👀 uhhh 😳 OMG

If Zoje Stage has perfected just one thing, it's making me insanely uncomfortable. But, like, so uncomfortable that I can't stop—I need to know what happens so I can move on with my life.

Baby Teeth, I hated Hanna, and I think most readers of that book would agree, but damn, I felt for her hard in this book. The letters back and forth, I kinda had a feeling something was fishy there because Hanna couldn't be fully 'fixed,' no way. So, so, so close Hanna 😔

I read this in one sitting because, like I stated earlier, I can't stop until I know.

I was a fan of Baby Teeth, so I wanted to see what became of Hanna once she grew up. Well, what happened was that she became boring. The start of this book was just plain old dull. At age 20, Hanna is still living at home with her parents and is now a phlebotomist. She meets Jacob, twenty years her senior and his 12 year old daughter, Joelle. Jacob is a widower and they quickly marry and become the perfect family. Hanna has learned to act normal. Four years pass and Joelle has become a typical teenager with an all too familiar problem.
To be honest, I could sympathize with Hanna’s predicament. I would have been pushing for the same resolution. In the beginning, I kept thinking, if Hanna is a sociopath, then I guess I am, too. And I found Jacob to be a total jerk. His total disregard for Hanna was sickening. Both he and Joelle totally took her for granted.
But then… Hanna starts going to some pretty desperate lengths trying to rectify the situation and return their home life to what it has been before. As the book moves along, it becomes more and more apparent how wacko she is. But the big reveal was so obvious it was like one big thud.
Be sure to read the Acknowledgments. I liked that Stage was able to (initially) make Hanna quite sympathetic.
This can be read as a stand-alone and it’s not at all necessary to have read Baby Teeth. But that book was much more interesting than this one.
My thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for an advance copy of this book.

I kept thinking something was going to happen and I felt that this is really all this book was in the end. It was almost like the author did not know what she wanted to happen, or wanted to stretch this out to keep people guessing. This was disappointing. This is the the third book I have read from this author and am just thinking that there is just no skill of execution, although the build up seems promising. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

3.5⭐️

Let me start off by saying I loved Baby Teeth and was dying to find out how Hanna’s life turned out. And maybe it was because I listened to the audio for that one and it was just so well done and who doesn’t love a book with a creepy kid!

Dear Hanna starts off when Hanna is in her early twenties after going away to a school for peculiar children (also all I could picture was Mrs. Peregrine’s school for peculiar children every time they talked about the school!). She has a career as a phlebotomist, is married and has a step daughter. Everything seems to be going well in her life until it takes an unexpected turn.

I’m glad this can be read as a stand alone as I always struggle with sequels and unfortunately this wasn’t an exception. Perhaps if I’d listened to the audio it would have had the same feel as Baby Teeth but I found Dear Hanna to be very predictable and slow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for the advanced copy.

Thank you to NetGalley, Zoje Stage and Thomas and Mercer for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Really enjoyed the follow up from baby teeth, especially with Hanna as an adult. It was twisty and messed up in the best way possible. Very well done.

I loved Baby Teeth and was thrilled to read this sequel, but, unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to its predecessor. Baby Teeth actually had some wickedly shocking moments, whereas this dragged at times and there wasn't much of an impact on me. Though it was not terrible, I found this to be boring at times. I feel like the author could've thrown in a few scenes that made Baby Teeth so appealing.

Dear Hanna was a brilliant page-turner, the perfect sequel to Baby Teeth.

With a number of plot twists, and Hanna trying so hard to be the perfect wife, stepmother and phlebotomist - she quickly drags you into her world where everything is as terrifying as her thoughts.

4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Special thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and to Zoje Stage for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

@zoje.stage_author
@netgalley

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is the sequel to Baby Teeth which is amazing and you should read as well. The sequel can be read as a standalone and you can read them in either order. Well, after reading Baby Teeth Zoje made a fan out of me!! I was left wanting more Hanna and she gave it to us in this book. From beginning to end it made me feel so many emotions! The twists and unexpected situations, I didn’t see coming at first left me very surprised. I feel like this book will really stay with me for a while. I loved how it focused on Hanna being older and delved more into her psyche. Her letter correspondence with Goose just had me.

Zoje, I want you to know what an incredible writer you are and can’t wait to read more of your work in the future. I will be reading Wonderland soon! Also, thank you sincerely for such a great reading experience!!!

#reading #readmorebooks #bookishlove #dearhanna #netgalley #zojestage #babyteeth #tbr #psychologicalthriller #thriller #barnesandnoble #thomasmercer #bookworms #booklife #barnesandnoble

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.

Baby Teeth is one of my favorite horror novels and I was so excited to get back into that world. Dear Hanna was great, though it didn't quite live up to the hype I had built up in my head. Still loved it, though.

Omg Hanna is back and in full force!!!

This will be one of my favorites for 2024 and I loved Baby Teeth! Zoje Stage is brilliant and I hope this series continues!

I will read anything this author writes! The story is full of twists and turns and it just makes you wanna keep reading!

Well written !

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review

It's this intensely gripping follow-up to Baby Teeth and seriously dives into Hanna’s twisted mind as an adult. It's like nothing you've read before—creepy, captivating, and totally chilling!

A fantastic follow up to Baby Teeth!

I was so excited when I heard Zoje was writing a sequel to Baby Teeth. It was one of my favorite reads from a few years ago.

Getting to know adult Hanna was so much fun and eerie after the events of the first book. I was on edge the whole time, just waiting for the ball to drop and for shit to hit the fan. And oh boy does it ever hit the fan.

Full of twists and turns and a shocking ending. I really enjoyed this.

Zoje Stage sets a very creepy and chilling stage in which Hanna is the star! This book is a creepy and unsettling psychological thriller that will have readers questioning what is going to happen next! Dear Hanna is a sequel to Baby Teeth but can be read as a stand-alone.

Hanna is back and this time she is an adult navigating the world of work, marriage, and being a stepparent. She also regularly sends letters to her younger brother. On the outside, she appears to have it all, but her tendencies are still there, lurking under the surface, waiting to see the light of day! Hanna continues to have 'issues' but strives to be seen as having a handle on everything. She works as a phlebotomist, a job that she enjoys and is quite proud of. She takes pride in her job but occasionally misses a vein and *oops* causes pain to others.

Zoje Stage does a great job with the psychological aspects of this book. Hanna has dark thoughts, impulses, and tendencies. Hanna is also adept at pulling the wool over the eyes of her husband and those in her life.

This was an enjoyable and well thought out look into Hanna's life as a young woman trying to adapt and fit in. There were a nice number of twists and reveals along the way. I did see one twist/reveal coming but overall enjoyed how the author brought everything full circle in the end.

Well written, well thought out, and unsettling.

3.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a digital galley in exchange for my honest review.

I did not know this was a sequel until I was already deep in it. Luckily, I believe it can be read as a standalone or in reverse order.

I was immediately so absorbed and enthralled with Hanna. This is an excellent character study of a person with a moral compass that doesn’t exactly point north. She sucked me in.

While not heavy with plot, I was never bored.

My next move is to read Baby Teeth for Hanna’s backstory. And I would be more than happy to read about where Hanna goes from here, in something like a sequel to the sequel. I could keep reading these bite sized pockets of her life well into her old age.

This is a solid follow up to one of my favorite books, Baby Teeth. We get to see Hanna in the future making her way through life as an adult. She seems to be doing remarkable well, regularly communicating with her brother, holding down a steady job and taking care of her little family. It's all well and good until the demons that haunted her as a child start to resurface.

I love a good evil child thriller and this is the long awaited sequel to just one of my favorite such stories

Publishes August 13, so don't miss it!

Thank you Zoje Stage, Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read and review this as an ARC.

Wow! What an intense and gripping book! Sequels are sometimes a bit flat but not this one! Suspenseful and twisty, I thoroughly enjoyed it! You won’t be able to put this down once you start!

Boy oh boy! Zoje Stage hits the bullseye in this dark and creepy thriller! The characters were fantastic and kept me reading long into the night. Stage has a way to get under my skin. She delivers big time. Deliciously dark and gripping.
Thank you NetGalley and Zoje Stage for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was an interesting book, that might be appropriate for older students who are more psychological aware. It was an easy read and also one that could be read without having read the first book, which I hadn't. Unique storyline and wasn't sure where it was going at some points

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC

4.5 ⭐️
I had a wonderful time checking in with Hanna as an adult. I had to know how such a sociopathic little girl would possibly grow up and build a life for herself. I was not disappointed. The author gave us plenty of messed up/twisted/juicy new events to sink our teeth into. The story was told largely through letters, so it went by very quickly. I couldn't put it down.

That being said, I had a couple of issues that kept it from being "perfect" for me. Mainly the ending fell a bit flat. I wanted more detail in the last few chapters.

The author's note explained that this can be read as a sequel to Baby Teeth or a stand alone novel. After the way she ended things, I would love to read a third one!

DEAR HANNA
Zoje Stage

Do you remember Hanna? She's back and in fine form in Zoje Stage's follow-up to her wildly successful novel BABY TEETH.

Hanna is casually manipulative, casually psycho, and casually looking for a replacement family. We meet up with her when she has a meet-cute with him. He has no idea what he is in for, who he is up against, or that he is up against anything.

He thinks he's met his replacement wife and really he met his nightmares in five feet of phlebotomist, going by the name Hanna.

She loves being a phlebotomist because it allows her to act out a fantasy she’s had since childhood. Soon he and Hanna marry and Hanna moves in with him and his daughter.

One day the daughter comes with unsettling news that ignites a far more nefarious version of Hanna than we’ve ever seen before. It’s twisty and twisted and I couldn't get enough.


DEAR HANNA is told through letters sent back and forth between Hanna and her brother Goose who still lives at home with their notorious mother and absent father. The letters were exceptionally insightful and I loved getting to know Hanna and the other characters better this way

Hanna is still a fun character to visit. I did not enjoy the last few of Stage’s novels, but it seems Hanna is my winning ticket. There was a material aspect to the book that I did not enjoy. Hence, the four stars instead of five. It's a spoiler so unless like me you read DEAR HANNA we'll never be able to discuss it.

So what are you waiting for?

Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the advanced copy! It was a pleasure!

DEAR HANNA...⭐⭐⭐⭐