Haven't They Grown is a book with such an intriguing premise. One day Beth Leeson happens to see her old friend, Flora Braid. With Flora are her two children, Thomas and Emily, aged 5 and 3 respectively. Beth is absolutely certain that all three people are the ones she remembers but she last saw them 12 years ago. In that case, surely this can't be Thomas and Emily. They'd be 17 and 15 now. What on earth is going on and why haven't they grown?
See, aren't you immediately dying to know the answer to that question? I certainly was. These kind of mind-twisting conundrums are what Sophie Hannah excels at. I've read her books before and she always thinks up implausible situations and then finds a way to make them plausible in a way that the reader never can. I couldn't fathom out why the children hadn't grown any more than Beth, who was like a dog with a bone, could. It was only when it all came to a conclusion that I worked it out, so way after everyone else probably.
One of the things I didn't expect was the dry humour but having seen Sophie Hannah a couple of times at author events I perhaps should have expected her own brand of humour to come out in her writing. I laughed out loud at the dialogue several times and the teenagers in particular were so caustic that I just found them so funny. I did mark a couple of passages but I think they don't work out of context so I'll leave them for you to discover for yourself.
This is quite an addictive and thrilling read. I was completely taken up with Beth's search for the truth about her former friend. I recommend this book if you like books that mess with your mind with an almost unfathomable and clever plot.
See, aren't you immediately dying to know the answer to that question? I certainly was. These kind of mind-twisting conundrums are what Sophie Hannah excels at. I've read her books before and she always thinks up implausible situations and then finds a way to make them plausible in a way that the reader never can. I couldn't fathom out why the children hadn't grown any more than Beth, who was like a dog with a bone, could. It was only when it all came to a conclusion that I worked it out, so way after everyone else probably.
One of the things I didn't expect was the dry humour but having seen Sophie Hannah a couple of times at author events I perhaps should have expected her own brand of humour to come out in her writing. I laughed out loud at the dialogue several times and the teenagers in particular were so caustic that I just found them so funny. I did mark a couple of passages but I think they don't work out of context so I'll leave them for you to discover for yourself.
This is quite an addictive and thrilling read. I was completely taken up with Beth's search for the truth about her former friend. I recommend this book if you like books that mess with your mind with an almost unfathomable and clever plot.