Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage Published by Macmillan on July 17th 2018
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Purchase @ AMAZON or BN
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Sweetness can be deceptive.
Meet Hanna.
She’s the sweet-but-silent angel in the adoring eyes of her Daddy. He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.
Meet Suzette.
She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette's husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.
Angie’s Thoughts:
This book is creepy. Really, really creepy.
I’m a mother of a perfectly normal almost 7 yr old girl. I can not imagine the horror or trauma Suzette went through. I know how creeped out I get when I’m sleeping and I feel someone staring and my daughter is just standing there beside my bed with a weird smile on her face. So I just imagined that a million times magnified. Yea it still probably doesn’t do justice for what she went through. I know it doesn’t for what I felt when I read it.
We alternate POV’s between Suzette (the mother) and Hannah (her 7 yr old daughter). I loved that we were able to see what Hannah thought about her mom and her dad. How her feelings impacted her actions and consequences. The same for Suzette too. She’s not innocent in this and I sometimes wondered if she made Hannah the way she was.
I think what made it even more disturbing was being in the mind of a 7 yr old with ill intentions. It’s different and made for an interesting read. I tried to take breaks because it was so intense but I couldn’t. My mind kept wandering what was going to happen next. I was a junkie looking for my next fix.
I really don’t know how I felt about Suzette. I was torn between liking her at times and hating her. I felt compassion for her because I understood the ugliness of depression. What that can do to your mind and also the insecurities. That doesn’t excuse her behavior.
I was the same about Hannah. The mother side of me wanted to cry for her. To hug her and show her what it’s like to be a kid. Let her have a messy room if she wanted. The cautioned side of me wanted to lock her up. That side didn’t like her and knew that evil existed in a tiny little girl that may look innocent and sweet but is anything but.
Zoje Stage is an author to look out for. The research that was put into this book was remarkable. The writing was flawless and the storyline flowed with ease. The only thing I was disappointed in was the last portion of the book. The decisions and ending.
Baby Teeth is anything but a normal book about a normal family. It’s dark, disturbing, creepy and brings forth real issues that some families go through even to this day. It’s a highly addicting read!
The Verdict:
About Zoje Stage
An author of dark and suspenseful novels, Zoje recently moved back to her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA after living in western New York for more than a decade. She has a deep and eclectic background in the arts – as writer, filmmaker, thespian, and all-around dabbler. In her former life as a filmmaker she was a 2008 Fellow in Playwriting/ Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA.org), and a 2012 Emerging Narrative Fellow from the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP.org). Her debut novel BABY TEETH (St. Martin’s Press) will be released 17 July 2018. It will be released in the UK as BAD APPLE (Transworld).
