The Hazel Wood

The Hazel Wood is by Melissa Albert and is the first book of a series of the same name.

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

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.

The Breakdown:
1. I was apparently on a creepy book kick because this was the book I picked after Before the Devil Breaks You.  There are some very creepy happenings in this book, and some seriously disturbing characters.

2. I have to be honest, I was not crazy about Alice.  I found her to be very abrasive and at times a little unstable.  I get that as the story progresses, it better explains why she can be like that, but it made it very hard to connect with her as a character.

3. I found Alice and Ellery's relationship to be strange.  At times it felt like Albert was trying to set a romance between them, but they did not seem to have much chemistry.  Other times it felt like a friendship or just two people who needed each other without really liking each other.  I just could not decide where that relationship was suppose to be going.

4. I did like the stories from Hinterland, despite how dark and creepy they are.  It reminded me of the original fairy tales before made kid friendly.  I would love to read a whole book of just those tales.  I also enjoyed the time in Hazel Wood and the secrets that Alice learns about herself and the stories.

To Read or Not to Read:
Read- because I have hopes that as the series continues it will get better.