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inksofts 's review for:
Cutting Your Teeth
by Caylan MacRae
Thank you to NetGalley, Victory Editing, and Caylan MacRae for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This story follows Ezra, who’s on the run from his family, the Espinas. He bumps into Killian, a vampire who takes him under his wing, and the story takes off from there. Elements of Ezra and Killian’s histories and motives are shrouded in mystery, and information is slowly drip-fed to you in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
First, I think this novel is a little mismarketed. It’s tagged as *horror* in both NetGalley and Goodreads, but I personally think *paranormal fantasy* fits a little bit better. There were a few elements of horror, but not enough to truly create the horror vibe that I was expecting going into this. I personally didn’t mind the discrepancy (I like this atmosphere a lot more than horror for these characters specifically), but others might.
I generally liked the writing! There were a few typos and misspellings here and there, but nothing that detracted from my liking of the novel. Writing in present tense can be a little challenging, and while there were a few hiccups, there was nothing terribly erroneous.
Now, let’s dig into what I really worked for me. Despite Ezra being completely unfamiliar with Killian’s world, there’s never a huge info dump. Rather, MacRae gives you exactly as much information as you need to keep up, and no more than that. It’s perfect, really—you never get bored through a laundry list of characters, and it also builds up tension and suspense. The writing was descriptive, but never so focused on descriptions that you lose the plot. For the most part, the characters acted logically given their circumstances, and none of them were one-dimensional, aside from maybe the main villain. But I can forgive that, since this is the first book of a series, and I’m sure MacRae will reveal more information in the future.
Something unexpected that I enjoyed was the found family trope. Horror and found family don’t exactly fit in the same sentence in my head, so when some parts of this novel turned out to be downright cozy, I was surprised, but pleasantly so. It just makes me more excited to see what trouble these characters will get into in the future.
On the other hand, I couldn’t really reconcile Killian’s age with his personality. Some of his actions didn’t speak of a person who had lived as long as he had; if he were younger, I’d view his behavior a bit more favorably. I’m also not a big fan of multiple POVs, but MacRae pulled it off well enough that I’m not mad at it, though I’m still not sure it was entirely necessary. It added some drama, but there were other ways to go about doing that. Again, that’s just my personal taste. That being said, the romance wasn’t central to the plot, which I absolutely love, so massive kudos for that.
Overall, this novel was lovely and served as a great setup for the stories that will follow! The characters and intricacies of the plot were well conceived, and the story was generally well written. MacRae also gets points for originality—this isn’t your every day paranormal story, and MacRae doesn’t shy away from some bloody descriptions. There’s something clearly more sinister afoot throughout the entirety of the novel, and there are implications that the threat will continue to lurk in future installments.
This story follows Ezra, who’s on the run from his family, the Espinas. He bumps into Killian, a vampire who takes him under his wing, and the story takes off from there. Elements of Ezra and Killian’s histories and motives are shrouded in mystery, and information is slowly drip-fed to you in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
First, I think this novel is a little mismarketed. It’s tagged as *horror* in both NetGalley and Goodreads, but I personally think *paranormal fantasy* fits a little bit better. There were a few elements of horror, but not enough to truly create the horror vibe that I was expecting going into this. I personally didn’t mind the discrepancy (I like this atmosphere a lot more than horror for these characters specifically), but others might.
I generally liked the writing! There were a few typos and misspellings here and there, but nothing that detracted from my liking of the novel. Writing in present tense can be a little challenging, and while there were a few hiccups, there was nothing terribly erroneous.
Now, let’s dig into what I really worked for me. Despite Ezra being completely unfamiliar with Killian’s world, there’s never a huge info dump. Rather, MacRae gives you exactly as much information as you need to keep up, and no more than that. It’s perfect, really—you never get bored through a laundry list of characters, and it also builds up tension and suspense. The writing was descriptive, but never so focused on descriptions that you lose the plot. For the most part, the characters acted logically given their circumstances, and none of them were one-dimensional, aside from maybe the main villain. But I can forgive that, since this is the first book of a series, and I’m sure MacRae will reveal more information in the future.
Something unexpected that I enjoyed was the found family trope. Horror and found family don’t exactly fit in the same sentence in my head, so when some parts of this novel turned out to be downright cozy, I was surprised, but pleasantly so. It just makes me more excited to see what trouble these characters will get into in the future.
On the other hand, I couldn’t really reconcile Killian’s age with his personality. Some of his actions didn’t speak of a person who had lived as long as he had; if he were younger, I’d view his behavior a bit more favorably. I’m also not a big fan of multiple POVs, but MacRae pulled it off well enough that I’m not mad at it, though I’m still not sure it was entirely necessary. It added some drama, but there were other ways to go about doing that. Again, that’s just my personal taste. That being said, the romance wasn’t central to the plot, which I absolutely love, so massive kudos for that.
Overall, this novel was lovely and served as a great setup for the stories that will follow! The characters and intricacies of the plot were well conceived, and the story was generally well written. MacRae also gets points for originality—this isn’t your every day paranormal story, and MacRae doesn’t shy away from some bloody descriptions. There’s something clearly more sinister afoot throughout the entirety of the novel, and there are implications that the threat will continue to lurk in future installments.