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Underneath the main plotline, there's also a very touching coming-of-age story in which Lou finds first and horribly unsuitable love. The anticipation, the confusion, the joy and the pain of first love is caught perfectly. And it's no accident that Anna, usually so liberal, disapproves of Lou's relationship and turns out to be right in the end. If you want to depend on something, you just have to trust it, no matter what. It's not an easy lesson to learn.
I first came across Anne Cassidy with [[''Looking for JJ]]''. Written in the aftermath of the outing of child-killer Mary Bell, it explores the motives of murder of a child, by a child. I thought it was a wonderful book, and brave too - it could all have gone spectacularly wrong, but didn't. ''Hidden Child'' is concerned with similarly difficult themes - the relationship between child and parent, the importance of truth, domestic violence - and it does it in sparse but atmospheric prose, never wasting a word. Descriptions of objects mirror feelings. At one point, when Lou is at bursting point, she walks into an antique shop and sees ''cups and saucers, their handles so fragile that a cross word could have broken them'' and this perfectly reflects Lou's state of mind.
I read ''Hidden Child'' in a single sitting, unable to put it down until I'd read every last word. And I think it will hook adolescents, especially girls, even more. It's highly recommended.
