Review: the hazel wood

The Hazel Wood
Melissa Albert


I don't really understand the hype around this one.

Alice and her mom never stay in one place to long because of the horrors/bad luck that find them. They blame Alice's grandmother, who lives in the Hazel Wood, a mansion that has a strange history surrounding it.

Alice has never met her grandmother. According to her mother, she's not interested in having a relationship with her so they play the avoidance game. The only thing Alice has is the idea of this book of short stories that her grandmother had written.

When the horrors come to find Alice one last time, they end up taking her mother. Now Alice, along with misunderstood new friend Finch, are on the hunt for both the Book, the Mansion, and her mother.



The writing was beautiful but the story couldn't hold my interest (and it creeped me out so that may have been a part of it too) but it had many unanswered questions and if this is a standalone, it feels unfinished. 

The World that was created was not explained enough for me, but I liked the characters and the vibe of the small love story that was there (though never follows through because time is a weird concept)

Hope were a lot higher considering how much it was loved by those around me, but just wasn't for me.

This was definitely one of those "bandwagon" buys, and if I knew what it was about I doubt I would've picked it up on my own. 

At least the cover is pretty...

February needs a reset button

I was so excited to be going into February! 
and then none of my goals panned out for me :( 
plus, by the end of the month, i came down with some virus thing (not sure if it's the flu or not) and i just gave up on everything while i curled up in bed with netflix and orange juice. 

I didn't think I read that much, but when I did a count I did 15! which made me happy, but they weren't 15 from my list so that was annoying 

- Finished Empire of Storms

- Reread Crystal Storm 

- Illuminae 

- All the feels 

- Being 

- Family Storms 

- The beast is an animal (half done, then the sickness took over) 

plus a bunch of romance stuff that's been sitting on my kindle. Nothing crazy fantastic... 

which puts me at 42/200 for the year so far. nice good start, if i do say so myself. 

March's TBR includes: 

- Gemina 

- retribution of Mara Dyer 

- the Cruel prince

- the hazel wood 

- immortal reign (hence my reread of CS)

- the hangman's daughter 

- this family of mine 

- the martian 

- princess diariest 

- once upon a dream 

and i have started none of them ... hmm. I am starting to feel better so here's hoping that I can go back to bingeing for the next 3 weeks! ambitious but I am a quick reader and this is a boring month so I should be okay... I wish books came with a thing you could scan that gave you a pdf copy so i could read at work without lugging around these heavy books (esp since i'm in a kitchen setting half the time and eek, messes!) 

I gave up on my monthly TBRs because they weren't holding my interest anymore and other books are calling me :) i want to get into bujo-ing but i have no artistic talent and so... no. 

I also made a small comment that I am annoyed with my bookshelves (the actual shelves) and Jay got annoyed with me haha so now I'm going to try and save up for some new ones because the ones I have are no longer doing it for me and they can go to the basement or garage ... 

Again, I've been sick for what feels like forever so I've been trying to get better.. while still going to work. ugh. life of the self-employed: you don't work, you don't get paid. life is pretty boring otherwise. Hubby and I are still trying to figure out what we want to do when our lease is up next year - do we stay in Ontario, do we stay in canada, do we take a trip for a bit and then come back... lalala. so many decisions. 

I also need to get back to my WIP (i have 3 endings I can't choose between and I'm debating on combining them all and just ruining my MC's life...) 
plus i have another story i want to start and am debating on doing camp NaNo in april. I won't be able to do 50k but a decent 20k start would be nice ... work wouldn't be too heavy so we shall see how this month plays out and then I'll decide (last minute decisions and me are bffs)


Hope everyone is having a fun end of winter (or summer, depending where you are)  It's almost spring time in canada and that means SUMMER is sooooon.