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

5.0

“There is a difference between horrible things that have gone on forever, because you can almost convince yourself of the inevitably of an age-old cruelty, or almost its necessity. But not a new one. With a new one, the change is too great, the wound too new, and you cannot convince yourself that it is simply the way of the world.” 

5☆|5 

 

This book is amazing. It is as brilliant as the author's first book, even though it is different. In fact, if you want my honest opinion, I believe this one is even better than Hell followed with us. 

 

In this historical paranormal gothic horror novel, we are following Silas, a 16-year-old trans autistic boy, who wants to be a surgeon, in a late 1800s society where women are not accepted in medicine, and where both transidentity and autism are not known — or accepted — things. As he is caught acting as a boy to get his medium's seal, he is going to be diagnosed with veil sickness, a sickness that only affects women with purple eyes. For that, he is going to be sent away to a sanitarium right after meeting his fiancée, the only child of Lord Luckenbill, the president of the Speakers, the royal society that controls the violet-eyed mediums. 

 

Andrew Joseph White's writing is exceptional. It is addictive, it takes us along with his characters, trapping us in his book and making us devour the novel as the pages flip. It took me a few pages to get into the book — understand a few days — but once I was in it, I became addicted to it. I couldn't put it down and ended up ending it in one day. Not only does the author have beautiful prose, but he uses it to give life to amazingly human characters. Silas and Daphne — but also Mary and Isabella, whom I really liked — were amazing. The author's way of writing autistic and transgender characters is wonderful, and it made me want to cry multiple times. It may be helped by the fact that he is both autistic and transgender himself. Also, the romance in this book was very welcome to contrast the absolute gory horror of the story. The romance was T4T, and for some reason, those always manage to touch me right into the heart. Seeing Silas being able to recognize himself in someone else and seeing that he was not alone really made me emotional. 

 

The plot in this book is so very well-crafted that I want to kiss the author's brain for even imagining it. I had no idea where this was going or how it was going to end, and the author managed to surprise me while dealing really well with his plot and pacing. The whole concept was incredible, and how the thematics were written is, to my eyes, pure genius. As I am writing those lines, I cannot think of something that I didn't like in this book. I believe that my first reaction after closing it was “What the fuck” really quickly followed by an “Oh lord, it was amazing, I love it”. This is a 10 out of 10 to me, an 11 even, and I do not think that my review can do it justice. So my last resort will be to just tell you to read it because it is brilliant and one of the best books I have read this year. But also mind the trigger warnings, because this was a really heavy reading. In conclusion, it is a perfect book, and I recommend it deeply. 

 

Thanks to Netgalley and Daphne Press, for sending me this ARC, this is my honest opinion, the book is going out on August 6th. 

CW: extensive medical gore, medical experimentation, eye horror, sexual assault/rape (implied, on-page), sexual harassment, abortion, forced institutionalization, confinement, conversion therapy, sexism, transphobia, deadnaming/misgendering, pedophilia, forced marriage, character death, dead body, death of mother (past), death of father, abusive parents, vomiting, miscarriage (mention) 
 

Rep: trans boy autistic main character; trans girl love interest; lesbian side characters; autistic side character