. Alice may not be the best character ever but she has personality unlike some characters. Ellery is fun but also a little lack luster. All of the fairy tale characters are really cool and they have rather interesting names (Alice-three-times, Twice-Killed-Katherine, etc.). The writing itself was very good. I give it six out of ten paw prints 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾
Wishing you all the luck with the quarantine/social distancing and not going crazy,
Merlin:)
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