The Darkest Part of the Forest - Holly Black

Holly Black never fails to please.  After reading Cruel Prince earlier this year, I realized that I was missing a chunk of her faerie stories--I had the Tithe background, as well as its sequels, but there were characters in CP whom I was clearly supposed to recognize, and did not.  Obviously, I had missed The Darkest Part of the Forest.  Or, not missed it, exactly--I knew it existed.  However, I thought it was completely unconnected to the other books and had a story significantly different from what it actually is (I have no idea where I got that sense) and so I hadn't sought it out.  Which is kind of a good thing, because I got to enjoy it now!

The story takes place in the strange Pennsylvania town of Fairfold, where humans live not with the Folk, but alongside them.  Every now and then, a tourist will go missing--tourists who come to the town to get a thrill from interacting with faeries and make mistakes that "locals" would never make, except when they do.  Changeling Jack lives alongside his human "brother," whom he was supposed to replace; a jump-rope line stops one line short of drawing a monster out of the woods; and a boy sleeping in a glass coffin is the centerpiece of many a high school party.

Heroine Hazel grew up in Fairfold, with a short stint in Philadelphia while her older brother, Ben, was in music school.  Ben has music magic, a gift (or curse) from a faerie when he was a baby.  Hazel has no such gifts, but she wishes she did; she supports Ben in his magic and takes on the role of his loyal knight, the two of them hunting bad faeries as pre-teenagers in the woods.  But all that ends with the time in Philadelphia, and upon returning to Fairfold, Hazel makes a stupid mistake that puts her off hunting even longer.  But when the glass coffin is broken and Hazel has reason to suspect that she did it--even if she doesn't know why or even remember doing it--and the boy inside it is gone, a world of trouble is unleashed from the darkest part of the forest.  Hazel has to fight for her family, friends, and Fairfold itself, even though she is woefully unprepared to do so.

This was slow to get going, I will admit, and there's not a lot of real tension or action until fairly late in the book.  I also wasn't a huge fan of Ben as a main character--perhaps because he seemed to enter the role of main character fairly late in the book, where Hazel had occupied that role by herself for much of the early parts.  Ben himself was okay, but I liked him more in a supporting role; while his motivations were clear, I never felt he got the character development that a main character really needs to shine in a starring role.  Hazel, on the other hand, had much more page time; we were in her head much more, saw more of what she did and why she did it.  It just worked better for Hazel.  (Though I liked how things ended up for Ben!)

This is a different setting and a different faerie Court from Black's other books, and that aspect of this wasn't felt out as well.  However, I liked Fairfold itself.  The way that Folk and humans twined together, but with humans walking the razor's edge of danger all the time, really appealed to me.  The humans of Fairfold felt safe, until they weren't, justifying that "only tourists" were in danger, but doing some "tourist"-like things themselves.  And the way they seemed so okay with things, but quickly turned on Jack--the only faerie among them--as soon as things went wrong seemed exactly like what would happen in real life to me.

These faerie tales are Black's definite strength.  I'm so glad that she's returned to them with Cruel Prince, and I can't wait to read the next installment in that series--and luckily, I think reading this in the meantime will help bulk out my understanding of that series, too.

4 stars out of 5.