A new BookTube Video is Up all about whether you should buy, borrow or burn 2020 YA books! Let me know what you think! 4.5 stars "You were a monster in the Hinterland. Why are you pretending to be a mouse?" Three-times Alice struck terror into the hearts of those in her story....but she was trapped - doomed - to live out her short, miserable life again and again.Her mother, stole her once from the story and raised her in the real world. And Alice became trapped back into her story, E

No need to talk about the elephant in the room. It is so obvious that I didn’t enjoy the first book and I didn’t foresee my request would be accepted but one morning I checked my library and here we go I got this sequel and I firstly admit, WHAT AN ARTISTIC, AMAZING COVER reflects book’s darkness approach to the fairytales.And you know what! I surprisingly enjoyed this one more. I still went back and forth between 3 and 4 stars but 3.5 rounded up again to 4. And another interesting fact during m...

This may be the last time I give the first novel in a series 2-stars and still continue with the series. Because The Night Country is proof to me that a series you don’t like typically does not get better the further you get into it (the SJM books also proved this to me, too).Similarly to the first book in the series, I found this one too boring and predictable. I think it’s mainly due to feeling like such a young novel/series. And it’s such a disappointment, too, because this story has such pot...

Let me start out by saying only read this book if The Hazel Wood is fresh in your mind.It has just been so long (and so many books) between the first book and the second, that I struggled to remember stuff from The Hazel Wood. Really struggled. I tried reading reviews and searching for spoilers, but it just wasn't clicking.That being said, it was still a good story with great characters and a fantastic imagined world. I honestly don't know how to rate this... I'm going to go with 3.5 stars based...

This series has definitely been one of the darker, and bloodier, stories surrounding fairytales that I've ever read. And it feels very true, reads so much more honestly, than the versions our generation grew up with. I think it's that darkness, that depth, that I love most of all. The creativity of twisting these tales, or letting them be their truth, is fantastic. I love it. But there's also another side of these books that just doesn't quite line up for me.In book one, it was Alice's unlikeabl...

Okay, all I can say is that I hope that Alice and Finch can find their way back to each other. Maybe she'll join him in another world along with her mother - after all, Ella missed the magic too.

'This wasn't magic like I'd seen--the snarled labyrinth of the Hazel Wood, the unlatched cages of the Hinterland. It was older. Cruder. This magic was a blunt and wily animal, fed on horrors.' I actually liked this book so much better than the first one. Which is good for a sequel!! But I still felt like it was perhaps a bit awkwardly paced in quite a few areas, Alice was still a bit confusing character . . . and there definitely wasn't enough Finch. I also wanted this to be longer?? The o

Don't get me wrong, I LOVED The Hazel Wood but it ended on such a good note... what are you going to do?Edit:It was a really going story. There were quite a few grammar issues that kinda hit me like a speed bump sometimes but it was good. I do have to say that the end moved rather quickly, maybe too quickly. But I am glad I bought it

Update 3/22/20: This is currently on Book Outlet for under $7!!! I just ordered my copy....sooooooooI guess this means that I actually have to read The Hazel Wood now...Because there's no way I am not jumping in on this hype!FOMO is real, people!!!

I'm definitely going to read this a lot of times.Edited to add: You can read the book's first chapter here!http://bit.ly/2UaxKyR

"To be honest, I don't know if I've even got a soul. If a soul is what makes you human, then I probably don't. Unless a soul is something you can grow, like, after the fact. And I don't think it is. So. No soul. Just to explain why your pickup line's not working on me."Tehehehehe. I love being back in this world. If you thought The Hazel Wood was dark, just wait until you jump into The Night Country. This sequel kept all the things I loved about the first book, and brought in a bunch of new char...

Many thanks to Flatiron Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review There'd been four deaths now.One was a warning, Two a coincidence, And three completely the fairy-tale set. But four.Four was a door.An invitation to something more. Okay....So...I am, to put it simply, disappointed. But unfortunately, my thoughts and emotions are never simple so let me explain why I am disappointed.I read The Hazel Wood around one and a half years ago and I absolutely adored it. It's

Full of twists, turns and places we’ve never seen before, Melissa Albert delivers a sequel that’s more than lived up to the enchantingly grim tale that came before it.“A book is always a door.”With Alice’s return from the Hinterland, I guess this book verges into Urban Fantasy, more so than before. There’s further crossover between the Stories and our world as we follow Alice as she tries to unravel another mystery. While the Hinterland itself was once following her, now she’s haunted by new foe...

what do you do, when you want to read fantasies again, but your brain simply won’t acquiesce, and puts you in a distinctly not-fantasy mood instead?you thwart its unwillingness by reading a book that is fairytale, fantasy, and contemporary all in one.

I don’t really know what my feelings are about this book. Was it good? Sure. Was it memorable and what I thought it was going to be? No. I loved the concept of this series, and the first book was really good. The whole fairytales are real, but are also scary, evil, and creepy. That was awesome and learning about Hinterland was exciting, but also terrified me.The first 100 or so pages of this book, I felt like nothing was happening. Honestly though, once you get past that it does get interesting

Yikes. This was just not very good. It dragged a lot. The book would have been better if Albert focused primarily on Alice and not on Ellery and his adventures. It really read as two stories being crammed into one. Also all of the writing was so dramatic. At one point Alice mentions how the rain feels like tongues and blood against her skin. My response, eww and really? I think this had an interesting idea. Alice is now an Ex-Story trying to be a real live girl. However, we don't get that. Just

DNF bad