Name: With Teeth
ISBN: 9780593191507

Kristen Arnett

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Elle, BuzzFeed, Good Housekeeping, Thrillist, The Advocate, Lit Hub, and Paperback Paris From the author of the New York Times-bestselling sensation Mostly Dead Things: a surprising and moving story of two mothers, one difficult son, and the limitations of marriage, parenthood, and love If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best--driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school--while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess--and the possibility that it will never be clean again. Blending the warmth and wit of Arnett's breakout hit, Mostly Dead Things, with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family--and the many ways it can be torn apart.

A Novel

With Teeth

this isn't a quote, I'm trying to be honest

Alex

this is upsetting me deeply and I don't think it's supposed to 

this book had some sauce - i love an unreliable narrator but idk i wish at the end we could have gotten to know what really happened? i know that’s kinda the point but it was just a little…. unsatisfying 

Kate

Ryan Mateyk

Lindy

These comments are probably going to come across as overly critical, so I want to state that I do think that overall, With Teeth is a good book, competent in the ways that matter. I read it in two sittings; many people will find Arnett's style engrossing and easy to read. However, there are two things that keep biting at the back of my head, so I'm going to have at them:

First, judging from the reviews on here, people seem to appreciate Sammie as an unreliable narrator. To me, a well-executed unreliable narrator is separated from a mediocre one by keeping the audience guessing as to the degree and specifics of their unreliability (which, let's be real, is just the heightened subjectivity which exists in every work of fiction). With Teeth is unsubtle and blunt about the fact that readers are not to trust Sammie. Conclusions that could have been left to inference are stated outright in the text. There are also these random interludes from the viewpoints of bit characters which break immersion and leave no question that the way Sammie interprets the world of other people may not necessarily have anything to do with reality. Finally, in the last ten pages, it is revealed that (view spoiler)[ Sammie was never pregnant with a girl fetus and Monika has just let her be deluded about it for sixteen years, which is important because Sammie's main reason for believing Samson has been Bad From Birth is that he absorbed his sister in the womb (hide spoiler)] and my eyeballs rolled into the stratosphere. That's the kind of writing choice I associate with Stephen King wannabes.

Second, and this is the thing that makes me feel like I'm losing my mind, is that so much of With Teeth directly parallels We Need to Talk About Kevin. There's the whole central theme, of course, of a son as a mother's mirror, made explicit by Sammie and Eva both naming their sons after themselves. But additionally, for almost every scene that has both Sammie and Samson in it, there is an equivalent scene in We Need to Talk about Kevin. I will give two examples. (view spoiler)[1) In the scene from which the book gets its title, six-year-old Samson unbuckles himself in the backseat of the car on the way to a psychiatry appointment. Sammie tries to force him to sit back down. Samson bites her. Sammie bites him back. In Kevin, five-year-old Kevin, who refuses potty training, poops himself several times in the span of an hour. Frustrated, Eva throws him against a wall, breaking his arm. When both boys are alone with doctors, they say that their injuries are accidents. Both mothers come to the conclusion that their sons lied so as to have blackmail to hold over their heads for all time. 2) Later, when the boys are teenagers, their mothers take them out to dinner as bonding attempts. Both boys treat their mothers' questions about school and dating as interrogations, refuse to eat, and play with their food in a gross manner. Both mothers get steadily drunker. Both scenes end with the boys calling out their moms for being embarrassing hypocrites.  (hide spoiler)] Of course, it's possible that it's not intentional at all and Arnett read the book a decade or more ago and it's been nonspecifically knocking around in the back of her head since, in which case I'm surprised no one else caught it and told her. However, I'm assuming this is intentional because it's so blatant to me, but I cannot parse what sort of commentary is being made through this choice. If anyone has ideas, please let me know.

Isabella 

erin moran 

this was deeply upsetting from start to finish and i’ll be thinking about it for weeks lol

With Teeth A Novel

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