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Cassie Osbourne (6 KP) rated The Hazel Wood in Books

Nov 9, 2018  
The Hazel Wood
The Hazel Wood
Melissa Albert | 2017 | Mystery, Paranormal, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
7.4 (33 Ratings)
Book Rating
Alice and her mother, Ella, have been on the road for as long as she can remember, constantly followed by some kind of freak bad luck. When word reaches them that Ella’s mother, famous fairytale author Althea Proserpine, has died, they think they’re safe...until Ella gets kidnapped by the Hinterlands. To save her, Alice must venture into the Hazel Wood.

I LOVE fairy tales, the darker, the better as far as I’m concerned. So when I’m told about a book that is based around dark, original fairytales, naturally I wanted to read it as soon as I could get my hands on it. However, it wasn’t quite what I expected.

Although this is a book about fairy tales and their characters being real, we are only told two stories: ‘Alice Three Times’ and ‘The Door That Wasn’t There’. This means that when we meet the Nightwalkers, Twice-Killed-Katherine, the Briar King and Hansa the Traveller, we don’t know what to make of them because we don’t know their stories. Now, I am all for discovering more about characters and their motivations as the story unfolds, but we never get that with these characters - it’s almost just assumed that we know who they are. I even checked online to see if I was reading the second book in the series by mistake! There is a book being written called ‘Tales From The Hinterland’ which is the collection of stories that these characters are from, but it is set to be published in 2020 when really it should have come first. Having said all of that, I did really like the ‘real world’ characters, and I thought that Janet and Spinner were super cool.

The atmosphere was really good throughout, even in the middle section when I found it hard to read because I couldn’t connect were really atmospheric. I loved the strange surrealness and dreamlike writing that was very fairy tale-ish, and it was brilliant. I also really enjoyed the writing style. I don’t think that I’ve properly ever read a book with so many current references and I quite like it. It makes the book feel very contemporary (after all it was only published in January) and in our world, while still having the other world, the Hinterland, mixed in which gives it a slight feeling of invasion and overlap. It also really suits Alice’s character and voice since she is narrating the story and was brought up very much in our world.

The plot was good on the whole. My main issue, once again, comes down to the fact that the stories weren’t told - or rather that the wrong one was. ‘Alice Three Times’ was great because it became relevant but ‘The Door That Wasn’t There’ seemed not to have any purpose. Surely if there was one story that Finch would have told Alice, it would have been ‘Twice-Killed-Katherine’ as she is following them for most of the first half of the book (and then just disappears for no real reason).

While the beginning and end of the book are really great and really gripping, I found most of the middle section really difficult to read because, guess what, we didn’t know the stories! When I started reading this book, I thought that I would finish it in the same week I started it...that was two weeks ago. The middle of the book is when Alice actually enters the Hinterland, but since we don’t know anything about the characters or the world, it feels like we’re constantly playing catch up. Whenever I decided what I was going to sit down, grit my teeth and get through it, it felt like it was a chore and I could only manage one or two chapters at a time. It gets very gripping again from chapter twenty-eight when Alice starts to get sucked into the story, but that’s because we’ve already been told ‘Alice Three Times”.

Although I did like ‘The Hazel Wood’, a middle did take a lot of the enjoyment out of reading it. Maybe when ‘Tales From The Hinterland’ comes out, I’ll read that then give this book another shot when I am more informed.



Characters: 6/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Writing Style: 8/10
Plot: 7/10
Intrigue: 6/10
Logic: 7/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
  
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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Firekeeper's Daughter in Books

Aug 19, 2021  
Firekeeper's Daughter
Firekeeper's Daughter
Angeline Boulley | 2021 | LGBTQ+, Mystery, Young Adult (YA)
8
9.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
An expansive and lovely #OwnVoices tale
Daunis Fontaine feels torn between two worlds--growing up worrying about her Mom and dreaming of becoming a doctor and then being an unenrolled member of the Ojibwe tribe. Her late father was a member and so is her half-brother, Levi. When Daunis' uncle dies and she decides to stay home and attend local community college to take care of her mom, she feels trapped. But the arrival of Jamie, a new member of Levi's hockey team, is a bright spot. The two become fast friends. However, everything changes when Daunis witnesses a horrible murder, and she becomes an informant for the FBI. Suddenly, everything she knows about her hometown and the tribe changes.

"I learned there were times when I was expected to be a Fontaine and other times when it was safe to be a Firekeeper."

This is an excellent book--more mystery than I thought it would be. It covers a lot of topics--sometimes more than seems necessary. Racism, tribal issues, sexual assault, depression, drug abuse, FBI informants, romance, murder... there's a lot packed into this book. However, it does a great job looking into how meth and drug abuse affect the Native American community (as well as sexual assault). It's heartbreaking at times, but also compelling and educational.

"My mother's superpower is turning my ordinary worries into monsters so huge and pervasive that her distress and heartache become almost debilitating. I can protect her from that hurt."

Daunis is a very sympathetic and likeable character. She's dedicated to her family, to her tribe, and her community. She takes on a lot for a kid her age. Sometimes it felt like the informant plot was a little much, a little contrived, but overall, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. It was wonderful to read an #OwnVoices book of such quality and scope, and I look forward to what Boulley does next.

I read this book as part of my new reading project--choosing books off my shelves based on their Goodreads rankings. This is my fourth book of the project, forcing me out of my comfort zone and to try books in genres I don't usually read!