Just Couldn't Put It Down Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Just Couldn't Put It Down Giveaway Hop!
I am featuring The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert and giving away a $15 gift card to the book store of your choice. Thanks to Stuck In Books for hosting this giveaway!

From Goodreads: 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.

I have to admit that I am still reading this book, but I'm reading it much faster than I normally read. If you look at the reviews, they're all over the place. Some people have found it boring, but I'm not finding it so. Some people rating the book low seem to have had certain expectations of what the book would be like and were disappointed. I had no expectations and am mostly enjoying it.

It's not, strictly speaking, pure fantasy. And it's not, as some people assume, a retelling of Alice in Wonderland (according to the author). It is dark and creepy and pretty twisted. The main character is almost completely unlikable and is the only thing I'm disliking about it, but I haven't found out why she's as annoying, angry, foul-mouthed, and completely insensitive and self-absorbed as she is, beyond a hard life of basically being on the run forever. There's some content that makes me question the appropriateness of a YA label, but leaving that aside, I'm finding the story compelling and want to get to the end. Some of the writing is over the top, but much of it is fantastic. Goodreads shows this as the first in a series, so there's that, too.

If you like dark and creepy, don't approach it with preconceptions, and aren't easily offended, you might enjoy this one. This is one of Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer picks.

EDIT: I just finished this one and loved it. I acknowledge it's a bit uneven towards the end and I think it gets a little carried away with some of the description, but I enjoyed it and definitely couldn't wait to keep picking it up to read more. And yes, there's a reason the MC is as unlikable as she is. Give her the benefit of the doubt and remember this is a Fairy Tale world. The Hazel Wood has been picked up by Columbia and the adapters of Divergent to become a movie.

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Bronze can be ordered through any bookseller (ISBN 9780982893678) or order now at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
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Reviews for Bronze

All original text and materials by or commissioned by B. B. Shepherd are copyright 2012-2018 to B B Shepherd.