Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
B&B RATING: 5 / 5
MOOD: If you want to be grateful for your child, for your normal existence,and the absence of someone trying to kill you - read this one.
Synopsis
On the outside, it’s easy to think Suzette is living the dream. With a husband hot enough to cook bacon off of, a dream home designed by the two of them, and living as a stay-at-home-mom to a spitting-image daughter, how could she not be? What lies beneath the surface is a family living two lives - one where 7-year-old Hanna is a sweet darling to her doting father, all while she is an unholy terror to her mother. Suzette sees the ugly, twisted side of her little girl who chooses to be mute, torturing her family further with her refusal to communicate.
With a calculated wit and cunning intelligence that most adults don’t posses, Hanna does some unthinkable acts in trying to get rid of her mom, hoping to have Daddy all to herself. Through getting kicked out of any school she’s put in to, to punishing Mommy for the many doctor’s appointments relating to her silence, winding up to the sweetest pouty faces switching on and off when Daddy’s home, Hanna is a conniving child intent on one thing: getting rid of Mommy, one way or another.
Suzette is under constant torment by her daughter and just doesn’t understand why she is the object of such scorn and hatred. Hanna gets too much pleasure out of playing her terrifying games with Mommy to stop, and each time she ups the stakes until only one of them can remain: Hanna or Suzette.
Review
I LOVED this book. Everything about it. I can’t think of an element of it that I would have wanted different. The story itself is written from two points of view - Suzette’s and Hanna’s. Suzette makes for quite the sympathetic character, with a dark family past of her own and an auto-immune disease that keeps her on the edge. She does what she can to make sure that Hanna is taken care of, putting up with Hanna’s refusal to speak, her throwing objects and spitting food, slamming doors, and acting like a vicious dog in public.
Hanna on the other hand is loving the fear she sparks in her mother. Nothing makes her happier than seeing her mother caught off-guard, locking herself in her room, waiting for her husband Alex to come home and save the day. The dynamic between the two relationships - Hanna and her mother and Hanna with her father - is astoundingly well done. The complexity of all the little pieces, the story within the story, and the way the ending twists and merges takes it to a whole new level.
This book was written so well I found myself dreaming of it, wondering what Hanna was going to do next. I couldn’t put it down. I carried it with me everywhere I went, to each room in my house and every trip I took in case I had a down moment to read. It was enticing, cynical, engrossing, cringe-worthy at points, and overall one of my favorite reads of the year.
This is Zoje Stage’s debut novel, and if this is her debut, I cannot wait to see what else she has in store for us!
Drink Pairing:
A glass or five of Chandon Classic Brut, mixed with some chocolate covered blueberries.