Name: Victoria's review of What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
Item: What Big Teeth
Rating: 2
Author: Victoria

Rose Szabo

Rose Szabo's thrilling debut What Big Teeth is a dark, gothic fantasy YA novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls... Eleanor Zarrin has been distanceed from her wild family for years. When she returns home after a violent incident at boarding school, trying to fit back into the space she left is harder than she thought. Eleanor is left to fend for herself within her family of monsters. But when a mysterious figure arrives at their family estate, she must find a way to overcome the monster invading her home or risk becoming a monster herself. Exquisitely terrifying, beautiful, and savage, What Big Teeth is a genre-defying story from an exciting new literary voice.

What Big Teeth

Mirto

It is madness to love someone: there is no greater feeling of estrangement than the ways in which they are different from you.

Morgana

Rose Szabo's thrilling debut is a dark and thrilling novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls. Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds. Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together — in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her. Exquisitely terrifying, beautiful, and strange, this fierce gothic fantasy will sink its teeth into you and never let go.

Victoria

I remember reading the sneak peak for the arc and being confused. And I was very confused through most of the book. It wasn't until the end that I was able to keep up with everything. At the same time I didn't put it down because I wanted to know what happened. How does the other grandma play in? How does she make it worse then it already is? 

I also think it would have been cool to see a dive in to her blocking out the memories from when she was younger or her realization of it. It's mentioned vaguely in the beginning and then everyone is expecting her to remember when she clearly doesn't.

Ruby

Slow start, kept reading because It was written in a way that even being slow and not liking it at first I REALLY wanted to know what happened. I liked it at the end ! 

Maggie Shelton 

Chariah

** spoiler alert **
           HOMEGIRL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

Dee B. 

I really wanted to love this one. It had all the right things to make me love it, but it fell just short of making me care about Eleanor's struggle. 

I will say, however, that even though I didn't care for Eleanor's decisions, I did appreciate the intrigue of the story once the *plot* finally kicked in. I wouldn't have minded if more time had been spent on dealing with the antagonist.

Overall, I would recommend to fans of unlikeable main characters who also happen to like unreliable narrators. Atmosphere wise, I also recommend it to horror fans who fit into the above subsets.

EmmaLee Babcock

4.5 

I can see how Szabo’s writing is not for everyone. The lyrical journey could have been hard to follow and in pieces of too much information or too little, it’s hard to swallow.

BUT DAMN

I’ve been too busy to gulp this in one sitting but when I did, I devoured it in huge jumps of pages.

Eleanor’s family is weird, and creepy, and strange. Full of unlikable characters (this somehow makes them more lovable), unsettling species, and unknown secrets, not all of them answered. I’m normally bothered by a lot of this but Szabo excellently wove together a gory mystery with fervent, ever growing questions.

This book satisfied my wish for a strange horror wrapped up in a delicious cover and a bittersweet ending. 

Scary/jumps: 3/5
Gore: 4.5?/5

TW drastic murders, gore, violent imagery, abuse, bad/potentially triggering family dynamics

This novel does a great job of pulling the reader in right away with an interesting hunting scene, right away you know that our character is not completely human. Then we jump cut to her having been sent away from her family for years. She doesn't quite seem to fit in with them any one and it shows.

There is a general sense of mystery to the entire story thus far as Eleanor figures out who she is. Why she has returned to a home that seems so alien to her now.

A rather unexpected and sad tragedy has happened leaving Eleanor feeling even more confused and lost and she reaches out to a estranged family member for help. But this person is more than they seem.

This story ultimately fell flat for me. I was left feeling confused and not in a good way.

Sasha Mann

This novel does a great job of pulling the reader in right away with an interesting hunting scene, right away you know that our character is not completely human. Then we jump cut to her having been sent away from her family for years. She doesn't quite seem to fit in with them any one and it shows.
There is a general sense of mystery to the entire story thus far as Eleanor figures out who she is. Why she has returned to a home that seems so alien to her now.
A rather unexpected and sad tragedy has happened leaving Eleanor feeling even more confused and lost and she reaches out to a estranged family member for help. But this person is more than they seem.
This story ultimately fell flat for me. I was left feeling confused and not in a good way.


i am far from the thought that i will revolutionise your world by saying that, traditionally, monsters in horror have been used to signify the other and societal fears and anxieties towards that which they do not understand. when it comes to monstrous girls, their narratives have often been used as an expression of the turbulence of coming of age, of coming into womanhood.

in an alternative universe, this book could have internalised both of these ideas and been an intriguing work of fiction. in this, however, it remains on the cusp of a great idea but only there nevertheless.

there are many things i enjoyed about this book, it just failed to awe me. i like the atmosphere, especially in the first few chapters when the mystery was thick and eleanor's environment was new to me; i also liked how weird and strange her family appeared; and i liked that the story aimed to be about a girl who seeks her own agency and her own place in her family (and by extension, into the world).

however, i feel like the story should have tried to push this further. towards the end it engages itself too much with trying to provide an answer to every question rather than focus on its themes and horrors. this book could have been much more excellent if it had know how to twist monstrosity further, what to depict and what to leave hidden.

I read this book in one day and I enjoyed it. It was confusing at times and I can understand why people didn’t like that. It did have me hooked from the prologue and I only had breaks to eat. I just wish I had more, more of the characters and plot. I loved how bizarre and ultra disturbing this book was and I think it would make a great horror movie. It has taken me a few minutes after I read the book to get my thoughts right. I can’t wait to read more from Rose Szabo and this was an awesome debut novel. Thank you Negalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for letting me read and review this book.

Elizabeth Neill

Maegan Kennedy

Rating: 1⭐️

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me and arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Unfortunately I could not finish this book as it was not for me. I found it to be very gruesome and horrid, while also being very confusing. I did not know what was going on at all. The chapters are very long so I feel like a lot of the information got lost in the chapter transitions. I found myself forgetting things that seemed to be important because of all the unnecessary detail. 
It’s set in an old world but still felt very current which was also confusing. I didn’t like the family’s relationship with Arthur. It was weird and it felt like they were almost holding him hostage in their everyday relations. The cousins all felt very young even though I assumed them to be about high school age. They would go “play” on their downtime which made them sound like children. I didn’t really like the writing style either.
Unfortunately this was not for me but hopefully some else who reads it enjoys it.

Rosie Qua

This was so strange and all over the place. But so very very worth the time. Loved it! Gave me Sarah Maria Griffin vibes! 5 stars!!

Taylor

I honestly, truly struggled to finish this book. The concept was really really cool, and I wish that I had enjoyed this more, but there was just so much that fell short and/or made me really uncomfortable.

TWs: death (including of a child, grandparent, parent, and murder), physical abuse, death of an animal, arson, gore, violence, bullying, homophobia, manipulation, toxic relationship, mind control, enslavement, abandonment, large age gap romance

danielle bush

While this book wasn't quite as I expected, I did overall enjoy the story. Eleanor has been sent away years before and has no idea why, and when after an incident at school she returns home to a family that seems happy to see her, yet utterly indifferent to her return. 
Eleanor just wants to fit in, but even in her really strange family she is the odd one out.. When she invites her grandmere to visit at first she feels like someone finally understands and cares about her.. little does she know the dangers she has invited in.. 
It takes Eleanor a bit of time to realize what she has invited into her home, but I can see why. When the person is someone who sees you, it's going to be hard to realize they might not be everything they seem to be. 
.
I don't want to give to anything away, but I did really enjoy the ending and will definitely be checking out other books by this author.

Zoe Smolen

I loved the last third of this book. I did not love the first two thirds of the book. I think there was a big pacing problem at the beginning. I felt like I had all of the info I needed to get what was happening, but since it just kept going I started to doubt what I knew. Once this shifted and more information was revealed it was a much more engrossing read. 

Things that worked well for me: Atmosphere - SO CREEPY, Shirley Jackson vibes - especially in the last few chapters. Big We Have Always Lives in the Castle vibes, creative narration styles at the end. 

Things that didn't work for me: Pacing, I didn't love any of the characters - Rhys and Miklos were probably my favorites - but I did not like Eleanor. The vague time period (post WWII?)? 

One other big thing to note is that this is not a werewolf book. The title gives off Little Red Riding Hood vibes, and werewolves/wolves are a part of the story, but there is a whole magic system and creatures outside of that as well. 

Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillian for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Samantha Bass

Check out my full review on my blog, We Write at Dawn!

Thank you to FSG and BookishFirst for sending me a finished copy for review. This is an honest, spoiler free review and all thoughts and feelings are my own. 

Jumping in, I liked this book, but I didn't love it. It was honestly kind of difficult getting through because the chapters are ridiculously long. In total there are fifteen chapters, which includes the prologue and epilogue. 

Fifteen chapters. In a 400 page book. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who will avoid a book just because the chapters are long, but this was kind of a lot. Some chapters were almost 100 pages, which for a YA book, is a lot! I can understand an adult fantasy or science fiction novel having never-ending chapters, but for a 400 page YA book, why are the chapters so long?

I guess it makes it easy to say "just one more chapter!" if that chapter is 25% of the book...

Getting to the actual meat of the book, I liked the story. I thought it was a cool idea and while I'm not sure what fairy tale or legend this book was pulled from, I can tell it has its roots in another story. I love books that expand on a folktale or stories from someone's nation or culture - but I can't tell if that's this kind of story. The author is Hungarian, so maybe it does! Either way, I thought it was a cool idea with interesting characters and I was here for it.

Until the book took a weird turn. 

Now this is a spoiler free review, so I won't say much, but once a certain character is introduced, things got weird. And maybe that was the intention, but it felt like it didn't fit in the book. It felt random and then the author kept having to justify why this weird character is here and what's going on, only to make a tangled web they had to unweave. 

It wasn't to my taste. 

The characters were strange too, which I actually liked, and it made the book that much more interesting. Each character had some quirk to them, like Eleanor's mother having to remain wet all the time, or her aunt Margaret who is mute and also vicious. Eleanor as a character was interesting and I liked her enough, but there were some moments that I was very uncomfortable.

We don't know what time period this book is set in, only that occurs after "the war", and after 1908 since we get that date from one of the characters. I assume this book is set in the forties or fifties? due to the lack of technology, no phone, no television, but they have telegraphs and gramophones in the home, but it's never confirmed. What made me uncomfortable was Eleanor, a sixteen year old, lusting after a thirty or so year old man named Arthur, while her twenty-one year old sister is "dating" him. 

It was kind of gross. Actually, it was really gross. I have never been a fan of having young girls fall in love with men twice their age and this made me feel really icky. We get some answers later as to what is going on with Arthur, but it was still disturbing to have all of the children falling in love with this man, even Eleanor's young cousin Rhys was in love with this man. 

It was really freaky. 

I feel like this review is spiraling, kind of like this story. It was hard to keep track of what was going on, which made understanding the plot a bit difficult. 

Getting to the point, I had some issues with this book. The chapters were ridiculously long, the plot felt like it got derailed, the weird love pentagon going on with the characters and Arthur was weird, and it just felt like this book was a miss for me. Again, I liked it, but I didn't love it and these issues dropped my review down for me.

Maya

Creepy, atmospheric and full of monsters.

Ann-Loy

If you go in with low expectations it’s an ok book. It’s not good. It’s bad until it’s good like Riverdale on Netflix. The monsters were interesting though I guess.

Kaitlyn Grooms

This just wasn’t the book for me. I thought the MC was just to blind by what went on around her. It just really bothered me. Give it a try if you’d like but I’ll say this it’s just not a book for me unfortunately. I do love the cover a lot. It’s really pretty. 

Tyne Swedish

still reading but I am not a fan of all this uncertainty and this story doesn't seem to be getting any clearer. Also, why is the main character so homophobic?

Vin 

You know those types of books that you crave, that deep longing for something you’ve never read before, that’s so completely unique that nothing can compare to it? this book hit the mark for those feelings. 

What Big Teeth has to be one of the most poignant and riveting books I’ve had the pleasure of reading. 

The book follows a girl called Eleanor who is returning home to her somewhat curious, a little dysfunctional and very unique family, after suspiciously running away from her boarding school. It follows through her hardships with her family, being an outcast and dealing with responsibilities that were forced upon her, in more ways that one. 

Rose Szabo mixed so many different elements together and it paid off so bloody brilliantly! There was never a point where I felt like things were lacking or becoming less interesting. By the 100 page mark, I didn’t want to put the book down (and I didn’t.) Szabo literally transported me into their story with how wonderful their writing flowed. 

It may also be the fanboy in me, but any writer who mentions Edward Gorey is marked down in “my favorites” list. 

What Big Teeth will probably be one of my top reads of this year, it’s only been an hour since I finished but the ache for a reread has been there since I closed the book.

Kaitlyn Featherstone 

A Strand February 2021 Book of the Month "With a layered mystery, a haunting setting, and thrilling tension, What Big Teeth has an otherness to it that pulls you in and forces you to keep reading." —Tricia Levenseller, Publisher’s Weekly-bestselling author of The Shadows Between Us Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds. Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together—in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her. Rose Szabo's thrilling debut is a dark fantasy novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement. Perfect for fans of Wilder Girls, this exquisitely terrifying and beautiful tale will sink its teeth into you and never let go.

Morgana &
What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo

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