Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

16 reviews

taural41's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Abandonment, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Sexual content

thejadylady's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Kidnapping, Violence, Murder, and Stalking

Moderate: Car accident

Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, Bullying, and Classism

tangleroot_eli's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Body horror, Suicide, Abandonment, Bullying, Death, and Alcohol

Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Animal death, Body shaming, Death of parent, Murder, and Suicide attempt

ilaxaria's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Kidnapping

karolinaxyz's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Murder, and Toxic friendship

el13's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Death, Kidnapping, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

billievee's review

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Murder, Blood, and Kidnapping

Minor: Racism

saskiajva's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Violence, Blood, Murder, Body horror, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Suicide and Gun violence

Minor: Alcohol

clarabooksit's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Classism, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Kidnapping

Minor: Racism

olliet23's review

The plot took a turn into something I didn’t “sign up for”. And a major character is casually killed… I liked where it was going before this major turn

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Blood