Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - With Teeth

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.

Content Warnings

nicolepaul_ine's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I’m just so confused as to what I just read. .. I made some notes halfway through reading this that I’ll post here:
White teeth

I don’t like the cliches of queer life - might be the reality for the author though but I wish the book had taken the portrayal of queer beyond the stereotypes that are already out there…

The characters are super unlikeable which I understand is the point but I personally just get more excited to read a book with at least one character I like.

Also there are a Bunch of random events that never get mentioned again - attempted kidnapping, swimming lessons where sammie cheats on her wife, therapy and stalking the neighbor (okay most of these come back later in the book but like too late??)

The amount of times there is drunk driving blows my mind - is this normal to some people? I don’t understand it at all!!

Content Warnings

kelseyland's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The world needs more books about fucked-up lesbians and Kristen Arnett is putting in the work, thank god

Content Warnings

stevie's review against another edition

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dark funny sad 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

Content Warnings

jourdanicus's review against another edition

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challenging reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

When I finished this book, my first thought was, "what?" But that's never a bad thing. I love to read unlikeable characters and boy howdy did Arnett serve some up big time. Recommend for anyone who enjoys being stressed out by fictional people and/or yells things along the lines of "what are you DOING?" when characters make bad choices in movies, etc.

Content Warnings

alylentz's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I think Kristen Arnett is a very talented writer, but her books frustrate me because they focus on characters in self-destructive situations and it feels like we make no progress with them until all at once, in the last 50 pages or less, things suddenly change. The ending of this book is strong and interesting, and I think overall this book grabbed me more than her last (there were points where I couldn't put it down, despite my conflicted feelings). I also feel like I'm in the minority in that I really loved the little slices of outsider POV. I know I'll continue to think about these characters, but reading her books are a bracing and intense experience, and I'm not sure they're right for me.

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