Jurassic World™: The Game
Games and Entertainment
App
Return to Isla Nublar with the creators of the smash hit Jurassic Park™ Builder for your next...
Cassie Osbourne (6 KP) rated The Hazel Wood in Books
Nov 9, 2018
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
Currency+ (Converter, Charts, Trends, Alerts)
Finance and Travel
App
Whether you're a business or leisure traveler, hopping from country to country is a breeze when you...
Cooking Games Paradise Chef - Burger Food Maker
Food & Drink and Games
App
Cooking Games Paradise Food Maker & Burger Chef - Cook and serve tasty food recipes & learn how to...
Book Writer One
Productivity and Lifestyle
App
Take Note, Organize Thoughts, Make a Book. Share with the World. Make your own book with Book...
WarFriends: PvP Shooter Game
Games
7.5
Rate It
App
Battle it out against friends and real-world opponents in WarFriends, the action packed real-time...
Music Studio
Music and Entertainment
9.0
Rate It
App
Music Studio offers a complete music production environment for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch with...
Heroes of Order & Chaos - Multiplayer Online Game
Games and Entertainment
App
THE ULTIMATE MOBA FOR MOBILE HAS JUST BEEN REVAMPED, REIMAGINED AND REINVIGORATED! Team up and...
Neon's Nerd Nexus (360 KP) rated The Incredibles 2 (2018) in Movies
May 14, 2019
Predynastic Egypt
Games and Education
App
***Localizations: English, Русский, 中文, Español, Deutsch, Français, Italiano,...