The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Life never turns out how you imagine it will when you’re young. Everything is smaller than you think, or too big. It all smells a little funny and fits like somebody else’s shirt.”
I received this book as a part of my Owlcrate subscription and at first, it didn’t really seem to be my cup of tea. I generally like fantasy, but YA fantasy tends to be a little … too much for me. I considered just shelving this in my classroom and calling it a day.
Man, am I glad I didn’t.
First of all, Melissa Albert’s prose is enchanting. Her style grabbed me and wrapped me in a giant fluffy body pillow. I had thought that book might be pure fluff, but when Alice starts off the book by talking about her near-kidnapping, I knew this would be more of the darker side of fantasy, and when Twice-Killed Katherine appeared, I knew that this was the book for me.
I had just finished reading Get in Trouble, and this was the perfect YA follow-up to Link’s dark magic realism, with Albert adding a little bit more magic to the realism. I wanted more of the Hinterland, and when I discovered it was a series, I was very excited. I cannot wait to read the rest!
Erin Parke 