A review by thischarmingreader
Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

✨ALC Review✨

I love a good boarding school story and when you make it twisted? Even better. 

When townie Marin James finds her cousin’s body in a shallow creek on Huntsworth Academy’s grounds, she knows he was murdered. And she knows the names of the three students to blame. 

Marin becomes Jamie Vain (this is probably how it’s spelled, but remember, I listened to it), a transfer student whose tuition check is definitely going to bounce, so she has a limited time frame to find the murderers and prove they killed Sam. 

They turn out to be super easy to find. She’s assigned to the same set of dorm suites as they are. She even shares a bathroom and common area with Adrian Hargraves (Graves, if you will). Henry Wu and Baz round out our weird little clique. And they’re all fascinated by Jamie Vain. 

Marin/Jamie becomes part of the gang while she’s snooping for proof of Sam’s murder. She gets close to each of the three in different ways. The tension between Henry, Graves, and Jamie is palpable and not a good thing. What has she gotten herself into? And why doesn’t she care more about the potential consequences? 

This book is almost all from Jamie’s POV and honestly, it did get a little repetitive in her head. But if we laid our thoughts out on paper, I reckon they’d be fairly repetitive too. 

I don’t want to get too into the particulars of the story, but I’ll say it’s a good dark academia YA with paranormal elements. The solo narrator, @jenwrenpickens, did a fantastic job with the desperate inner voice of Jamie as well as her slight, southern accent. As a Southerner myself, I’m picky when it’s overdone. This was perfect! 

Recommended for lovers of this genre. 

I received an advance copy of the audiobook via #netgalley and @Macmillan.audio. All thoughts are mine alone. 

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