With a slight element of magical realism, Hanna Who Fell from the Sky by Christopher Meades is a clever coming of age novel about a teenager who is on the cusp of becoming a much older man's fifth wife.

Hanna and her family are part of a polygamist community that feels more like a cult than a true religious society. One of their practices is to send the young men off to live on their own while the young women are expected to marry the much older men in the congregation. Keeping with tradition, one week before her eighteenth birthday, Hanna is betrothed to her father's friend Edwin. At first resigned to her fate to become the older man's fifth wife, Hanna begins to harbor reservations about her upcoming nuptials after meeting Daniel Rossiter. Daniel and his family have just returned from a trip outside their enclave and Hanna is captivated by his stories of life away from their town of Clearhaven. With her wedding day fast approaching, Hanna's mother Kara urges her daughter to leave town but Hanna is conflicted about leaving her younger siblings behind with their drunken, abusive father.

While Hanna is quite dedicated to all of her younger siblings, she is most committed to caring for her sister Emily. With a severe curvature to her spine, Emily's mobility is extremely limited and Hanna devotes herself to helping her sister navigate through her daily tasks. An obedient daughter, she never questions her role in the religious community which gives women very little power over their own lives. After an enlightening discussion with one of her prospective groom's wives, doubts about her upcoming wedding begin to creep in. These misgivings leave her questioning many of the teachings of their religion. After Kara confides the truth about her daughter's origins, Hanna becomes even more convinced that her future might not lie within the confines of Clearhaven. However, Hanna is conflicted as she tries to decide whether or not her duty to her family carries more weight than her desire to do what is best for her.

Hanna Who Fell from the Sky is a riveting young adult novel with a wonderfully interwoven element of magical realism. With Hanna’s fate cleverly concealed until the novel’s exciting conclusion, the story moves at blistering pace. An interesting and thought-provoking American debut by Christopher Meades that I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend to adults and older teens. ( )

Hanna lives in a secluded community named Clearhaven. In ten days time she will turn eighteen and at that time she will be obligated to marry a man chosen jointly by the head of the church and by her father. Since this community where she lives supports polygamy, Hanna is to become an older man’s fifth wife. Hanna is dreading the day of her upcoming marriage, and she has misgivings about continuing to live in the isolated community that supports polygamy and patriarchy that borders on misogyny. She dreams of leaving Clearhaven and of going to the city which lies beyond The Road but she worries about abandoning her mother and siblings. She also has concerns that she would not know how to survive in a city where everything would be so completely foreign to her.

Then she meets a young man named Daniel at a church function. Daniel has lived and traveled outside of Clearhaven. And he encourages Hanna to act on her beliefs and to follow her instincts to seek what is best for her future even if it means leaving her family behind in Clearhaven. Confusing matters even more for Hanna is the story of the details of her birth as told to her by her mother, Kara. Thus the plot brings Hanna to the point of indecision about whether or not she can break the bonds of family and religion to seek a new life, or whether she will stay to follow the traditions of the Clearhaven community.

The lifestyle of Clearhaven is somewhat cult-like and severe with the inhabitants being isolated from reality where the future of a young woman is predetermined not by her but by others. I was captivated by the story but also frustrated and upset by the boundaries placed on the women and children and even on the young men of the community.

There is a little bit of fantasy written into the book as one might note from the title. Even though at first I was a little skeptical about the unrealistic piece of the tale, I felt that the magical element of the story helped to alleviate some of the pain and suffering of life in Clearhaven both for Hanna and for me as a reader.

The characters, major and minor, are well-defined. The plot and theme allow the reader to see into a world that is different from the norm. And the narrative holds the reader attentive looking forward to uncovering details of Hanna’s future on each upcoming page. Moreover, it is certainly not the average coming of age story. And it is a powerful telling of family, religion, identity, and love.

This review is written from an ARC offered by the publisher through Net Galley.
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The mutant with special powers bit was such an odd plot twist. Completely unnecessary and rather distracting. Would have been just fine - better - without it. I.e. Hanna is found abandoned, unbeknownst to her, and is taken in by a local FLDS chapter and decides to break free a lá [b:The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice|17333444|The Witness Wore Red The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice|Rebecca Musser|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397434872s/17333444.jpg|24064772]. ( )

The author does not wait to jump into the story, as the first scene is about how Hanna is only a few days away from her birthday - and her impending marriage. Right away, it is made known to the reader that Hanna does not want to go through with this marriage, but is doing so in order to uphold tradition and also protect her mother and siblings. The introduction of Daniel's character happened pretty much the way I thought it would happen, and he became the catalyst for her dreams of escaping and wanting more for herself. I really enjoyed reading about her dilemma, as the author did a great job explaining all of the angles and options Hanna was considering. I also really liked Hanna's character: she had opinions, intelligence, and was brave to a fault. I had been intrigued by the "fantastical" element in the premise, and when the author brought it up, it took me aback. It was very much something out of a fantasy/sci-fi story, and I thought it interesting that the author added this into the story. I wanted to see how the author would develop this detail. However, he really didn't do so and that was quite disappointing to me. I really don't like it when an author introduces something as a twist but it ultimately serves no purpose (which is what happened here). Either the author should have just eliminated that whole fantasy aspect, or developed it more so that it had an actual purpose in the plot. Overall, the story was a good one, but not anything different than other books on this topic. It was well-written and the main character was someone a reader could easily empathize with, but the addition of the fantasy element was really unnecessary and a bit of a let-down. For those reasons, I'm giving this novel a 3/5 stars.

I received this novel as an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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For me, this book had an interesting premise as the background was set in a polygamist colony and it wasn't a true story or anything like that. That's just how the author decided to write it. I felt for Hannah throughout the whole story. What a life - NOT!! There were several times when I became pretty creeped out. Especially, the first night Hannah's father told her she was to have a bedroom alone. That worried me. Thankfully, what I saw coming did not make it onto the pages. The men in this colony were bad enough without that going on.

However, I never really got into the "special effects" brought into the story to coincide with the title. I'm still shaking my head on that part.

All in all, it was an interesting read which I mostly enjoyed.

Thanks to Harlequin and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. ( )