When I first saw What Happened on Hicks Road by author Hannah Jayne, it was on an online review site. The title and cover caught my attention immediately, but my request to review it was denied or not responded to. I ended up requesting a physical copy last month, though, and now that I’ve read through it I wanted to share my thoughts.
As you may have surmised from the title, this is a psychological thriller. It centres on a seventeen year old named Lennox, who is never able to settle in one place, or one state, due to her dad’s job as a travelling ER nurse. She’s found herself living in San Jose, and has finally made some good friends, allowing her to know what it’s like.
After a party, Lennox and her two friends end up driving on a poor quality dirt road called Hicks Road. Her friends goof around, and one ends up shutting the car’s lights off for a moment. It’s just following this darkness that Lennox sees what looks like a young blonde woman in front of her car, and feels a slight bump as she seems to hit her. However, upon getting out of the car to call and check, nothing can be seen.
What Happened on Hicks Road then becomes more of a psychological thriller, because we’re stuck in Lennox’s mind as she constantly obsesses over what she thinks happened, even though her friends said they saw nothing. She almost constantly goes over and over things, and tries to make sense of what happened, all while dealing with friends and high school. In fact, she’s constantly torn between thinking it happened and feeling like she imagined it.
The thing is: Lennox ‘lost’ her mom numerous states back, when she had to be admitted to a mental health facility due to schizophrenia. This loss ways heavily on her daughter, who also regularly worries about ending up with the same illness. Every time Lennox forgets something, or something goes missing, she worries she’s starting to get sick. This is an interesting way of telling the story, and it fits in well. That said, you need to be prepared for a lot of repetition, in terms of thoughts about what’s happened and thoughts about her mom. They’re obsessions, really.
I’ll admit that What Happened on Hicks Road by Hannah Jane wasn’t what I thought it would be, in my excitement to read it. That isn’t a bad thing. I just want to suggest changing one’s expectations accordingly. This isn’t a fast-paced thriller, but it’s a pretty good one. Not great by any means, but a decent read nonetheless, and one that’s pretty well written.
That said, there is a major problem with this book, and I refer to it as teleporting characters and questionable occurrences. I don’t know if this was maybe intentional, but there were times where things didn’t make sense. Characters would also be in one place, then magically move inside or to another part of the local area. It felt as if the author was teleporting them, as opposed to saying that they went indoors or walked to the car.
If you like young adult fiction, and thrillers in particular, What Happened on Hicks Road is worth checking out. It’s a solid book, but it’s not without its questions and continuity errors.
This review is based on a copy of the book we were provided with.