Book Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Series: Standalone

Published by: Little Brown Books

Genre: Fantasy,Adventure, Young Adult

Pages: 336

Source: paperback

Rating: ✬✬✬

 Synopsis: 

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

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Favorite Quote

“Ben told stories. Hazel became those stories.”

Thoughts

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this story. I felt like the chapters were jumbled all over the place. I get that we were getting back story but I don’t like that is went from, for example, Chapter one: plot, Chapter 3: back story, Chapter 4: Plot, Chapter 6: Backstory. It was getting obnoxious. Like I was just just getting into the story and then it would be like BOOM HERES SOME BACKSTORY ON A DIFFERENT CHARACTER. Honestly, that was probably the main reason I gave this book a 3/5. That and I didn’t think the characters were really memorable. I really disliked the characters are first because I thought they were bland but then I ended up liking them.

Although this book is a standalone, I give mega props to Holly. I feel like she did a great job at having good world building along with having a pretty interesting read in just a standalone . It felt like a good childrens story that makes you want to sit by a fire on a winter night then dream about fairytales. Does that make any sense? XD

The writing was gorgeous. I loved the metaphors. Some of them didn’t make sense to me but others punched me right in the gut and I could relate on a deep level. Holly’s writing is dreamy and captivating. I love the way she describes things. She did more showing than telling. I felt like I was right there with Hazel and Ben and the rest of the bunch.

I also like how a character in this book almost has two selves and it’s kind of a battle between “good and evil” and which one we want to win the fight. It’s just like Sirius Black tells Harry, “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” So I like that she played around with the idea that we all have a more “evil” self inside of us but we’re only that person if we want to be.