A review by suzyreadsbooks
With Teeth by Kristen Arnett

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.

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