Synopsis
Zoje Stage delivers another knockout with a blood-chilling follow-up to international sensation Baby Teeth, taking readers back into the unsteady world of a young sociopath who’s all grown up.
Hanna is no stranger to dark thoughts: as a young child, she tried to murder her own mother. But that was more than sixteen years ago. And extensive therapy—and writing letters to her younger brother—has since curbed those nasty tendencies.
Now twenty-four, Hanna is living an outwardly normal life of domestic content. Married to real estate agent Jacob, she’s also stepmother to his teenage daughter Joelle. They live in a beautiful home, and Hanna loves her career as a phlebotomist—a job perfectly suited to her occasional need to hurt people.
But when Joelle begins to change in ways that don’t suit Hanna’s purposes, her carefully planned existence threatens to come apart. With life slipping out of her control, Hanna reverts to old habits, determined to manipulate the events and people around her. And the only thing worse than a baby sociopath is a fully grown one.
With its dark humor and chillingly seductive protagonist, Dear Hanna is a stand-alone sequel sure to thrill returning and new readers alike.
Review
A huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC!
The follow-up to her striking novel, Baby Teeth, Zoje Stage revisits a truly unforgettable character in the landscape of fiction, Hanna. Not to spoil Baby Teeth for those who have not read it as both it and Dear Hanna can be read as standalones, but prior events have revealed Hanna to be a sociopath of sorts from a very young age. She is a child who is misunderstood and defaults to violence or unconventional thinking to confront the issues before her. Around sixteen years later, we see that some things have changed for Hanna, but others have not. Now married and a stepmother at age twenty-four, Hanna works as a phlebotomist by day and spends her evenings with her “chosen” family or writing letters to her brother, Goose. That is until Jo, Hanna’s stepdaughter, begins to change in ways that Hanna did not account for, ushering in a slew of complications for Hanna. Stage takes us on a dark, tense ride with Hanna as old demons prove to be restless and the truth hard to discern.
Dexter Morgan. Joe Goldberg. Hanna. The idea of relating to these characters who are formed with a strong predilection for violence would seem preposterous at face value. However, what these characters all have in common is the fact that we DO, indeed, willingly (and excitedly) sit passenger to their dark actions. In fact, in the case of Hanna, we are left wanting MORE. Stage’s decision to revisit Hanna after so much time is a bold one, one that had the potential to be a whopping success or a letdown. I’m here to say it’s the former, not the latter.
Hanna’s characterization as a functioning sociopath out in the world reads as compelling fiction. This feels like a character study of the darkest variety and begs the question of whether or not a child like Hanna can be “reformed.” Of course, this is a book built upon suspense so what we see initially proves to be a rather slippery version of Hanna’s reality. Around the 20-30% mark of this novel marks an incredible uptick in intensity, not in an active sense, but in a thrilling psychological one. If you’ve read Baby Teeth, you know what young Hanna would default to in a situation like this. Yet, what would THIS Hanna do?
Dark predilections aside, Stage pulls off what feels like the impossible in making Hanna incredibly relatable. While her navigation of the world marks a lack of innate empathy, Hanna’s ability to recognize things like neglect, disinterest, and mistreatment remains wholly intact, leading to emotional reactions. Stage uses these instances to display gender inequalities, the complexities of motherhood, and to highlight other volatile issues most adults face in today’s world. These hot topics aren’t avoided, rather they’re confronted full-force through Hanna’s viewpoint. It’s tense writing with every possibility left on the table.
Razor sharp and compulsively readable, Dear Hanna by Zoje Stage is a welcome visitation to one of the most memorable sociopaths in modern fiction. This is a book that sinks its claws in deep and doesn’t relent until its final pages. The conclusion left me wanting slightly more, but in a way that feels like an open door, the possibility for a continuation existing on the fringes. In any case, Dear Hanna is gripping, entertaining, and darkly delightful.
Dear Hanna by Zoje Stage releases on August 13th from Thomas & Mercer.
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