Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Hazel Wood

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

18 reviews

amachonis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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cyanlizc's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

this NEEDS to be a studio ghibli movie! it would be soooo excellent!!
but about the book: the story was so great and fun with plenty of twists and turns, none of them felt cheesy or shallow. the writing was great, I loved the author's metaphors. She wasn't trying too hard but she also wasn't just slapping words down (like some of these other authors.....). A really cool story within a story within a story and some cool characters on a cool journey.
The only reason I rated it a little lower than I would've is because fantasy is not a genre I normally read.

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taural41's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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thejadylady's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It’s kinda scary!

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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

A wild ride of a book about the sometimes dangerously blurry line between the "real" world and the world of stories. If you like your fairy tales on the creepy side, this one's for you.

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ilaxaria's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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karolinaxyz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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elliejhnsn's review against another edition

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dark

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

Good not great. Not enough action for the first 200 pages & unnecessary TW. Did love how dark the fairy tales were though! And the ending was fantastic.

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billievee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'll get my one quibble out of the way:

I could see the big reveal coming a mile away, and it started to get annoying when the main character couldn't put two and two together.

That said, this is a very enjoyable read, and oh my gosh... I am in LOVE with Melissa Albert's writing style, especially when we get to the Hinterlands. She paints a vivid picture of a strange, dreamlike world, both awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time. I only hope I can write half this well someday.

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saskiajva's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

The author has created an incredibly intriguing world full of mysteries and surprises. It starts pretty slow in my opinion but really ramps up by the last 100 pages! I will say, the treatment of the one BIPOC character felt gratuitously racist and disturbing at points.

particularly, at one point the main character does some things that put the side character in danger particularly due to his race, and when he calls her out on it she becomes so angry she literally attempts to crash her car with him in it in an attempt to threaten and intimidate him. Less than a chapter later the BIPOC character is murdered in a very senseless manner, and although he comes back to life later, the author never addresses her abuse and racism beyond “her magical curse makes her mean”.

Outside of that, I was surprised that the characters spent the majority of the book in New York trying to prove this world even existed. I almost stopped reading around page 200 when they hadn’t gotten to the actual fairy tale world yet, but around page 220 or so the book kicked into high gear and didn’t stop until the very end. I would’ve loved to have gotten to spend more time inside the magical Hinterland as it’s truly the intriguing writing. The set up did pay off in many ways, and maybe if I reread it I’d find more interest, but I just don’t think this book is for me.

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