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A review by kaiyakaiyo
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I liked this book, but honestly, it circling around to the shitty lifetime movie “big city girl finds REAL happiness with high school crush in her home town” ending really ruined the incredible premise.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a female rage book ending in a path towards peace but I’m just so fucking tired of the trope. She spent the most miserable few months in this town & suddenly she’s willing to drop her job, home, and everything else for a cute guy? It just felt incredibly unrealistic and gave a very cloying sense that all of her success and achievement was some sort of compensation for her trauma, and that ~healing~ means a man and settling down near family and ~forgiveness no matter what~… Can’t girls be high-powered & angry AND heal? Idk in 2023 I’d hoped to read something a little outside of the box considering how much good material this started with. much of this book felt like approaching a hard topic just to veer off into safe fade to black territory
I also really disliked how the author makes a point of having Scarlett be incredibly ambivalent about having a baby, but was too cowardly to explore the idea that she didn’t actually want it in the first place… she just waffles about it until she’s magically is incandescently happy about a baby she’s been angsting about for 9 months… like if you’re going to get real about motherhood not being some happy great ride 24/7 we should’ve gotten a look into Scarlett considering if she even wanted to have it, deciding that she did, etc.
I think this author started out with some really interesting points on how women are allowed to feel and express themselves, but ended up writing herself into the same “stay home & marry your high school sweetheart to be happy” corner that so much romance ends up in. The family dynamics were even more disappointing; “cave to your family’s wants to keep the peace” is not exactly what I signed up for. Disappointing but hopefully reading this will get the book rec algorithm to give me something like it except with an author willing to shake things up
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a female rage book ending in a path towards peace but I’m just so fucking tired of the trope. She spent the most miserable few months in this town & suddenly she’s willing to drop her job, home, and everything else for a cute guy? It just felt incredibly unrealistic and gave a very cloying sense that all of her success and achievement was some sort of compensation for her trauma, and that ~healing~ means a man and settling down near family and ~forgiveness no matter what~… Can’t girls be high-powered & angry AND heal? Idk in 2023 I’d hoped to read something a little outside of the box considering how much good material this started with. much of this book felt like approaching a hard topic just to veer off into safe fade to black territory
I also really disliked how the author makes a point of having Scarlett be incredibly ambivalent about having a baby, but was too cowardly to explore the idea that she didn’t actually want it in the first place… she just waffles about it until she’s magically is incandescently happy about a baby she’s been angsting about for 9 months… like if you’re going to get real about motherhood not being some happy great ride 24/7 we should’ve gotten a look into Scarlett considering if she even wanted to have it, deciding that she did, etc.
I think this author started out with some really interesting points on how women are allowed to feel and express themselves, but ended up writing herself into the same “stay home & marry your high school sweetheart to be happy” corner that so much romance ends up in. The family dynamics were even more disappointing; “cave to your family’s wants to keep the peace” is not exactly what I signed up for. Disappointing but hopefully reading this will get the book rec algorithm to give me something like it except with an author willing to shake things up
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Medical content, Sexual assault, Gore, Blood, Toxic friendship, Child abuse, Self harm, Pedophilia, Body horror, Animal death, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual violence