A review by devinjai6655
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.25

This story made me feel so seen as an autistic person who doesn't fit into the inherent gender binary. This book is dark and tragic and the newest contender for what I like to call The Feel Bad Club. 
That being said, I love books that make me feel something, and this had me running through so many emotions. And, just so everyone knows, the ending is

relatively happy.

Silas and Daphne live together and are married and living their best lives as their authentic selves, but some characters dont make it...

Yall shoulda heard my sqeal when Daphne introduced herself to Silas the first time in the parlor. I was hoping she'd be accepting, but we love a well developed and supportive T4T couple!

PLEASE, check your triggers. This book is intense but so good! Take care of yourself and know your limits. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Abortion, Lesbophobia, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Death of parent, Outing, Classism

Minor: Toxic friendship

Silas is a trans man that is regularly dead named, forced to mask his autism, and the whole book essentially misgenders him because this is a historical fantasy set in a supremely misogynistic society and he is viewed as a girl by almost everyone. There's INTENSE medical scenes in here such as

a cesarean abortion he preforms on his teenage friend who was raped and impregnated by an adult man, some scenes of animal dissection throughout, gross depictions of self harm thoughts such as removing his own eyeballs, finding his best friend dead after gone through a vivisection, and other scenes.

There's also gross pedophilia and sexual harassment. While there isn't anything penetrative on page, there's gross implications and extremely disturbing scenes of old men being gross because they can be

like impregnating teenage girls against their will with the help of the institution. I'm being totally serious. The youngest we know is 14 in this book, Silas is 16.

There's lots of pregnancy talk in the general sense about other people and, for Silas, lots of "do i not wanna be because I don't wanna be a parent, or is it because of my dysphoria?" Yeah, the trigger warnings for this book is extensive and i wasn't expecting it so please take care of yourself and know your limits.