Review by princeofhearts_ - The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

princeofhearts_ 's review for:

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Silas is a violet-eyed trans boy in a world where violet-eyed women are seen as a commodity. Violet-eyed people have access to a spirit realm that others don’t. Men want to marry violet-eyed women to pass the trait down to their sons. Despite this being seen as a positive trait in men, it’s seen as a negative and almost tragic trait in women. Women are told not to use their gifts lest they fall victim to something called the veil sickness. The veil sickness is something akin to the historical real-world diagnosis of female hysteria. The veil sickness supposedly only occurs in violet-eyed women and is used as a means of controlling them. Silas is diagnosed with the veil sickness and sent to an asylum to “recover” from it so that he can be married off to a wealthy man. I loved this book. It gave me chills. I recommend it if you enjoyed My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen. It has a dark sort of tragic aesthetic. The events feel realistic and the characters are well-developed. I was rooting for them every second of this book. This book does cover some heavy topics and may be too heavy for some. I’d recommend minding the trigger warnings and might only recommend this book to the upper age demographic of the young adult genre.

Content Warnings