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[Bonus] What Would You Do: Perfect Little Children

Published

A sample of bonus content that Brook and Sarah will share with members of the Clued in Cartel. This is a few extra minutes of conversation about Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah.

Discussed

Perfect Little Children (2020) Sophie Hannah

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Transcript

SarahHi, Brook.
BrookHi, Sarah. So we just finished recording our “What Would You Do” episode about Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah
SarahYeah, and so we’re this is just a little bit of a bonus conversation. The kind of thing that people who subscribe to the Clued in Cartel will get access to.
BrookYeah, this is something we typically do after every episode and so sometimes we’ll share these conversations with you.
SarahSo, typically when I read a book I don’t look at Goodreads until afterwards to see what the reviews are but and that’s how I approached this book. And the reviews were pretty polarizing. There were people who either really liked it or really did not like it.
BrookYeah, I’m the same as you. I try not to look at other people’s opinions before ah and I will also say that this is the first psychological thriller by Sophie Hannah that I’ve read I’ve read some of her . . . she does Poirot, right.
SarahYeah, that’s right. Yeah.
BrookYes I’ve read one of her Poirots and I think that’s it but she’s somebody I mean obviously who’s been on my radar and like I need to read something by her. And so I was really really looking forward to it and I was a little surprised because it was one of those kind of crazy plot stories and I will say that I wasn’t expecting that.
SarahSo I’m with you. I had read a couple of the books that she’s written as continuations of the um Poirot series. And this was the first of her books that I’ve read. And I think I’ll definitely read another because I liked the book. I’m not sure that I would say that it was my absolute favorite read of the year, but it was definitely something that I liked and I would read another. And ah the reviews on Goodreads for either people who really liked it or people who could not wrap their heads around either Beth’s motivation or Lewis’s motivation.
BrookAnd I can see both of those points, especially you know the explanation of what Lewis and ah Flora were up to was a little contrived, but it was also satisfying because you know we’d been spending all these pages wondering what in the world is going on so we finally did get satisfaction that way. One thing I think and I said this in the episode that Sophie Hannah did really well was her characterization. I loved the relationships. I loved the dialogue. Everybody really had like their own feel like it wasn’t difficult to keep people straight. She did a wonderful job characterizing a family. So I’m with you I would definitely pick up another one of her books.
SarahI agree with you with the exception of Ben who is her son who really doesn’t appear in the book. He’s the device that gets her to the neighborhood where she sees her friend but then he’s not present for any of the other conversations that she has with her husband and her daughter.
BrookThat’s a great point. I forgot I didn’t realize that Ben disappears but he does all that’s too bad for Ben.
SarahAnd then there was also that like side jaunt into um Zannah’s school ah that kind of came out of nowhere and really didn’t seem to have a place. But otherwise, yeah I thought it was great.
BrookI really paid attention on my second reading because I wanted to I wanted there to be a reason for that trip to Zannah’s school. Like okay, what does this add to the the plot or what do we learn about Zannah that’s important or something and I couldn’t find it so I’m not sure why. And you know I saw that in some of the reviews as well that readers were surprised by that and weren’t weren’t sure what that was for.
SarahYeah anyway I look forward to reading another book by Sophie Hannah at some point in the future and um, doing another. What would you do another time for sure.
BrookAbsolutely, it was great fun.

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