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Meet Hanna.
She’s the sweet-but-silent angel in the adoring eyes of her Daddy. He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.
Meet Suzette.
She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette's husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.
The Sexy Nerd's Review. . .
I’m a bit on the fence with this novel—not totally sure where to begin? Let’s start with what I loved about this novel. Right off the bat, learning that this story takes place in my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania immediately caught my attention. It was an absolute pleasure navigating around the city with the characters because I knew exactly where they were going. That gave me a sense of hometown pride. The writing was amazing. Although there were times I felt there was too much description, she didn’t overly do it.
What was very interesting is Stage got right to the point. She didn’t linger or keep the reader guessing. The story begins right away from the perspectives of Hanna, the seven-year-old daughter, and Suzette, the mother. The reader will immediately know who is speaking and why. As I continued to delve further into Suzette’s and Hanna’s lives, a few things began to bother me and this is how I ended up on that dreaded fence.
Perhaps my parenting style is vastly different than Suzette’s, but she allowed Hanna too much freedom which was the root of a great deal of their issues. Alex, Hanna’s dad and Suzette’s husband, was the most blind, idiotic man I’ve ever encountered in a book. I think Alex’s behavior angered me the most throughout the story. For Alex believed everything his precious little Hanna said, despite the fact that his wife told him she was lying to him. Hanna could do no wrong in his eyes and he took her side entirely too much for my tastes. A lot of the negative and bad behaviors Hanna exhibited warranted a good swift kick in the ass, but neither parent chastised their daughter in that manner. If my daughter spit her food in my face, most likely I would have ended up on the evening news doing the perp walk of motherly shame. This child did so much stuff that was just too unbelievable to me. She was worse than The Bad Seed, if anyone has ever read that classic?
It boggled my mind how much Alex never believed what his wife was saying. She tried, on more than one account, to advise him that she was tired of home-schooling their daughter and that she needed a rest. But every school they tried to put Hanna in, she was smart enough to get herself kicked out so she could be at home to torture her mother more. Once again, I would have beat the particular hell out of Hanna, but neither parent ever lifted a finger, let alone a voice. They just chocked it up to this is how she communicated. Oh…did I fail to mention Hanna doesn’t talk. Oh, she had plenty to say to her mother when daddy wasn’t around, but when daddy came home from work she was the perfect little angel. Hanna despised her mother and wanted her dead and would stop at nothing to ensure her actions were carried out.
Alex and Suzette reminded me of so many real-life stories where mothers complain about being overwhelmed with their children and the fathers ignore their cries, only to be summoned home to learn that their ever-wonderful wife has murdered their children because she had had enough. In fact, I kept thinking as I read, that’s where this story was headed, but to no avail. In fact, that was another issue that put me on that damn fence. Every crazy scenario I thought was going to happen, I wasn’t anywhere in the ballpark on. I had so many crazy and insane ideas as to how this story was going to end, and when I got to the ending, I had to go back a few Kindle pages to make sure I hadn’t missed anything? A-hem, excuse me? Did I totally read that? So, that ending. Yeah. . .hmmm? Welp, I’ll say this, Nerds. If you can call that ending an “ending” then you’re a better reader than I! I felt as though we were cheated and cliff-hanged which enraged me. Well I'll be damned--I've been Gone Girl'd again!!!! 😡 Had I paid more attention to the cover of the book, I would have noticed a reviewer from Entertainment Weekly said We Need to Talk About Kevin meets Gone Girl. Had I read those little words, I would have steered very clear of this book. My fans already know how I feel about Gone Girl after having wasted my precious time reading a good book to only turn into a load of shit! For a book to be that well written to end like that, pissed me off on so many levels. My five-star rating dwindled down to two and a half stars hovering around three. Yikes!
I’ve read other reviews on this book and I’m not exactly sure what I missed? It’s very true that no two readers read the same way. It is said this is a psychological thriller, but I have to strongly disagree with that. Was this book scary? Yes, to some degree, but not the type of scary that I love to read. Was this Exorcist scary? Far from it, but I’d say a more updated version of The Bad Seed, perhaps as I mentioned earlier. I wish I could have talked with the author while she was writing this because I came up with some of the best stuff that would have terrified the readers, but she chose her path the way she saw fit and I can’t hate her for that, but I’m not happy though! 🙄
Overall, this was a very entertaining book that will hold your interests without any issues, but if you go into this book with the preconceived notion that it's going to go one way and you’re expecting a different outcome, consider this review your warning—you may be extremely disappointed. I know I certainly was. 😥
The Sexy Nerd gives Baby Teeth three dentists to drill even harder into its mouth! Eh, I wasn’t thrilled with this story. I love the fact the author is from my hometown and she’s an amazing writer but the characters in this book were really out of this world. It was hard for me to like them because they were so gullible and stupid. So, with that, Nerds, until next time, you already know! 😏😛😮
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