This was one of those books
where I knew nothing about it or the author, but I found the cover really
compelling and it had a blurb from one of my favorite authors and I love fairy
tale retellings and when contemporary urban fantasy works for me, it really
works for me. So I gave it a shot, and it ended up being one of those books
that I was uncertain about for the first 95% of it, but the final chapter
somehow managed to pull it off.
Alice and her mother are basically a mother-teenage daughter version of Sam and Dean from Supernatural, constantly moving from place to place and never putting down roots. But instead of hunting demons, they’re running from them, of course. The demons or monsters or darkness seem to originate from Alice’s grandmother’s estate, the Hazel Wood, and as soon as something Very Bad happens to wherever they’re living, they pack up and flee for the next life. They’re also running from the legacy of Alice’s grandmother, who wrote one book of fairy tales and then became a hermit on her estate, a sort of old Hollywood Grey Gardens situation. The book of fairy tales is clearly also related to the darkness, because Alice’s mother forbids her from reading it or even having a copy, and there’s an obsessive internet fanbase devoted to both the book and the stories behind it. The novel starts with them in New York, where Alice’s mother has gotten married and so Alice has, rather than an evil stepmother, a fairly evil and rich stepfather and stepsister. But the story really starts when Alice's mother is kidnapped by the Hinterland, i.e. the setting of Alice's grandmother's book of fairy tales, and Alice needs to rely upon the help of her classmate Ellery, who's one of the internet superfans, to help her get to the Hazel Wood and figure all this out.
The book is set up to be a mystery, and it is, but it also exists in this weird world where things are clearly a bit bonkers in general and that’s not really commented upon. Alice isn't a real girl, and Alice's stepsister and stepfather aren't real in that way that exceedingly rich people aren't real, and Ellery also exists in that world of wealth, too. But the characters are supposed to believe that they don't live in a world where supernatural or fairy tale stuff really exist, and none of that actually makes any sense. The book has a tone and a place issue at times; it was very unclear to me just how off their universe is supposed to be from ours, and I found it a bit difficult to get invested in as a result. The revelation about who and what Alice is should be more of a shock, and instead it feels like it's the only thing that would actually make any sense, and I still didn't actually fully care about anyone because no one feels real.
Having said all that, I was surprised at how much the ending did actually affect me, given how neutral I had felt about the story for most of the book. I was prepared to be righteously grumpy about it, and then it managed to both wrap everything up very quickly, and do so in a way that felt satisfying and narratively correct, and there's something really lovely about discovering that the weird pacing of a book is intentional and pays off in the end, rather than it being a flaw that hadn't been corrected in the editing stage. Overall, I'm glad I read it.
Grade: B
Alice and her mother are basically a mother-teenage daughter version of Sam and Dean from Supernatural, constantly moving from place to place and never putting down roots. But instead of hunting demons, they’re running from them, of course. The demons or monsters or darkness seem to originate from Alice’s grandmother’s estate, the Hazel Wood, and as soon as something Very Bad happens to wherever they’re living, they pack up and flee for the next life. They’re also running from the legacy of Alice’s grandmother, who wrote one book of fairy tales and then became a hermit on her estate, a sort of old Hollywood Grey Gardens situation. The book of fairy tales is clearly also related to the darkness, because Alice’s mother forbids her from reading it or even having a copy, and there’s an obsessive internet fanbase devoted to both the book and the stories behind it. The novel starts with them in New York, where Alice’s mother has gotten married and so Alice has, rather than an evil stepmother, a fairly evil and rich stepfather and stepsister. But the story really starts when Alice's mother is kidnapped by the Hinterland, i.e. the setting of Alice's grandmother's book of fairy tales, and Alice needs to rely upon the help of her classmate Ellery, who's one of the internet superfans, to help her get to the Hazel Wood and figure all this out.
The book is set up to be a mystery, and it is, but it also exists in this weird world where things are clearly a bit bonkers in general and that’s not really commented upon. Alice isn't a real girl, and Alice's stepsister and stepfather aren't real in that way that exceedingly rich people aren't real, and Ellery also exists in that world of wealth, too. But the characters are supposed to believe that they don't live in a world where supernatural or fairy tale stuff really exist, and none of that actually makes any sense. The book has a tone and a place issue at times; it was very unclear to me just how off their universe is supposed to be from ours, and I found it a bit difficult to get invested in as a result. The revelation about who and what Alice is should be more of a shock, and instead it feels like it's the only thing that would actually make any sense, and I still didn't actually fully care about anyone because no one feels real.
Having said all that, I was surprised at how much the ending did actually affect me, given how neutral I had felt about the story for most of the book. I was prepared to be righteously grumpy about it, and then it managed to both wrap everything up very quickly, and do so in a way that felt satisfying and narratively correct, and there's something really lovely about discovering that the weird pacing of a book is intentional and pays off in the end, rather than it being a flaw that hadn't been corrected in the editing stage. Overall, I'm glad I read it.
Grade: B
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