THE HAZEL WOOD follows jaded and worldly teenager Alice, the granddaughter of famed writer Althea Proserpine, who published a collection of fairy tales, TALES OF THE HINTERLAND, which has achieved fervent cult status. Upon the death of Althea, Alice and her mother Ella, feel like they’ve finally outrun the bad luck that has been chasing them for sixteen years. Just as Alice begins to let herself relax into her more static and stable life, it’s brutally disrupted by the abduction of Ella. Her only clue to where her mother may be Hazel Wood, her grandmother’s estate. The problem is that no one, especially not Alice, knows where Hazel Wood is. Alice’s one rule throughout her life was to avoid fans of her grandmother’s. Althea Proserpine fans are weird and obsessive and, on one occasion, have even abducted her, but in her desperation, she feels she has no choice but to team up with super-fan Ellery Finch, a wealthy classmate. Together the two find out that Alice’s grandmother’s stories may be more real than fiction. Although many have likened this to be an ALICE IN WONDERLAND retelling, I find the similarities end at the protagonists’ name. Melissa Albert weaves a dark, original tale about the magic of stories and the power authors have. It also explores the depth of fandom and the passion we have for the things we love.
While I really enjoyed THE HAZEL WOOD, I absolutely loved its follow-up, THE NIGHT COUNTRY. THE NIGHT COUNTRY follows Alice three months after the events of THE HAZEL WOOD as she tries to come to terms with who she is and where she fits in between the normal, real-world and the fairy tale world from which she broke out. The reader follows Alice’s struggle with finding community with characters from the Hinterland while also trying to establish a new dynamic with her mother (who may or may not be her actual mother). At the same time, the novel follows Ellery as he treks through a fairy tale universe on his own and his struggle to see Alice again. I find Melissa Albert is much stronger at urban fantasy and magical realism than she is at hard and fast fairy tales. The issue with THE HAZEL WOOD is, once it stopped being a road trip mystery with magical elements and started being an actual fantasy, it became hard to follow. THE NIGHT COUNTRY has much tighter storytelling and the majority of it, apart from Ellery’s chapters, are set in a more contained and relatable space. It also further expands the theme of the power of stories in a much more effective, if a bit on-the-nose, way.
The Hazel Wood duology by Melissa Albert [bit.ly/3u0Gqsk] will never be made into a Disney movie, little children will not dress up as the characters, and Barbie will never have a Hazel Wood line of dolls. And that’s what I love about it.
UnCovered review by Samantha LeRoy, ACLS Mays Landing Branch
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