A review by books_baking_brews
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage

3.0

Y'all this book is something. This will definitely not be everyone's cup of tea. It was not really mine. Seven-year-old Hanna does not talk by choice. She loves her Daddy so much but really has it out for her Mom, and she would really prefer if her mom was not in the picture. That's basically the plot. As the book progresses, Hanna's aggression toward her mother increases. The book is told from the alternating points of view of Hanna and her mother, Suzette. Hanna was a weird mix of child and adult. For instance, a pre-verbal Hanna decides that she is not going to talk to aggravate her mother but on the other hand she believes in little make believe creatures who live under her bed. Maybe all children are like this, I have no idea; but the contrast was kind of startling. At first I was annoyed because the book didn't explain at the beginning why Hanna hates her mother so much, but by the end it started to become clearer that maybe Suzette wasn't merely a long-suffering mother. This book did pick up towards the end, and Stage definitely left the ending open for a sequel. For me, I think it would have been better if the book had just gone full tilt horror.