*Minor spoilers ahead*
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 pointy 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 and a hero is needed to save them all, Hazel tries to remember her years spent pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?
So, when I got this book, I didn’t expect to get so invested.
Although I’ve heard of Holly Black, I’ve never read her writing, and so I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy the lyrical prose that she possesses. The novel was about faeries and based in a setting called Fairfold, so the lyricism that she possesses in her writing makes sense.
Fairfold is in close proximity to faeries, and faeries and can be dangerous. They’ve taken tourists and played pranks on them, killed them, and generally made themselves a menace. The people of Fairfold have lived with them for generations, and so they know to stay away if they can and create charms that can protect them.
The faeries are tricksters, monsters, and have a cruel sense of justice.
While this novel has romance, it isn’t put at the forefront as much as other novels, but while it exists, it seems almost natural, as the main character is a teenage girl.
Hazel, the main character, is completely average by her family’s standards. Her brother is a musical prodigy, her parents are artists, and one of her best friends is a changeling.
The novel starts off explaining about the boy with horns that slept in the coffin. It’s almost like Snow White in a way, except a bit darker and brutal than what Disney has put out. When the boy wakes up and disappears, things start to happen that Hazel and her brother notice almost immediately. Couple that with growing feelings from the siblings toward others, a deal that Hazel made when she was a child, and something dark lurking in the forest, you have a pretty good novel.
While I don’t typically read novels with faeries in them, I’m always impressed by the depth of the writing and all of the research that went into making faeries as realistic and horrifying as possible. Holly Black, the author, clearly did deep-diving for her research and it worked out beautifully. The novel, while linear for the most part, twists and turns and unfolds into something completely unexpected (well, a few things were expected) yet beautiful.
This novel should be sold wherever books are available (and it was published in 2015, so it’s pretty well-established).
Sorry if this review seems all over the place! I had a hard time trying to figure out how I wanted it to turn out and came out with this mess. Stay tuned for more reviews, happy holidays to all, and let me know what I should write about/read next!
kannaree.com 