The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

It feels like I've been reading a lot about fairy tales recently.My themed SF/F book club is in the middle of five months of reading books with fairy tales for the themes, although when I was choosing books for that, I tried to steer clear of books that were about fae coming into our world. (I made one exception.) I did so because I felt like there were enough of those that it could be its own theme, so this collection was fairy tales in fairy tale worlds. I wasn't dogmatic about it, but it was one of my guiding principles.

This book definitely belongs in the fae-coming-into-our-world category. It happens in a small town called Fairfold, where the fae never went entirely away. Those who live there all their lives all know those who trespassed into Fairy and never returned. Tourists come, and sometimes disappear. A changeling is left with a local family, and when the human mother figures it out and when she gets her own child back, she refuses to give up the changeling either. There is an equilibrium.

In this world, Hazel used to think of herself as a knight, wielding a sword she found by a lake as a child. With her brother as troubadour by her side, making magic music, she fought the fae who tried to prey in more malicious ways on the people of her town. But then she made a deal with the fairy king for her brother's sake, and nothing has quite gone right since. They're both in high school, and Hazel doesn't know how to be who she is anymore, and has her own reasons for keeping her heart far away from anyone. She doesn't know when her debt (seven years of her life) will come due.

One of the notable features of her town is a Sleeping Beauty - but a guy Sleeping Beauty, under glass like Snow White in the Disney film. Generations of teens have partied on his magical glass coffin, but he hasn't woken up. Then, one morning, the case is broken and the boy is gone. Both Hazel and Ben, her brother, are attached to what they'd made of the boy in their heads.

And then kids in the town start being found asleep and not waking up. With the help of Ben and Ben's best friend, Jack (Jack was the changeling who was kept), Hazel has to figure out who let the boy out, who is threatening her town, and what happens at night when she's not conscious to see it.

This is definitely YA, but it's good YA. The characters are strong and interesting, and the writing pulled me along eagerly, wanting to know what happened next. Things are messy and difficult, but none of the conflict feels forced or out of character.

However, I think the strongest part of this are the relationships. Borderline neglected by loving but careless parents, Hazel and Ben have one of the most interesting sibling relationships I've read in a while, and Hazel and Ben's relationships with their parents, with Jack, with the boy under glass, all are interesting and avoid simplistic answers.

I don't know if I'd call this my favourite of the numerous stories that are out there about the fae entering a version of our world, but it's very solid, and certainly up there.