The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (review)

The residents of Fairfold have an uneasy alliance with the dangerous Fae that live in the surrounding forest: Fairfold natives are protected, but the many tourists who visit the small town to get a glimpse of its main attraction, a horned boy sleeping in a glass coffin, are fair game for the Fae. Siblings Hazel and Ben have grown up knowing to scatter oatmeal beneath their pillow, to carry grave dirt along with their cellphones, and to have iron on hand when entering the forest; all the warnings, however, didn’t stop Hazel from making a bargain with the Fae seven years ago to ensure that Ben gets into an elite music academy. Now the horned boy has woken up, a monstrous creature threatens the town, and Hazel’s realizing it’s time to repay her debt. Black returns here to the dark faery realm that spurred her initial success, and if anything, she’s only gotten better, writing with an elegant, economical precision and wringing searing emotional resonance from the simplest of sentences. The juxtaposition of the dark Fae world, clearly threatening but shrouded in mystery, against the quotidian, everyday town of Fairfold, replete with cheap souvenir shops and bored teenagers, is captivating, particularly as residents come to realize that their détente with the Fae is coming to an end. Most haunting, though, is the relationship between Hazel and Ben, a contradiction of affection and envy that is saddled with secrets and sacrifices that neither understand entirely. Fans of the author’s Valiant (BCCB 10/05) and Ironside (BCCB 9/07) will be pleased to see Black back in the realm of faeries.