Review: Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence

Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars bumped.

"No, you don't get to rub anything out. But you can always turn the page and write something new."

This book, which is decidedly Gaimanesque in feel, tells several stories, but focuses on Hannah Green, a girl whose parents are separated, and whose father, struggling to cope with his sadness over his failed marriage, sends Hannah to live with her rather unusual grandfather for a bit. Hannah's grandfather has some unusual friends. Like, um, the Devil. Yes, that one. THE one. Hannah used to think her life was boring and mundane, but soon finds that she's in for something of a wild ride as she contemplates questions about good and evil and whether you could build something to correct mankind's mistakes, redeeming them and whether helping your grandfather when he's helping the Devil is a good plan. Even if Hannah's life becomes rather weird, I promise it's a good weird.

Though the book might be slow to get going for some, it's a tale with charm, both from its lovely use of language and its droll humor. I especially loved the imps (accident imp Vaneclaw, or stop imp Soulfang, for instance) and descriptions of them, such as that of Vaneclaw's grandmother, "so dense that not only could she not even remember her own name (consistently referring to herself as 'that one, right here, where I am') but who also spent nearly thirty years plaguing herself." (emphasis mine)

If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman and enjoy books with the humor of "Good Omens" you'll probably enjoy Hannah Green, which releases November 6th, 2018 in paperback. I'm rather surprised that Harper Books has not produced an audiobook version of this book because it seems ideal for audio recording.

Full disclosure: I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from Harper Voyager for review, but actually already owned it on Kindle platform since June. I just hadn't gotten to it until now. But I finally did, and I enjoyed it!

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