Reviews

Kleine meid by Sophie Hannah

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wassail's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

janiemcpants's review against another edition

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3.0

I gave this three stars because it was a real page-turner, and I read it in two sittings because I just had to know what happened. The book has a great concept that deserved a better execution.

The blurb on the cover said “for fans of the Dublin Murder Squad”, and I can see that. The dysfunctional family and the asshole cops (complete with solitary female cop who they all treat like crap) did remind me of the DMS books, except the DMS books have more depth and more multidimensional characters.

I have three big issues here:

1. As has been said in many other reviews, the final twist makes no sense. We’re right there in Alice’s head for half the book, so if she knew all along that Little Face was Florence, we should have known, too.

2. There was no closure for David’s plot. David subjects Alice to some pretty horrific abuse, and then we just...never hear about it again. Simon doesn’t even mention it, and you’d think, even if Simon wasn’t really in love with Alice (and I didn’t buy that he was for one second), he’d at least menace him a little bit, or something. I just wanted SOME kind of karma to get him. I think what we were supposed to take from David’s behavior was he was so under his mother’s thumb that he got off on controlling Alice, because that was the one thing he was able to control, but I wish it was more interesting than that. I actually wish David had been involved in the murder plot, or the babies really had been switched and David and Vivienne had been in it together, just because It’s All The Rich Controlling Mother’s Fault has been done to death.

3. There was no closure for Charlie’s plot. I still have no idea what that was all about.

All in all, it did a good job of portraying Alice’s growing panic and frustration, but the characters and motivations could have used a LOT more development. They all just sort of do things for some reason, and then plot happens.

caroparr's review against another edition

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3.0

A real page-turner, but when the bad guys turn out just to be crazy, the story loses any depth it might have had. I'd like to meet Simon again, however, and it turns out that I can and will!

thebookishgem's review against another edition

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3.0

A decent read but I was quite disappointed with the ending

aliceyy's review against another edition

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4.0

This is so far my favourite out of the books I've read by Sophie Hannah. It's much shorter than most of them, and I think it has a more direct resolution to the mystery.

The premise is very attention grabbing - Alice comes home to find that her baby daughter has disappeared, and instead another baby is in her place. Meanwhile her husband is certain that the baby is in fact their daughter. Other people couldn't be sure either because babies grow so fast so only the parents would know. So Alice tries to get the police to search for her daughter but the police don't take her seriously, until she and the baby both go missing soon after. So then the mysteries are gradually uncovered. I really liked the pace of this book. The only problem would be Alice's absolutely neurotic paranoia that felt a little too repetitive.

As for the characters, I do not like Alice and her husband. Or anyone else really apart from Simon and Charlie (the two main detectives we follow with all of Sophie Hannah's Spilling CID books). Usually I don't think about whether I like them or not that much because they just exist to solve the crime. But in this book their personalities really stood out for me.