The Darkest Part of the Forest

I fell hard for Holly Black after reading [b:White Cat 6087756 White Cat (Curse Workers, #1) Holly Black https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358274572s/6087756.jpg 6264661], and since I have a tender spot in my heart for faeries and creepy little towns this felt like a good fit. The Darkest Part of the Forest is not as tightly wound as the books I've read from Black in the past, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.I think that Hazel is the kind of main character we want in YA, but as such doesn't always fit into a YA book. Since she was a little girl, she always wanted to be a knight. She wanted to vanquish evil faeries, while her brother hypnotized them with his music. Her longing to be this person, to remain strong in an environment that is apathetic at best to her well-being, leads her to make a very foolish decision. One that makes her into the kind of protagonist that I keep seeing over and over in YA - the girl afraid of herself.Maybe it has to do with the coming of age aspects of YA lit. Maybe it has to do with as women we are brought up to keep ourselves, our bodies, our best qualities, at arm's length. We grow up with a misunderstanding of ourselves and our desires, and when those things manifest themselves despite all our best efforts, the only way to respond is fear. Hazel, in a way, becomes a young woman's worst nightmare - she becomes someone else when she goes to sleep.But Hazel is both afraid and not afraid, because she is what she is - a knight. She's the girl who falls in love with the rejected changeling, not the prince. She's the one who marches right into faery court to figure out what's going on. She faces a monster head on even though she knows she can't stop it. She's a very fun, satisfying character to see through the eyes of, but sometimes things were a little less dire as a result. I never really worried about Hazel. That's nice to read, but not as riveting.The setting is great, the mythos and folktale nature of the town immediately takes you in. The supporting characters are delightful. Jack is simultaneously relatable and mysterious, and I totally get why Hazel adores him. Her brother's romance with Severin, the horned boy, is a thin side plot, but it's just enough to feel sexy and interesting. The overall story is on the thin side, to be fair. There a lot of characters, back stories and motivation to pack into 300 pages. All that means though is that it makes for a swift, lighthearted read, and considering that the mythology of faeries can get into some pretty heavy territory, I think that's perfectly fine.