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![[Melissa Albert]-[The Night Country]-[Hardcover] by Melissa Albert](https://assets.thestorygraph.com/assets/placeholder-cover-a3ae92250eb3301e32dc3eabf8d50576c2f047dda89f6ee7cfa9a859cb1fd746.jpg)
3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
I definitely have enjoyed all the books I’ve read by Melissa Albert, but I sniffed out the plot super early in both this book and The Hazel Wood. I think maybe because they were her first books. Still very much worth reading.
The Hazel Wood: ★★★.5
The Night Country: ★★★.5
If you haven't read The Hazel Wood yet, probably don't read this review??
Well, I didn't get my wish that Alice wouldn't be the main focus of this book and it would instead be about all the other, much more interesting stories as they figure out life after the Hinterland. But oh well, I still enjoyed this one, although not as much as The Hazel Wood.
So what's going on here?
After the death of the Hinterland, all the stories and wanderers within have to deal with life in our world, without magic and all the things that made them them. For many, this is as good as a death sentence. For others, it literally is. Someone is murdering the Hinterlanders, someone with ice in their hands that leaves everyone believing it's Alice herself. So Alice leaves it up to herself to clear her name and solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt, but things are a lot more complicated than she ever thought possible. In another world, Ellery Finch is on another journey, with the hope that it might lead him back home and back to the girl he left behind.
What I loved
As with my review of The Hazel Wood, my absolute favourite thing about this series is the world. I am in love with both portal fantasy and fairytales, and this series gives me both of those deliciously served up on a silver platter. While the world building in The Night Country wasn't as good as it was in the first book, as this was more focused on plot and characters, it still was enough to hold my interest because, and I'll talk about this more in the next section, I'm really only into this series for the world and not at all for the characters and plot. Melissa Albert has created such a wonderful world that I wish I could dive into and live in.
What I didn't love
Again, same as my review for the first book, I really don't care about the characters and the plot very much. The side characters that I loved in the first book weren't in this one unfortunately, and the new characters that were introduced didn't feel fully developed to me. I had a hard time connecting with anyone, or caring whatsoever about any of the stuff happening to them. I enjoyed the parts with Finch world hopping with that one girl who's name I completely forgot (and who was pretty much completely irrelevant?? What even happened to her after that thing at the end? I literally have no idea where she went omg I don't remember), but that wasn't a huge part of the book. I really wish this book had more focus on Finch, he is way more interesting, ESPECIALLY THAT WORLD WITH THE BOOKS TO OTHER WORLDS?? WHAT???? PLEASE GIVE ME A WHOLE BOOK OF THAT!! Anyways. That about sums it up
Overall thoughts
I did still really like this series, it just wasn't what I hoped it would be. There is a whole lot of room for spinoffs though that could potentially give me what I wanted. So hopefully one day Melissa Albert will write those, even just a book of short stories would be cool. I know the Tales From the Hinterland is going to be released at some point and I'm hyped for that, so maybe she'll do a book of Finch's stories too. I can only dream!!
The Night Country: ★★★.5
If you haven't read The Hazel Wood yet, probably don't read this review??
Well, I didn't get my wish that Alice wouldn't be the main focus of this book and it would instead be about all the other, much more interesting stories as they figure out life after the Hinterland. But oh well, I still enjoyed this one, although not as much as The Hazel Wood.
So what's going on here?
After the death of the Hinterland, all the stories and wanderers within have to deal with life in our world, without magic and all the things that made them them. For many, this is as good as a death sentence. For others, it literally is. Someone is murdering the Hinterlanders, someone with ice in their hands that leaves everyone believing it's Alice herself. So Alice leaves it up to herself to clear her name and solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt, but things are a lot more complicated than she ever thought possible. In another world, Ellery Finch is on another journey, with the hope that it might lead him back home and back to the girl he left behind.
What I loved
As with my review of The Hazel Wood, my absolute favourite thing about this series is the world. I am in love with both portal fantasy and fairytales, and this series gives me both of those deliciously served up on a silver platter. While the world building in The Night Country wasn't as good as it was in the first book, as this was more focused on plot and characters, it still was enough to hold my interest because, and I'll talk about this more in the next section, I'm really only into this series for the world and not at all for the characters and plot. Melissa Albert has created such a wonderful world that I wish I could dive into and live in.
What I didn't love
Again, same as my review for the first book, I really don't care about the characters and the plot very much. The side characters that I loved in the first book weren't in this one unfortunately, and the new characters that were introduced didn't feel fully developed to me. I had a hard time connecting with anyone, or caring whatsoever about any of the stuff happening to them. I enjoyed the parts with Finch world hopping with that one girl who's name I completely forgot (and who was pretty much completely irrelevant?? What even happened to her after that thing at the end? I literally have no idea where she went omg I don't remember), but that wasn't a huge part of the book. I really wish this book had more focus on Finch, he is way more interesting, ESPECIALLY THAT WORLD WITH THE BOOKS TO OTHER WORLDS?? WHAT???? PLEASE GIVE ME A WHOLE BOOK OF THAT!! Anyways. That about sums it up
Overall thoughts
I did still really like this series, it just wasn't what I hoped it would be. There is a whole lot of room for spinoffs though that could potentially give me what I wanted. So hopefully one day Melissa Albert will write those, even just a book of short stories would be cool. I know the Tales From the Hinterland is going to be released at some point and I'm hyped for that, so maybe she'll do a book of Finch's stories too. I can only dream!!
The Hazel Wood ends with Alice leaving the Hinterland world of fairy tales and leaving behind Ellery Finch to live the life he's dreamed of since he first read Tales from the Hinterland; a Story in the human world and a Human in the story world. The Night Country begins two years later in New York City. Alice has a part time job, lives with her mom, Ella, and is graduating from high school. Her only friend is an ex-Story like herself, Sophia, but they haven't been close as Sophia's world is still wrapped up in the ex-Stories of the Hinterland, while Alice has settled into something close to human normalcy.
Interestingly, The Night Country, while a sequel, stands on its own and is dark in its own fascinating way. It's not necessary to know the stories from the first novel to know that the characters who have lived these dark and bloody tales are having trouble adjusting to life in the human world, and wondering if they should even try.
The Night Country is much closer to a traditional mystery than the first novel. Alice gets pulled back into the world of the Stories because someone is killing the Stories and everyone thinks it is Alice. As Alice gets closer to the answer, Finch is closer to finding her. Their independent journeys are as dark, and as magical as any fairy tale. And like any good fairy tale, there may be a happy ending but not without sacrifice.
If you loved the first novel, or even if you just love a fast-paced dark and moody story, you won't be disappointed in The Night Country.
Interestingly, The Night Country, while a sequel, stands on its own and is dark in its own fascinating way. It's not necessary to know the stories from the first novel to know that the characters who have lived these dark and bloody tales are having trouble adjusting to life in the human world, and wondering if they should even try.
The Night Country is much closer to a traditional mystery than the first novel. Alice gets pulled back into the world of the Stories because someone is killing the Stories and everyone thinks it is Alice. As Alice gets closer to the answer, Finch is closer to finding her. Their independent journeys are as dark, and as magical as any fairy tale. And like any good fairy tale, there may be a happy ending but not without sacrifice.
If you loved the first novel, or even if you just love a fast-paced dark and moody story, you won't be disappointed in The Night Country.
Listened to the audiobook.
There happens a lot, that's why I found it difficult to follow the story on the audiobook.
I needed time to come into the story because I didn't remember wel the ending from the previous book.
There happens a lot, that's why I found it difficult to follow the story on the audiobook.
I needed time to come into the story because I didn't remember wel the ending from the previous book.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Begging publishers again to not publish sequels with absolutely no indication on the cover, spine or blurb that they are the second in a series 🙏 (specifically, Penguin UK edition).
Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review.
This is probably about a 3.5 and I'm marking it as a 3 because I was a bit disappointed in it. Why is that? Probably because it suffered by comparison with The Hazel Wood.
Alice has changed a lot from the first book. Instead of being cold and bitter, she's ineffectively panicked for most of the story. She's worried about her new friends from the Hinterlands who are now living in Brooklyn. Alice feels very human in this book, and I didn't like it- her alien nature was part of what was so interesting about her. She fails to understand her Hinterland friends or their motivations, and that's what drives the story.
Ellery Finch has his own POV chapters in this book, and I just didn't like him. He felt more like a plot device than a real character. Part of the purpose of his chapters was to explain the current Hinterlands situation (things are starting to disappear because Stories are falling apart now that characters have figured out how to leave their Stories thanks to Alice) and part was to explain the reasoning for the magic that drives the plot. However, Ellery himself behaved in a way that didn't make sense for someone who had his throat slit in the last book by trusting too easily. First, he occupies himself breaking into houses that have been abandoned because they will disappear soon and the reason for this seems to be so that he can procure magic items that will become important to the plot later (although he seems to think he's doing in in order to challenge himself- it's like leveling up in a game). Next, he decides to blindly follow yet another intriguing girl because she has yet more magic worlds that he can explore if he stays close to her- oh, Ellery, you really haven't learned, have you? I just couldn't believe that Ellery was doing the things he was doing - he frankly was kind of an idiot.
Finally, I didn't have enough knowledge to know what was really going on for most of the book. Fairy tale magic items usually have a logic behind them, and in this book it felt random. I don't need a magic system spelled out with schools, levels and caster types, but because there was absolutely no system there was no way to try to solve the book's puzzle. I couldn't guess what any item was going to do. Also, there are often consequences to playing with things that you don't understand in a fairy tale and I didn't think that played out satisfactorily.
There were new Stories told by ex-Story characters which gave background for different things going on behind the scenes and the Stories eventually gave Alice enough information to work with. However, I found the Stories unsatisfactory. I thought about it, and here's why: fairy tales originally were morality tales and warnings. They cautioned about politeness to strangers, warned about being out on nights that the Wild Hunt was out, told you not to grab that golden goose. These Stories don't have any kind of lesson or moral in them. Basically, Story characters are mostly bad people who do selfish things and and it's totally random whether they are rewarded or punished. This might be the way that the world actually works, but I don't like being reminded of it in my fairy tale book. Fairy tales should be about very rough justice or vengeance, not "shit happens, what can you do?" And I don't want villains to be the heroes of my fairy tales.
Are either Alice or Ellery actually heroes? I don't think so, and I didn't want to root for them. Their naivete ended up causing a lot of damage and that was the darkest part of the whole story and that went unacknowledged. Instead the book focused on more dramatic "darkness" with bloodthirsty monsters who only took out characters we didn't know much about and orgies which seemed pretty sadly tame. The author pulled her punches several times when trying to show how "dark" Hinterlanders were- this was something that pulled me out of the book and got me thinking about how if the book had not been marketed as YA it would have been a whole lot darker. So, sort of emo instead of hardcore goth, which woobified the original premise of the book slightly. And I get pretty impatient with emo.
This is probably about a 3.5 and I'm marking it as a 3 because I was a bit disappointed in it. Why is that? Probably because it suffered by comparison with The Hazel Wood.
Alice has changed a lot from the first book. Instead of being cold and bitter, she's ineffectively panicked for most of the story. She's worried about her new friends from the Hinterlands who are now living in Brooklyn. Alice feels very human in this book, and I didn't like it- her alien nature was part of what was so interesting about her. She fails to understand her Hinterland friends or their motivations, and that's what drives the story.
Ellery Finch has his own POV chapters in this book, and I just didn't like him. He felt more like a plot device than a real character. Part of the purpose of his chapters was to explain the current Hinterlands situation (things are starting to disappear because Stories are falling apart now that characters have figured out how to leave their Stories thanks to Alice) and part was to explain the reasoning for the magic that drives the plot. However, Ellery himself behaved in a way that didn't make sense for someone who had his throat slit in the last book by trusting too easily. First, he occupies himself breaking into houses that have been abandoned because they will disappear soon and the reason for this seems to be so that he can procure magic items that will become important to the plot later (although he seems to think he's doing in in order to challenge himself- it's like leveling up in a game). Next, he decides to blindly follow yet another intriguing girl because she has yet more magic worlds that he can explore if he stays close to her- oh, Ellery, you really haven't learned, have you? I just couldn't believe that Ellery was doing the things he was doing - he frankly was kind of an idiot.
Finally, I didn't have enough knowledge to know what was really going on for most of the book. Fairy tale magic items usually have a logic behind them, and in this book it felt random. I don't need a magic system spelled out with schools, levels and caster types, but because there was absolutely no system there was no way to try to solve the book's puzzle. I couldn't guess what any item was going to do. Also, there are often consequences to playing with things that you don't understand in a fairy tale and I didn't think that played out satisfactorily.
There were new Stories told by ex-Story characters which gave background for different things going on behind the scenes and the Stories eventually gave Alice enough information to work with. However, I found the Stories unsatisfactory. I thought about it, and here's why: fairy tales originally were morality tales and warnings. They cautioned about politeness to strangers, warned about being out on nights that the Wild Hunt was out, told you not to grab that golden goose. These Stories don't have any kind of lesson or moral in them. Basically, Story characters are mostly bad people who do selfish things and and it's totally random whether they are rewarded or punished. This might be the way that the world actually works, but I don't like being reminded of it in my fairy tale book. Fairy tales should be about very rough justice or vengeance, not "shit happens, what can you do?" And I don't want villains to be the heroes of my fairy tales.
Are either Alice or Ellery actually heroes? I don't think so, and I didn't want to root for them. Their naivete ended up causing a lot of damage and that was the darkest part of the whole story and that went unacknowledged. Instead the book focused on more dramatic "darkness" with bloodthirsty monsters who only took out characters we didn't know much about and orgies which seemed pretty sadly tame. The author pulled her punches several times when trying to show how "dark" Hinterlanders were- this was something that pulled me out of the book and got me thinking about how if the book had not been marketed as YA it would have been a whole lot darker. So, sort of emo instead of hardcore goth, which woobified the original premise of the book slightly. And I get pretty impatient with emo.
Weelllll part of what I liked about the first book was that I was pleased to see a standalone YA/New Adult book, but I should have known better. I HAD been hoping she would publish a book of the fairy tales from the Hinterland, which she now has, and that's how I even realized there was a second book.
Much like the first, I enjoyed the parts that were rooted in fairy tales the best. This book generally felt a little too long, a little all over the place, and is drowning in purple prose. Also much like the first, it's hard to place how old these characters are. And once again there is cussing, drinking, even some drugs, but no sex.
I am still very interested to read her book of actual fairy tales, but don't think I could be convinced to read another book in this series.
Much like the first, I enjoyed the parts that were rooted in fairy tales the best. This book generally felt a little too long, a little all over the place, and is drowning in purple prose. Also much like the first, it's hard to place how old these characters are. And once again there is cussing, drinking, even some drugs, but no sex.
I am still very interested to read her book of actual fairy tales, but don't think I could be convinced to read another book in this series.
2,75⭐️
Had the entire novel been as gripping as its last 80 pages, I would have loved it.
Damn it took me ages to finish it
Had the entire novel been as gripping as its last 80 pages, I would have loved it.
Damn it took me ages to finish it