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toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Sammie Lucas is a lesbian mother who, on the surface, has the perfect queer family unit. A beautiful home, a wife she loves, Monika, and their son, Samson. Everything is perfect, except...Monika isn't around a whole lot, and if she's honest, she's afraid of her own son...
This book had me by the throat from the first sentence and then it wouldn't let me go for the next five days. It didn't matter what I was doing, I wanted to pick this up and shut out the world. Don't get me wrong, it's not a riveting tale or anything. It's not plot driven at all, it's mainly a character study of Sammie and how she's clearly very troubled and was never meant to be a mother. I hated her with every fiber of my being. I hated her on every page, every sentence. She was at best, whiny, and at worst, violent. It was crazy how unreliable of a narrator she was. She also struck me as someone who would go to a Planned Parenthood protest on the weekend, but I'm not going to tell you why.
I was so fascinated by this terrible character and her terrible interactions with her son and wife, fascinated by her dealing with religious trauma, her hypocrisy, her complete inability to connect with her son and then complaining about how he was suuuuch a problem. It was insane. The behavior of everyone in this book is absolutely unhinged, but Sammie takes the cake.
It's safe to say this book had my attention, but that being said, the writing wasn't really remarkable and the references to teeth (other people's teeth, what Sammie's teeth were doing, biting, etc) seemed a bit shoe-horned in and obvious at times. I also thought I was going to combust at times at how ableist the treatment of Samson as a character was. You can chalk that up to his parents being bad people - and they are, but it was just too much for me and it made me *too* angry.
Anyway I know that I'm probably going to read a lot of GR reviews calling this bad lesbian rep, but sometimes even queer people are bad and unhinged, and I think it's important to write about that. Argue with the wall. Overall, a really intriguing read.
I forgot to mention that there are little vignettes at the end of every chapter that show contrast between how Sammie sees certain situations happening in a chapter vs. what an outsider experiences and I think they were genuinely my favorite part of the book and I can't believe I didn't mention this somewhere above. Oops! Here it is.
This book had me by the throat from the first sentence and then it wouldn't let me go for the next five days. It didn't matter what I was doing, I wanted to pick this up and shut out the world. Don't get me wrong, it's not a riveting tale or anything. It's not plot driven at all, it's mainly a character study of Sammie and how she's clearly very troubled and was never meant to be a mother. I hated her with every fiber of my being. I hated her on every page, every sentence. She was at best, whiny, and at worst, violent. It was crazy how unreliable of a narrator she was. She also struck me as someone who would go to a Planned Parenthood protest on the weekend, but I'm not going to tell you why.
I was so fascinated by this terrible character and her terrible interactions with her son and wife, fascinated by her dealing with religious trauma, her hypocrisy, her complete inability to connect with her son and then complaining about how he was suuuuch a problem. It was insane. The behavior of everyone in this book is absolutely unhinged, but Sammie takes the cake.
It's safe to say this book had my attention, but that being said, the writing wasn't really remarkable and the references to teeth (other people's teeth, what Sammie's teeth were doing, biting, etc) seemed a bit shoe-horned in and obvious at times. I also thought I was going to combust at times at how ableist the treatment of Samson as a character was. You can chalk that up to his parents being bad people - and they are, but it was just too much for me and it made me *too* angry.
Anyway I know that I'm probably going to read a lot of GR reviews calling this bad lesbian rep, but sometimes even queer people are bad and unhinged, and I think it's important to write about that. Argue with the wall. Overall, a really intriguing read.
I forgot to mention that there are little vignettes at the end of every chapter that show contrast between how Sammie sees certain situations happening in a chapter vs. what an outsider experiences and I think they were genuinely my favorite part of the book and I can't believe I didn't mention this somewhere above. Oops! Here it is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Excrement, Vomit, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Body horror, Sexual content, Grief, Misogyny, Animal death, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Cursing, Child abuse, Child death, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Miscarriage and Murder
Minor: Pedophilia and Rape
cody's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
ngl i kind of related to a few of sammie’s thoughts/behaviors toward her heavily neurodivergent-coded son and that’s SCARY
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Ableism, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, and Miscarriage
Minor: Child abuse, Death, and Emotional abuse
ezrajay's review against another edition
1.5
i tried so desperately to like this book. i read it because of the "weird kid" stuff and queer family dynamics are also interesting. i was expecting it, in my mind, to veer into the supernatural. except it didn't, it veered into a land that felt profoundly ableist. i GET that this book is from sammie's pov, and she doesn't understand her son. but it seems, in the book and interviews that i've found, that arnett doesn't understand how she's written samson either. that is to say: samson's portrayal as an autistic child that is seen as evil or creepy Could be a criticism of ableism. but the book refused to criticise or even interact with that, it just puts it out there. and beyond that, the divide that arnett refers to irl is whether samson is actually a monster, or just a normal kid. as if the things that make him "monstrous" aren't traits that real children have and are punished for.
so yeah, i cried frustrated tears while reading this and then while reading reviews after. because it fucking sucks, and is probably one of my least favorite books ever. i'm so glad to be done with it.
so yeah, i cried frustrated tears while reading this and then while reading reviews after. because it fucking sucks, and is probably one of my least favorite books ever. i'm so glad to be done with it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
suzyreadsbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
thanks @riverheadbooks for the e-ARC!
In WITH TEETH, we are taken through a journey with Sammie, her wife Monika, and their son Samson. It is weird, darkly humorous, anxiety-provoking literary fiction about lesbian parenthood, expectations, obligations, love, aging, and the helplessness of parenthood (was this supposed to make me terrified of having children??).
I was on the edge of my seat for this entire character-driven book. Sammie is paranoid & hard to trust, desperately clinging to her family and the nostalgia of their past, even as she’s actively picking apart those memories and hyperfocusing on the negative. She seems to feel equally consumed by her family’s looming presence and needs, and the inertia of her life in their absence.
I read this in three gulps, only stopping when I had to force myself to put down the book so that Sammie’s internal dialogue wouldn’t take me with her as she spirals into chaos. Her impulsiveness had me skipping pages ahead to make sure she’d make it through, even as I questioned why I thought she deserved to get away with anything. Her parenting style was infuriating and controlling and ableist and yet maybe not entirely unrealistic. The Florida setting made me feel all the more uneasy: the sweaty humidity fills every page, making it hard to breathe as you realize the outdoors are just as claustrophobic as their house.
One note - at the end of many chapters, we were given POVs from random side characters. I think leaving these out would have made the book a bit more effective, allowing us to truly lean into the ambiguity of the narrative.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism and Fatphobia
Moderate: Ableism and Violence
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