My October 2021 Halloween post, Baby Teeth, about the very disturbed, homicidal 7-year-old Hanna, who tried on more than one occasion to kill her mother, is now 25 years old in the novel Dear Hanna by Zoje Stage. This sequel puts us in the passenger seat of Hanna’s disturbed mind as a grown-up trying to keep the family that she’s built.
The novel is told through Hanna’s narrative and her thoughts. She actually still blames her parents for sending her to the institute for disturbed children and blames her mother for her father turning away from her. The few years at the institute has taught Hanna how to hide her violent urges from people better, and she still has them. She doesn’t believe anything she’s done is wrong and still believes her mother is the main problem, not her. Surprisingly, Hanna still lived with her parents, although estranged, until she moved out to live with and then marry her husband, Jacob.
One positive person in Hanna’s life seems to be her younger 13-year-old brother, Goose, who is away at a boarding school. They write letters to each other, where they disclose their inner thoughts and work out their daily life problems. Several short chapters are devoted to these letters, which offers a good look into the mind of Hanna and you realize she hasn’t really changed at all.
