NerdyBirdie

Hey guys! I hope you all are having a great day and this is my review to The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black.

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?

Honestly I can’t tell what’s harder:

Reading the book? Getting through the book? Or actually finally finishing it and wondering what happened. We’ll never know, ladies and gentlemen because I. Am. Lost.

To start off, I didn’t feel that way about the entire book. There were some points where I was very invested in the story. But, then, the characters were put in such weird situations that I thought could’ve been quite easily avoided in the first place!

I actually liked Hazel as the story progressed. But then when the conflict with the “fae fighting” and all that stuff reached a whole new level, I was done!

And Jack?! I hated him, and saw no relevance to him in the story! The only characters I actually cared about were Severin and Ben! And they were not justified according to me! *huffs*  

The story, also, could’ve been cut down a slight bit. So many unnecessary things happened!

I really wanted to love this book, but honestly. I didn’t think that the story overall was just that great. I really liked the first third of this book, but then it started going in directions that made no sense to me, or I just couldn’t see the connections because I didn’t understand how or why these things were happening! :/ What’s the point? Why are the characters making these decisions? How did this event that happened have any relevance to the plot?

The thing I did like though, was the premise of the book itself. I felt like this was an urban fantasy standalone that really worked, it was just the events that happened later on in the book that ruined it for me. I also like Holly Black’s writing style for this one! I thought she really pulled off the mystic tone and the creepiness towards the end.

Yeah, I thought the ending was okay, and I was glad it ended the way it did. But did I enjoy what happened between Point A to Point B? Absolutely not. I liked the beginning and the end. That’s it.

Overall, The Darkest Part of the Forest was a book that had an amazing premise, and from what I’d heard, was great. But did it do it for me? Not really. I felt like a lot of the book wasn’t related to the plot itself, and was disappointed.

I would recommend this to fans of Holly Black, and if you want to try this out, then go ahead! I feel like you’ll either love or hate this story. But for me, I’m kind of more iffy about it than anything else. If you like fae premises and standalone Fantasy, then give this book a try! :D

BUT. I will be trying more of Holly Black! Who knows? Maybe, one day I might try to read this again? So, for now, I will be checking out The Coldest Girl in Coldtown because I have read The Curse Workers trilogy and I’ve seen how amazing Holly Black is!

Thanks for reading my review guys! I hope you all have a great day and until the next one! :D