Review: A Danger to Herself and Others

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

Unreliable narrators aren’t usually my thing. They make me uncomfortable. The whole premise of this book made me uncomfortable.

 

A perfect daughter of psychologists institutionalised for a crime. She’s convinced she did no wrong (even though it’s obvious from the start she did.) Her logic is flawed and frightening but also…in a weird way vey plausible. Which makes it all the more frightening.

 

Hannah is a very intelligent girl who has a habit of latching onto people and calling herself the perfect best friend. She’s not cruel or violent or anything. She’s manipulative without even realising what she’s doing.  She’s doing a summer programme at a college and something terrible happens to her roommate.

 

Police are called and they all think Hannah is responsible. She’s labelled “a danger to herself and other” and put in a hospital for evaluation until the trial. Despite how uncomfortable this book made me as a reader, it’s extraordinarily well written. It’s compelling and page turning and you just have to know what’s going on. What happened with the roommate, what makes Hannah the way she is? Is she faking it and a very good actress – or is she really just nuts and doing a good job of covering it up and trying to convince everyone she’s normal and no threat to anyone?

 

It’s a harrowing experience following Hannah as she wakes up in the hospital and goes through talking to the doctors and learning how things work and what she has to do to convince everyone what happened was an accident.

 

Slowly, we learn what really happened. The truth about Hannah’s involvement and what might happen next.  What makes it all the more believable is there’s no black and white right and wrong way to handle the outcome. It’s not a fair outcome, really but it’s a realistic one and something that highlights the tough decisions that justice systems sometimes have to make.

 

It’s a difficult book to get through but a really good one.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for approving my request to view the title.

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