This was a wonderful, whimsical, and beautifully written book. The premise of being sucked into the fantasy world of her grandmothers writing is excellent, fun, and exciting to read. This was an absolute treat and I enjoyed the 2nd book as well!

The kiddos at my library loved the Hazel Wood. The cover grabbed their attention, and the premise was intriguing. It is still popular to this day (I know I am very late giving this review).

Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.

I really enjoyed this book! I couldn't put it down! I loved the characters especially Alice. The world that Melissa Albert creates is brilliant! I can't wait to read the second book in the series.

Great book, love this author and how they can keep my attention to the end! The plot is well developed, characters are believable and they obviously paid attention to detail to make the story worth your time to read.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. It really was a fantastic read. I think there could have been some trigger warnings about certain topics, but this was such a good book. I didn’t want to put the book down at all. I really enjoyed.

This book is a delightful creepy tale, of upside down fairy tales that do not resemble any of the bed time tales i grew up. We have our main character Alice who lives with her mother off of whatever person or family they can con into believing their tales. Alice has a some what eccentric famous grandmother who wrote a collection of fairy tales that are very rate and impossible to find. What you think is happening as you read along this creepy tale, which i was pretty sure was a kidnapping murder mystery. What i got was a delightful surprise of one my favorite kinds of stories disguised in this wonderful tale. If you like creepy and not knowing quite where the story is going this one will delight and impress you.

As someone who has lived with their nose in a book for much of their life, it should be no surprise that fairytales were some of the first tales that completely captured my imagination, and have never truly let go. I find myself intrigued by most adaptions on these timeless stories, only to have them lapse into predictable plots and narratives. While The Hazel Wood taps into society’s fascination with fairytales and how we really never grow out of them, Albert creates a wholly unique, and incredibly dark set of stories that breaks the aforementioned mold. To achieve this effect while simultaneously adding layers and depth to her literary realm, Albert has created in The Hazel Wood a collection of distinct fairytales, foreign to the reader yet have intrigued one and all in the context of the story. The beginning of The Hazel Wood follows Alice and her mother Ella as they are living a nomadic lifestyle, plagued by bad luck and the shadow of a famous Grandmother. Much of the beginning of this story, while shrouded in mystery, starts out relatively normal and bit boring, i.e., awkward, ill-tempered girl doesn’t quite fit into her school, has a strained relationship with her step sister and of course dislikes her stepfather. Needless to say, the plot shifts from this narrative very quickly, leaving the reader on the edge of their seat for the remainder of the book. In fact I was so immersed in this delightfully dark literary world that I was surprised to find that I was already 82% of the way through Alice’s journey. This pleasant discovery was intermingled with concern that Albert could resolve everything in the limited time left in the novel. With that being said, she did manage to wrap everything up quickly and concisely, with only minimal feelings of being rushed. Overall, The Hazel Wood was a highly enjoyable, fast paced read that offers an innovative take on the popular subject of fairytales.

I loved this world that Melissa Albert built. It's not a kind place, but it's a place that many people might want to run away to anyway. I loved the mythology of the people.

This book started out strong, however it missed the landing for me. The synopsis and cover is what drew me in. A family mystery with some ties to book sand the woods; sounds perfect! However, halfway through, I felt like it dragged on and I was not able to fully immerse myself into the world anymore.

The fictional fairytales of the Hinterland outshine Alice's story, which takes too long to get where it's going and (for me) had very little satisfying pay off. However, I would 100% purchase and devour a companion text -- like The Tales of Beedle the Bard accompanies Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The small glimpses of Hinterland stories we did get were fantastic and dark and intriguing! And I want them in my life.

This book was enjoyable, but nothing super crazy to make it stand out in an over saturated YA fictional field. The writing was good, and the characters were fine as well, though I really didn't like Alice. And she was the main character ... so that was tough to read. There are some sensitive topics covered as well (drug use, self harm, talk of suicide) but over all it was a unique and strange premise that I feel suited it's purpose.

I just don't feel interested in reading this book any longer, from all the other reviews I've read nor anything else by Melissa Albert.

A magical and dark “fairy tales in real life,” Alice is on a journey to rescue her mother from The Hazel Wood and a curse that hangs over her family, grounded in her reclusive grandmother’s fairy tale book, Tales from the Hinterland. Alice is...not the most likeable, prone to anger and a fairly narrow-minded worldview, but there is an attempt to explain this at the book’s conclusion. With her is Finch, whose wealth brings him no happiness, and instead he wants to seek the magic he fell in love with in Tales from the Hinterland. They both stay fairly singly-focused in the plot and, to be honest, their growth as characters feels minimal. Fans of dark fairy tale re-imaginings, like Meyer's Heartless, and fans of The Starless Sea would enjoy adding The Hazel Wood to their reading list.

Really interesting story. I love the idea of story archetypes, and this book and it's treatment of that reminded me a little of Robert Holdstock's long-ago Mythago Wood series, which is absolutely not a bad thing! I have been recommending this book (and its sequel) to teens at my library (okay...and fellow employees) since it came out, and they have also enjoyed it.

I think the tone in this book really set it apart from others that try to get this period right. The darkness followed the story closely and the pacing was perfect.

okay so.... the premise for this book was super cool and unique and interesting and yet? the execution failed astronomically. this book was so dry, and boring, and i couldn't connect to any of the characters no matter how hard i tried

The Hazel Wood is an excellent addition to the creepy-fantasy young adult genre. With just the right amount of suspense, supernatural intrigue and adventure, I would be happy to recommend this book to teens who have graduated from Harry Potter and who enjoy a twisted fairy-tale.

It took me a while to get into this book. I feel the character development started slowly BUT the final 1/3 of the book is wonderful. I kept reading well past bedtime because I just couldn't stop!

I never wrote a review for this, and for good reason.

This book contains so much of what I hate in fantasy plots. The book isn't downright problematic, but it's finely tuned to a frequency of events that I just... hate in books.

The pacing is VERY off, the characters don't exist to have any other motivation other than what's obvious (for me), and the most interesting aspects of the world are skimmed over. Alice was a character I could not relate to in any way, and as much as I tried, her every motivation seemed contrived to just be... over dramatic. I could almost feel for her when she had quiet moments about her mother, but then they'd be ruined by her next impetuous action.

I really had high hopes for this book, the cover is beautiful and the premise sounds exactly like something I would eat up, but it just didn't do anything for me other than cause frustration. The writing, concerning both style and skill level, was good, but just not enough to outweigh my disappointment in the story.

I don't want to go on and on and drag this book to hell, but if you read this book and feel like it missed the mark for you, please give The Starless Sea a try, it matches this book in world objective but does everything in a way I loved, rather than in a way that was a disappointment.

I absolutely loved this book. It falls into the category of one of my favorite young adult books. I loved the modern darker fairy tale world. I got sucked into the mystery behind who Alice's grandma was, and who had Alice's mother and finally, who Alice really is. I liked the relationship that developed between Ellery Finch and Alice. This book contains strong characters, interesting worlds and a subtle darkness. I couldn't wait to read book 2 when it came out. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.