booksaremypeople 's review for:

With Teeth by Kristen Arnett

5.0

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This was such a fun. Sammie Lucas has been afraid of her son since he was a young boy and a man tried to kidnap him. Instead of protesting or being scared, her son willingly goes with the man, and Sammie takes this as a slight about her mothering. She swoops in to rescue her child, but over the years as Samson grows, so does Sammie’s worry. He seems disconnected, broody, an unappreciated of the work Sammie is doing as a stay-at-home mom. Her relationship with her always-at-work wife, Monika, also feels strained. I particularly enjoyed the structure of this novel, which looks at the family as it evolved throughout snippets that take place over many years. And there are other structural surprises at the end of the chapters that kept my interest. This was a darkly humorous, intriguing exploration of queer family dynamics and what it means to succeed as a mom. Fantastic! Thank you to Riverhead and NetGalley for the advanced review copy.