 Everybody here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are talking about Baby Teeth by Zoe Stage. This book is polarizing. It's been a long time since I have read a horror novel. Air quotes will be explained here in a second. It's been a long time since I have read a horror novel. This kind of... You either love this book or you hate it. I don't think I've come across any meh reviews or any reviews of like. And the book's okay. And the book's alright. There are strong opinions on both sides. I know that Keelan Patrick Burke loved the book. I know my friend Don Gillette. He despised the book. It's not too often. At least I don't think that he gives one-star reviews. It might have been one or two. I can't remember if it was two. But I do remember his review was Shea Manufiq. I feel that I'm going to be saying some stuff that is going to have some of you when you read this. Or if you've already read this. Look at me like. What? This book is hilarious. There were numerous, numerous times. It wasn't until probably the last third of the book that I really had any serious feelings for any of the characters on the page. I almost said on screen this way today. Today is a day of very quotes. You know what? Let's go to Evert and have Evert tell you about the book and then we'll come back here. Meet Hannah. Seven-year-old Hannah is a sweet but silent angel in the eyes of her adoring father, Alex. He's the only person who understands her. But her mother Suzette stands in her way and she'll try any tricks she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good. Meet Suzette. Suzette loves her daughter but after years of expulsion and strained homeschooling her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. She's also becoming increasingly frightened by Hannah's little games while her husband Alex remains blind to the failing family dynamics. Soon Suzette starts to fear that maybe their supposedly innocent baby girl may have a truly sinister agenda. A battle of wheels between mother and daughter reveals the frailty and falsehood of familial bonds. Okay so that's what the book's about. Let's get into what I liked and what I didn't like. So you have alternating chapters, one from Hannah's point of view, one from Suzette's point of view, and the book jumps back and forth on that pattern every single chapter. Being in Hannah's head makes this book for me a joy to read just because I had so much fun rooting for this badass little girl. One of my favorite shows of all time is Bay Bay's Kids. Robin Harris was hilarious. I hope I always get him confused with Robin Thicke and I know it's not Robin Thicke but I might have gotten his last name wrong. He was hilarious as a tragedy. He died very early. I believe it was early for his life. He could have done so much, so much more. The book, watching this child fuck with this woman, mess with her constantly, gave me a lot of joy. I was laughing constantly and there's one part in this book where I laughed out loud to the point of tears with one child hitting another child and the visual image was great. Now, did the book miss the mark with me? Do I think that it's a bad book because it's not the horror story that some people claim it is? Keelan Patrick Burkows, I don't know that it was... He brought up Sour Candy and he brought up this book along with it. Sour Candy is his book. I don't think he was comparing the two, but I think he said if you liked my book, you're going to love this one. I disagree wholeheartedly. If you like Sour Candy, this is not what you want to read next because it's not scary, at least not to me. Being a father of two kids and knowing how kids act, Hannah, it does escalate. But at the beginning, Hannah just acts like a badass little girl. There's nothing supernatural about it or any of that. I guess that's kind of a spoiler, but at the beginning, there's nothing supernatural about it. You know where she's getting her ideas because you're in her head, so you're kind of on board with the whole thing. And there's a lot of people, even on Goodreads, while I was talking about this book, who are like Team Hannah. Yay, go Hannah. And part of that is because Suzette, even though she is a tragic figure with her Crohn's disease and her stomach perceptions and the scarring and the brutal pain that she's been through and goes through all the time, even though all that, she is a miserable fucking person to be inside of. I could not stand when I had to read from her other than when I knew Hannah had set up a trap, or I was waiting for Hannah to do that. Once again, I know there's going to be something out there going, that kind of makes you a bad person, dog. The book's endings fantastic. That was one of the biggest things that my friend Don, I think he, I think it was the biggest thing is like that was it. That's the whole story. This book is really about the journey, it's about getting to that point. And for people requesting a sequel, I don't think the book needs a sequel. The book ended where it ended, and it ended brilliantly on that note. I know I tend to disagree with my friend Don and agree with Keeneland Patrick Burke, but I'm going to disagree with both of them. This is not a fantastic horror novel, like Keeneland Patrick Burke says. This is not a terrible book with no point. This is a very deep experience, especially once you get to the end and you unpack everything that's happened, and you look at what the author has created, and where do you go from there? It's almost, and I'll be damned, it says on the front, I have not seen or read, we need to talk about Kevin, but Entertainment Weekly says, we need to talk about Kevin meets Gone Girl meets The Omen. I don't agree with that either. I got no Omen vibes. The only Gone Girl vibe I got was a spoiler, and we need to talk about Kevin that I haven't actually seen or read that one. I'm waiting to find the book before I, I'm waiting to read the book before I watch the movie. I think Tilda Swinton is in it, and I love her. It might be a different actress, but all these white ladies just kind of blend together. Well, there's gonna be some comments on that one. So, but I think where Baby Teeth succeeds above and beyond, all else is the writing. The writing is fantastic, and I will read anything that Stage writes, publishes from here on out. This is one of those gems that I come across that I almost love the fact that it is so polarizing, because I think that's the reason it got as much attention as it did. Nobody really pays too much attention, unless it's like the YA community for like, oh my god, five star, all five star reads. We, especially in the horror community, we tend to lean more toward those three and four stars. You do have your people who like, oh my god, everything's five stars. Oh my god, everything is one star. You do have those people in the horror community, but they're fewer, and those people usually just get written off as mindless cheerleaders. They were just like, every horror book is great. Support horror is like, no, not every book is great. In fact, if you say every book is great, you are taking away from really, really great books, from books actually accomplishing things in the genre by saying that all horror is good, because all horror ain't good. But you guys know this. The book, once again, I don't think it's a horror. I think toward the end, it does have more thrilling elements, but you need to come for the characters. Come for the characters, because Hannah, well, she's probably Hannah, but Hannah is terrific to read about. She's a lot of fun. She's devilish. She does get to a point where you're just like, this little girl's fucking evil. You do have that moment, and it does come. I was not team Hannah the entire way. She finally did something where I was just like, nope, all right, there's no coming back from this. And by the end, I had completely different feelings than when I started, which any good book will do that to you. And I think that's another reason why this book is so polarizing, is because people read this book, and they're expecting one thing, and then by the end of the book, it's completely different from what you might suspect is coming, or what you might suspect for a denowment, or an ending, or wrap up whatever you want to call it. But this is a far more literary experience, so if you don't like great writing, if you don't care about great writing, and you don't care about characters, if you are all there for the plot, if your cup of tea is Nelson de Mille and James Patterson, this ain't the book for you. If your cup of tea is Bentley Little and Richard Lehman, you're not going to like this book. But if you like deeper experiences that might unsettle you, I don't know. I got dogs going nuts outside. I apologize if you guys can hear that. Ash and my mom's dog Cindy and Dot are all going nuts. Anywho, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to try and wrap this up before it gets too annoying. There's probably people that let the dogs bark. Just give us 15 minutes of the dogs barking, E. Completely lost my train of thought. I think I've said everything anyways. I recommend baby teeth, but only on the stipulations that I said just before I realized the dogs were barking. So have you read baby teeth? I would love, love to hear your opinions on baby teeth, especially if you are one of those people who's to say, eh, it's a book that exists. If you're one of those people, then I would love to hear from you. I would love to talk to you about why it affected you none at all. I want to talk to you about that. But if you loved it, I'd love to hear from you. If you hated it, I'd love to hear from you. If you don't know, when I ask you to talk about stuff down there in the comments, I don't want to hear, hey, this book sucked, this book was great. I want you to elaborate. Let me know just like I did. I just spent the past however many minutes sitting here telling you guys what I liked about it. I want to hear the same from you. In fact, that's why I like my friends to have booktube channels because we can, I can just hop over there and go watch it. It keeps you from having to type a novel down there in the comments. But anyways, let me know what you thought about the book if you've already read it. If you haven't, I suggest you do easily, easy four stars. I'm taking one away because I wanted a horror experience and it's not a horror experience and I still think it was supposed to be a horror experience. But yeah, I'm just, I'm going to take away one star for that aspect and that aspect alone. But until next time, I have been E, you have been E, this has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye bye.