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collegekarma's reviews
103 reviews
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
3.5
'What a relief it became, the unmothering.'
I quite enjoyed the convoluted dynamics between the mother and daughter, sown inadvertently by the mother's reliving the trauma with her own aloof maternal figure. She overcompensated by checking all the boxes of raising her child 'right', yet remained emotionally detached and distant. The daughter intuitively grasped it and externalized the rejection through disruptive and vengeful behaviour (her possible psychopathy notwithstanding).
What really bothered me was the one-dimensional portrayal of the father—this faultless human being whom the mother and daughter fiercely fought over. I do understand the suffocation of it all: raising a child when you're not cut out for it. But as the mother stated herself in the epilogue, she did want a child—just a copy of her husband. Another source of enmeshment, I’d say, should he ever leave her (though I highly doubt this Marty Sue of a character would ever do that).
Their play-pretending at the end—acting as a childless couple—doesn’t really hold up given his morally righteous character. In reality, he placed the responsibility on the mother to finally reject their daughter, proving himself just as emotionally immature as she was. Overall, I would have preferred to see him as more manipulative, (semi-)consciously fueling the rivalry between the mother and daughter.
Speaking of the devil, the daughter’s psychopathic tendencies also felt cartoonish at times, though I appreciated the detail and accuracy with which her imaginary world was described. But it’s this juxtaposition of psychopathy with a child’s way of relating to the world that confused me. Maybe some things just don’t mix well—especially if one views psychopathy as a neural dysfunction that presupposes other cognitive deficits.
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
1.0
Um... what was the point the author was trying to make? There's no coherence, it seems, no clear story behind family dynamics as to why they turned out this way. Parental figures that one expects to be crucial into explaining the said dynamics were not really fleshed out.
The book didn't feel claustrophobic or macabre, just disgusting at times, lackluster and a bit confusing but not in a thought-provoking way.
The book didn't feel claustrophobic or macabre, just disgusting at times, lackluster and a bit confusing but not in a thought-provoking way.