Hanna is an extremely bright and creative seven year old that has chosen not to speak since she was a baby. Her parents, Suzette and Alex, are desperate to find answers regarding Hanna's odd and often troubling behaviors. Hanna's manipulation and often violent outburst are primarily reserved for Suzette, quickly transforming into Daddy's perfect little girl any time Alex is present. As Hanna's intentions towards Suzette become more malicious, Suzette begins to fear for her safety and pleads for her husband to intervene. Hanna loves her Daddy and would do anything for him but he doesn't see that Mommy is getting in the way of that love...that's why Mommy needs to disappear.

Baby Teeth is probably best described as a psychological thriller in which a manipulative and highly intelligent seven year old with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies is desperate to rid herself of her mother in order to gain the full attention of her father. This is probably one of the more disturbing novels I have read in a while and after finishing it I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about it. Overall it was entertaining and well written but some components of the story felt unnecessary, a failed attempt at shock and awe, which left me questioning the author’s motives for including it at all. Although I didn't particularly care for any of the characters, the author did a great job of allowing the reader to see both the perspective of Suzette and Hanna as certain events play out. I didn't dislike this novel but I didn't love it as much as some other novels I have read with similar subject matter. I would still recommend it to readers who love "Bad Seed" novels and I will be very interested to see how other readers react to this novel once it’s released.

Baby Teeth is reminiscent of We Need to Talk About Kevin and Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child. Alternating perspective chapters tell this story of a psychopathic child and the harm she inflicts on her mother. I wish this book felt more realistic. Suzette has emotional baggage and a severe physical ailment (Crohn’s Disease and a cold uncaring mother), but her life with her perfect husband still seems too, well, perfect. Even how the book ended left me saying, wait—insurance would pay for that? A fast paced read that will appeal to fans of the current domestic thriller craze. It’s ok.

4.5 Stars

Move over stalkers and serial killers, little girl psychopaths are the new scariest thing.

This is by far one of the most, if not the most, disturbing thing I’ve ever read. No there isn’t a ton of gruesome scenes or mutilations; there’s a (possibly) psychopathic little girl.

Hanna’s character is so well-written and perfectly creepy. As an elective mute who adores her dad and despises her mom, she toes the line of sanity, playing innocent one moment and completely unhinged the next.

Suzette left me with some questions. It was hard to get a read on her true character. On the one hand she’s clearly a victim of her daughters, but I couldn’t help feeling that we weren’t seeing a certain darker quality of hers.

Alex, the husband and father, was probably my least favorite character. His unwillingness to see Hanna as she really is, his promise to be there one moment but then overwork the next, his wishy-washy-ness in decisions...I don’t know. He just irritated me.

The only issue I had was the ending. It’s left open and as far as I know there’s no sequel planned. I would have liked a little more finality, but with the rest of the novel being so dreadfully wonderful it’s easy to forgive this.

i was in the mood to read something different than what I'm used to and "Baby Teeth" satisfied that need. I mean even the tittle sent a little shiver of unease down my spine. My uneasiness heightened as i frantically flipped the pages to find who will win the battle of wits between a mother and her seven year old daughter. It was a war of the roses if you will, and these roses have thorns. There is nothing more terrifying than a fractured bond between a mother and their child. It makes for a twisted plot and a good story. Imagine your beautiful child plotting to get rid of you by devious means. Picture Amy Dunn from "Gone Girl" as a seven year old girl, now you see Hanna. But who is the true villain of this story, Hanna or Suzette? In the end you start to wonder, but guess what? You will never know. for sure. This is a story that Steven King would write. Will be looking forward for more works from this author. Thanks Netgalley and Macmillan for the ARC.

Thanks to St.Martins Press and Zoje Stage and a Netgalley for this ARC. This is a new author for me and I am looking forward to more books by her. To say this book was creepy, is a compliment. The author gives us a child whom I wasn’t sure was a demon spawn, a witch, or a reincarnation of a witch. This mixture of possibilities was quite a great idea from the author.
The author had me feeling sorry for the mother, Suzette up until the very end, with the phone call from Hanna where she asks her mother if she loves her, and Suzette says “not enough “. That is one great line ! I read this book in 1 sitting, it was fabulous , I thoroughly enjoyed every creepy aspect of it !
I mentioned this book to my mystery/ thriller book club, and they were like “Oh, no! ” but we all voted it in for one of our book club reads anyway. 👍🏻😊
I will give my 5 Star review on Amazon, Goodreads, a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Wow. What an absolutely terrifyingly good story. I finished this book in one day.

I will start by saying that this book likely will not be for everyone. recommend steering clear if you are a first time parent or soon to be!

Hanna is a truly horrendous and smart yet mute child, who happens to hate her Mommy. Daddy however, hung the moon! She has decided that Daddy must be under Mommy's spell and it is up to her to save him so that Hanna and Daddy can live happily ever after.

Suzette is a woman that gave up her own passions to take care of her child. She loves her but can feel the hate that rises off Hanna when Daddy is not around. As the story continues, she starts to become afraid of her own child, who of course acts like a perfect angel the second Daddy gets home.

I really hated Alex at first. He so easily lets himself get manipulated by his 7 year old daughter. H questions his wife and doesn't always believe the things she tells him about their demonic child. My heart broke for Suzette as she struggled with his denials.

Having just finished I am still in a bit of shock and speechless. The end left is seeming like there will be a sequel which I hope is the case!

This book is not for everyone!!!

That being said, it was well written and kept me engaged until the end. It's primarily a mother/daughter story and gives a disturbing picture of a dysfunctional family, where the child involved is increasingly violent.

I found myself getting annoyed with all of the characters, but especially the clueless dad. His inability to recognize the truth of his daughter's behavior and total lack of empathy for his wife was a bit of a barrier to my enjoyment.

I did enjoy the variety of perspectives from chapter to chapter, as I did feel it gave some complexity to the good/bad child story.

I didn't love this book, but I really wanted to! The characters were not very well developed. But the author did give us enough to get a sense of who they are.

Chapter by chapter you can see the psychological interplay between Hanna the 7 year old and her mother Suzanne or Susan (whatever her name was) , but it seemed to become redundant and and somewhat predictable.

If you have a defiant child, which I don't, this book is probably not for you! The book describes some potentially deadly consequences which Hanna plans to carry out against her mother.

The husband/father Alex seemed oblivious to what was occurring between his wife and daughter. I wanted to grab Alex and scream at him "don't you see what is going on?" It wasn't until late in the book that were told that he's got some sort of turmoil he's dealing with caused him to act the way he did or didn't with his family.

The book does have an unforeseen ending which wasn't entirely predictable.

Thank you netgalley for allowing me to read this book.

I loved this book. The characters were well developed and had strong personalities. Chapter by chapter you can see the psychological interplay becoming more and more complex. If you have a defiant child, this book will scare the daylights out of you! As a mom myself I could feel everything Suzette was going through and felt both sorry and afraid for her. My heart ached for the damaged child that was Hanna and I wanted to grab Alex and scream at him "don't you see what is going on?" It wasn't until late in the book that you realized that he was in his own special kind of turmoil as well. I was so engrossed in this story that when it reached the unforeseen end I felt like I'd been sucker punched! I highly recommend this to lovers of psychological thrillers. #chapterchatterpub

Baby Teeth is a controversial story about a 7 year old girl who loves her father and absolutely loathes her mother. She hates her so much in fact, she is certain life would be so much better for her and her dad if her mom was just out of the picture all together....

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to feel bad for Suzette and Alex. I wanted to understand Hanna. The characters were all just so unlikable. Suzette was a complete doormat with no sense of self confidence. Alex seems blind to every shred of evidence before his very eyes that his daughter is not the good little girl he thinks she is. Hanna's behavior and motivation for hating her mother just seems shrouded in mystery. What made her hate her mother but love her father? I feel like this book was just a collection of shocking events with no real conclusion.

I saw this as a dark and twisted look into Nature vs. Nurture, and trying to break the cycle of becoming our own parents.
Each chapter's pov goes back and forth from the mother; Suzette, to the daughter; Hanna, as did which person I blamed for the way Hanna was, and which character I was rooting for.
The suspense kept me on the edge of my seat (literally clutching a pillow from mid-way to the end of the book!)

I just put this down, and I wanted to write the review while it was still fresh. Let me lead with these words: HOLY S#!T.

This book was probably the most terrifying book I've read since I read the Amityville Horror in fifth grade (I was an advanced reader). I had to sleep with my door open and the hallway light on for about a month after reading that one; I feel the same way now. Mind you, I'm a pretty desensitized reader - not a lot of stuff bothers me. This book managed to do it.

Now granted, I am a parent (my kids are 13 and 9). I think that this book will hit the spot for readers around my age who are also parents. If you're not a parent yet, this book will definitely make you think twice about becoming one. I might be keeping an extra close on my daughter...just in case. Five awesomely well-deserved stars.

5/5. 5/23/18

Hanna loves her father. She loves him too much and wants him all to herself--so that makes Hanna's mother the enemy. Hanna has other issues as well. Though she is very intelligent and learns easily, she does not talk and has gotten herself kicked out of every school her parents have sent her to. Her mother homeschools her, so the two spend a lot of time together and Hanna's behavior becomes increasingly strange and malevolent--though when her father is around she's sweet as can be, so he does not believe his wife who is getting more and more fearful of their daughter.

This was definitely a tense, suspenseful read as I both was compelled and afraid to turn to the next page to find out what this little psycho kid would do next. But I didn't feel that Hanna's problems and behavior had any grounding or basis. Where did this obsessive love for her father and hate for the mother begin and stem from? And the dad just seemed too naive and the mother just too needy. At the end, help comes so easily and quickly, it seems crazy that they never got any help before. One thing I appreciated about the book was that the author did an great job of incorporating all of the information about Crohn's disease, which I didn't know anything about.

Suzette is mom to 7yr. old Hanna. They have run the course of blood tests and scans for years. You see, Hanna does not talk. So far, all medical tests have shown no reason for this. Dad to Hanna, Alex, is enamored with Hanna - the sun and moon rise in her. Mom is battling Crohn's disease and a full-time mom and home schooler for Hanna would like mommy to go away. Suzanne is frankly tired of all of this and gazes back on the days with Alex before Hanna. Hanna is of the mind that she is a witch or has at least the power to make mommy go away for good. One day Suzette has had it with Hanna's antics and says, "Why won't you ever listen to me?" - Hanna DOES answer, "Because I'm not Hanna". Hanna has already been kicked out of 2 schools due to destructive, even violent, antisocial behavior.
One morning on the way to a third school, Hanna says to mom, "I'm Marie-Ann". Here, they suggested a special needs school, That night, Hanna constructs a collage of pictures of dead women and one of Suzanne sleeping among the pictures. Next day, Hanna goes into Suzanne's bedroom and cuts half of her hair short. Hanna is selfish and wants daddy to herself and wants mommy to go away. (We begin to think Suzanne wants Hanna to go away, too). Suzanne gets sick when Hanna replaces her capsules with flour. Hanna is bound and determined to think of "ways to kill mommy... so to save daddy". At the family's Swedish bonfire, Hanna throws flaming pieces at her mom. Alex throws Hanna off mom and Hanna sprains her arm. both Suzanne and Hanna are taken to the clinic by Alex. Beatrix, child psychologist, tells Alex and Suzanne that the only way Hanna will improve is 1-3 years inpatient at Marshes Clinic. Yes, they take Hanna there.............. No spoilers! The conclusion does have a bit of a twist but likely to be a great follow-up novel. We'll see! Many Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to enjoy this book!

Thanks to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am very torn on this book. I sort of liked it and sort of hated it. I was offered this ARC based on another book from this publisher that I had read and enjoyed and was on the fence about accepting it because it sounded a bit more like a horror novel than a psychological thriller. But, the description said it was psychological suspense, so I went for it. I really think it is more of a horror story because it is about a mute and awful child who hates her mother and adores her father. The child is terrible I couldn't help but hate her but I thought the parents were strange too. With these odd personalities, I was expecting some sort of climax where someone would win the battle or something really shocking would happen, but nothing shocking did happen and that is why I feel let down. There were no big secrets that were uncovered that explained why the child hated her mother so much. I just got to the end and that was it. No wow moment, and that is the reason I sort of hated this book. I felt like I got no return on the time I spent. Anyway, despite my criticisms, the book itself was well written and I felt like I had decent insight into what Hanna and Suzette were thinking since the story was told from both perspectives. I would maybe give this author another shot if her next book was less horror and more psychological thriller.

Wow not even sure where to begin. While I can see how many people will love this book, this type of read isn’t for me. I think this type of book is either a love or hate one. Wish it the best of luck but it just wasn’t for me.

I think I had myself convinced on what type of book this was going to be from the blurb about it... I was certain this would be a Omen-esque book. It definitely started out like that. But quickly turned into something else. A look at mental health? Nature vs. nurture??

Switching between Suzette's (mom) POV and Hanna (creepy daughter) POV, we are introduced to a family where Alex (father) doesn't see the creeptastic kid that he has living in his house.

And I think Alex is maybe the whole entire freaking problem. For some reason, both of these ladies are obsessed with him. His wife, Suzette, sees him as a savior for pulling her out of an awful childhood and allowing her the comforts and surgeries and medicine she needs to deal with her Crohn's disease. Hanna sees him as her savior, because he's her dad and takes her side most of the time in dealings with her mom. Hanna doesn't speak, even though she's like 8, and she's horrible to her mother, but honestly, her mom is horrible to her also.

At first I thought we were going to get an innocent mother who has a demon-possessed child. But, no, Hanna is just that jacked up. She wants to kill her own mother so she can marry her dad and live happily ever after.

Suzette is just as much of the problem... seriously, the end, where she's like "don't bring her back here, I finally have you all to myself" gave me the willies. Ugh, this family was set to implode from the beginning and that's exactly what happened.

MESSED UP! Would have given it 2 stars, but the extra star is because I haven't stopped thinking of it.

Why do you think that we find books about psychopathic children so intriguing? Perhaps because it goes against all our instincts that children are born intrinsically innocent? It also raises the age-old nature vs nurture question that makes for brilliant debates in bookclub meetings. When I saw that Baby Teeth was being compared to We Need to Talk About Kevin – which is on my list of both most brilliant and most disturbing books I have ever read – I absolutely had to get my hands on it. Even more so when I saw all the divided opinions on social media, with people either loving or hating it in equal measure. So, you ask, which camp am I in?

To be honest, in neither. Baby Teeth was one of those books that kept me turning the pages but left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. There was so much potential for this story to be either totally creepy, or suspenseful, or at least offering some insights into what makes an “evil” child tick. It touched on all of these points, but never really lived up to its full potential for me. I blame this on one thing: Hanna’s POV. I am not usually a fan of reading books that offer the psychopathic perpetrator’s POV, finding that only a few authors can pull this off successfully (perhaps because they are not psychopathic killers – just as well!). Most end up exaggerating the depravity until it crosses the line of credibility, or ends up being too sick for my liking.

With Hanna, a seven year old girl, it was the former. No matter how brilliant Hanna’s mind may have been, I found the idea of a two-, four- or seven-year old being capable of carefully plotting her mother’s death simply too farfetched. The one reason We Need to Talk About Kevin was such a success for me was that we only ever got Eva’s POV, which pre-empted an ever present niggly doubt in the back of my head: was Kevin really as bad as she claimed? Was it her parenting that was defective? Was she misinterpreting his needs and motives? It added suspense and tension, which I found lacking in Baby Teeth. Hanna’s POV never left any doubt about her motives, which at times were bordering on silly. Whilst I found Kevin truly terrifying, I thought Hanna was a brat that could have done with a bit of parental discipline. I may have been able to buy it had Hanna been a bit older and more able of the thought processes described here. The only other way that this could have worked for me would have been to add a creepy supernatural element, some horror, anything to add some suspense or make Hanna appear a threat.

All that said, I kept turning the pages despite my sigh of exasperation about 30% into the book as I flung it from me in frustration and vowed to DNF it. But I picked it up again and kept reading – to the very end, which I guess earns it at least three stars. Why? I’m not sure – on one hand I want my four hours back, on the other the thought of having a child you are frightened of was intriguing and I constantly wondered what I would do if I were in Suzette’s shoes. There was one point at which a therapist came into the picture and added a brief hope of learning something interesting about Hanna’s personality disorder, but unfortunately the thread was not fully explored.

To sum up the experience for me, a We Need to Talk About Kevin it was not. It was, however, strangely compelling and kept me reading. I can see that Baby Teeth will make some waves in the bookish community once it comes out in July with some staunch loved-it or hated-it factions battling it out on the review front, whilst I am still sitting on the fence watching with morbid fascination as it all unfolds. I guess there is only one way to find out whether this one is for you, so by all means, get yourself a copy and read it!

What do you do if you have a child that you should love unconditionally, but that child is disturbed and wants nothing more than to kill you. What do you do when no one believes you and your husband never sees the disturbing behaviour? Your child is constantly in trouble in school but Daddy won’t believe his daughter is disturbed. This story is dark, disturbing and very controversial. Parts of it may be unbelievable but I was thoroughly entertained.

Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage is a novel that is every much a horror story as one about a mother and daughter. Suzette had a difficult relationship with her own mother and is haunted by the fear her Crohn’s disease will eventually lead to being attached to a colostomy bag permanently. She spent her teen years recovering from surgery and controlled by Crohns’. When Suzette marries Alex a man that loves her and cares about her health, life seems perfect. A child should only add to that happiness, but their daughter Hanna is 7 and has never spoken. She has been kicked out of schools for things like setting fires, and hurting other kids. Alex is Hanna’s champion and seems to refuse to believe anything could be wrong with his daughter. Suzette sees a very different side of Hanna. Baby Teeth’s use of alternating narratives between mother and daughter leaves the reader in a unique position. We are privy to both characters’ inner most thoughts, There were times I was mentally screaming, “run, get out!” This book will draw you in, it will scare you in ways you didn’t think were possible.