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A review by we_will_always_have_books
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
The story was really not half-bad, even if there were some unnecessary characters and developments in the beginning (Harold and Audrey and everything happening with them, the bookseller episode that feels like the author just got tired of the idea -- while obviously it is not supposed to be but it felt like it). But the fairytale part of it (not just the end, but how she slowly sew it to the whole texte) was really nicely creepily done.
My main problem is how she handled both racism and sexism all of it coming to a blob in the only scene she talked about racism, while one of her main character (Finch) is black (which is barely aknowledge through the color of his mother's skin once before in the book). It's also a scene where the protagonist (Alice) is treated with the most vile sexism. While he's right to call on the heroine's (and the reader's) white privilege, he also completly waves away any kind of discussion about sexism and misogyny, and no, in the end racism is not worse than sexism and misogyny because the both kill, and black women gets it a lot worse than anyone else, even black man, because of the double toll. It cannot be the kind of subjects you treat in badly written scene out of nowhere in a YA fantasy book.
It all lefts a dusty taste on the mouth, because, well, it would take a much better writer to move through the murky waters of a difficult prejudices-filled scene like that and make it significant and not gimmicky.
My main problem is how she handled both racism and sexism all of it coming to a blob in the only scene she talked about racism, while one of her main character (Finch) is black (which is barely aknowledge through the color of his mother's skin once before in the book). It's also a scene where the protagonist (Alice) is treated with the most vile sexism. While he's right to call on the heroine's (and the reader's) white privilege, he also completly waves away any kind of discussion about sexism and misogyny, and no, in the end racism is not worse than sexism and misogyny because the both kill, and black women gets it a lot worse than anyone else, even black man, because of the double toll. It cannot be the kind of subjects you treat in badly written scene out of nowhere in a YA fantasy book.
It all lefts a dusty taste on the mouth, because, well, it would take a much better writer to move through the murky waters of a difficult prejudices-filled scene like that and make it significant and not gimmicky.