The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. A nest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming... home.”

I did just review the Raven Cycle series, but I am determined to catch up on my reviews. You can read that here!

And I really needed to review this. Because Holly Black has blown me away once more.

Stats:

Genre: Paranormal, and fae.

Feelings: Some sibling-ly feels.

Happiness: Siblings.

Cuteness: Siblings!

Fast pacing: Ish

Series: Nope.

Read if you like: Fae, twisted creatures, dark secrets, and magical towns.

Content: It depends on how conserved you are. There is some swearing, and quite a lot of kissing. If you're more sensitive to gay characters, keep that in mind. There are three-ish gay characters in this book.

In one sentence... In a town where Fae and Humans live side by side, there's a horned boy in a glass coffin deep in the woods, and he's waking up, sucking Hazel and her brother in a dangerous journey, uncovering secrets from the past and future.

Thoughts: Muddy footprints, shattered glass, a broken sword.

Overall:

Rating: Tentative 4 stars. I really liked some bits, but only /liked/ a lot of other books. But this book is just too good to be only three stars.

This review has LIGHT ROMANCE SPOILERS in the negative section

The Lovely Bits:

Holly Black is a stunning storyteller. After Coldtown, I was rather conflicted. I don't like vampires, but it was so good?  Her stories are strange and thoughtful, weird and lovely. This whole book is lovely, slow parts and all.

The character were great. Everyone dislikes some character, for various reasons. Sometimes I find that people dislike certain characters because of morals, or actions. I feel like Hazel is one of those characters that many people may dislike, because of her personality. But for me, she was a very interesting character. She was a well written girl, with flaws and all. She was realistic. Not perfect, not always happy, and not too optimistic.

I am also very happy with the diversity. I find it annoying that it's hard to find gay characters in fantasy or books like that. It's either a contemporary distinctly about homosexuals, or the character is a side character you don't see much of. While the effort is appreciated, I'm sure that there are many people out there who would love to have a gay character who you actually see a lot of. Those subplots did catch me a little off guard, but it was one I know people will be happy about.

Holly Black's stories are always dark, and strange, and deep. It's so easy to get lost in her books. When I was finishing this, I blanked out on the fact that I was sitting in the library listen to two other people geek out about comics. All I cared about was Hazel, the Alderking, and what the heck was even happening. 

I really did like how Holly Black only hinted at this story in the synopsis. Automatically, I thought I knew what was going to happen. I have this thing I call the OTP Sensor. I can usually tell right away what romance is going to happen.

This one totally messed up my scanner, man. I had it all figured out. The guy in the coffin+Hazel. Yep! Done. Figured it out.

Yeah that didn't happen. I'll cover the love stuff in the next section.


The Less Lovely Bits

This book seemed to have a bit of the middle cycle disease? Either that or the story arc is a lot different than most books.

The beginning started out strong. I was sucked in for about 150 pages. But then it felt almost....jumbled? We spent a lot of time of sub plots that seemed out of place and rushed. It all made sense, and the pieces got put together at a nice pace. It might be that I was in a tad of a slump. After all the mystery happened, I was less interested. Still, there were twists I enjoyed. I just think it could have had some stuff cut. 

As much as I liked Hazel, there were some weird bits. Why the heck did she keep Jack's gum, guys. Why. 

(LIGHT ROMANTIC SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. You can skip to the very end if you want to be surprised, though I will say you can kind of see what's coming)


On to the romance. I didn't hate it. But I just didn't love it. And it was /crazy/. I made a diagram, a lot like what I made for Kill Me Softly, but the romance pentagon thing wasn't as annoying.

Disclaimer: The "Connection" section is debatable. I am simply saying that it's either "a crush", or "You're pretty sure they're going to end up together" or "They are together at some point,"

Yeah it was crazy. And odd? I really liked Jack, but I didn't care for him and Hazel. I wish there romance hadn't been in it as much? The end seemed a bit cliche, for me, which is weird. I'm a hopeless romantic, and yet I didn't like them as much,

Still, Holly knows how to write a crazy cool couple.




Overall, this was a lovely book. I'm not sure how to write what I didn't like, but I didn't love it as much as I hoped. Still, I highly recommend this. Like a lot. I loved this a lot. And that epilogue? Agh. I have feelings.

I WANT A CHANGELING BOYFRIEND.