A truly chilling horror story set against the backdrop of a perfect suburban life. The different points of view and the slow reveal of the backstories of the main characters really helps build the tension. The ending is both creepy and satisfying.

What a chilling tale! Told in the alternating voices of a mother (Suzette) and her seven year old daughter (Hanna), this book grabs you by the throat and holds on tight until the very last word. This book was not easy to put down once it was started. How could a seven year old be so evil? How could a father not see it? Will Suzette survive with a child like Hanna in the house? Creepily twisted, this book was done very well, and will be one I won’t quickly forget.

I neither loved nor hated this book. I found it to be very sad, and horrific. It’s every parents worst nightmare. There were times when I wanted to smack each one of the main characters. There is something morbidly fascinating about the book though. I really had a very hard time putting it down. I would have given the book more stars if the ending had been more conclusive and final. I’m not aware of a sequel but I’d rate it higher if there was to be one. It’s hard to recommend this book to anyone I know, but I think if you enjoy books/movies like The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Bad Seed, than you would probably like to read this one too.

Hannah is a 7 y/o selective mute, precocious little girl. She lives with her parents, Alex (eco-architect designer from Sweden), and her mother Suzette, a woman who has been scarred and traumatized over a life of dealing with Crohn’s disease. They have a wonderful, eco-friendly, perfectly designed and furnished home. Neither of them seems capable of tolerating the slightest imperfection in their lives. They get triggered by Americans pronouncing “Jensen” improperly. For all of us who are not Scandinavian, it’s “Yensen.” Get your shit together, and learn some Svenska, Y'all!

Hanna loves her daddy. He is fun, silly, loving, understanding. He doesn’t think we all need words to communicate. To him, his little spawn is incapable of hurting a fly (the man lives in denial). Hanna doesn’t like much as much as Daddy. Mommy needs to go. NOW.

Suzette has placed her career on hold to take care of the little ray of Sunshine for 7 years. She refuses to speak, and she’s been different and more challenging (how dare she doesn’t like art and creates sketches and eco-friendly homes like her parents, dammit!) . Suzette blames herself. What did she do wrong? Where did she fail as a mother? What will precious, perfect Alex think if she told him the little girl is Satan in a dress?! Poor Suzette, she’s on her own dealing with Wednesday Adams and has zero support elsewhere. She-Devil behaves like an innocent doll when Dad’s around.

Obviously, there’s something wrong with this smart-ass kid (it was hard for me not to like her. She’s quite the clever thing!). Is she possessed by a witch’s spirit?, A demon?, Psychotic? a psychopath?! How far will things go before Mr. “I Can’t Believe it's Not Butter” grows a pair?

Zoje Stage is brilliant at creating a character who has both the imagination and naiveness of her age and the coldness and determination to creep you out. I’m shameless in saying I liked her, all the way to the end.

Read it! Read it! … I mean, only if you’re OK with creepy, murderous, children characters. The book is a delight, and I couldn’t put it down.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin Press (I love your books, guys!) in exchange for an honest review.

While I did enjoy the book, it was a little darker than I expected...(not a bad thing!). The concept is brilliant.....Hanna doesn’t talk...Hanna wants mommy out of the way. She wants to be with daddy. Daddy is oblivious to the toll everything that Hanna is putting her mother Suzette through. I recommend it, it’s different and I think this book will do very well!

I read this book month's ago. I thought maybe with time I might like something about this story. Nope. Never. That poor child must have been somewhere on the autism spectrum, but dang, I can't see anyone figuring that out. Well, without them figuring that mom was just bonkers.I mean DANG. Her mama was messed up. I get the Crohns disease. I have that. I've lost more than half my body weight from that dreadful thing. Ha, ha, turns out that when you're the weight you were in your teens and twenties, what use to be up is now down.....ooh, ugh!!! Whatever dude!Kiss my saggy buttocks! I'm 54, and I'm saggin' and baggin'! I can run off the neighborhood, just from dropping my trousers! Chuckles! Sorry, dude that cracked me up!
Turns out Papa was too, crazy that is. The whole thing ended really on a cliffhanger, but everyone was so hateful that I didn't care. Some people say that they don't need character driven books. I disagree. That's just me. I need someone to root for. Always. You know, if I'm completely honest, the truth is that I hated how the mom was so caught up in her disease. I hated it, but as someone who also eats too much mashed potatoes, I get it. My Doc., has questioned my hatred for mashed potatoes. If that and mild gravy is one of the few things you can eat......? Then how can you hate it? I do. Taters and gravy. Pudding, and chicken broth? Again, kiss my buttocks. My thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. Quite honestly? Had I paid money for this, then I would have been annoyed as crap!

Wow! A mother's worst nightmare! Hanna is so desperate to have her loving father all to herself that she is willing to do anything! Her ultimate plan is to eliminate her mother, Suzette, from their family! After being frightened by Hanna's alter ego, Suzette must get her husband to understand how manipulative and unsafe Hanna is and find a way to protect herself. Whose' plan will be successful? I could not stop reading this! I had to know how this would all play out! I am definitely hooked and will be awaiting a sequel! Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy for an honest review!

I tend to contemplate on how many stars I'll give all the way through a book. This one went back and forth between 4 & 5. First, let me say that while I had never read Zoje Stage, she is an excellent writer, truly has a way with words and would have aced all of the creative writing classes I had in college. I read the first page and said, "Wow"!

This is a very emotional read and, I'm sure, will garner mixed reviews. Hanna is a truly evil child, and one has to wonder if there will ever be any redemption for her. At one point, her mother has thoughts that she'll end up as a serial killer, and I believe the readers are wondering right along with her. My rating went down at the end; if you've read it, you'll understand why.

Rating: R for language and sex

The mother and daughter dynamic, even under the best of circumstances, is fragile territory. The daddy's girl syndrome is very real. I have a daughter. She will be 40 years old this year. She is still very much Daddy's girl. Our relationship is a good one but has had its ups and downs, as anyone might expect.

BABY TEETH is told, in alternating chapters, by Hanna, the daughter, and by Suzette, the mommy. To say that each of these characters comes with her own, somewhat peculiar, set of issues would be an understatement in the extreme. Each of them is seeking some kind of elusive perfection founded in a reality with which I am unfamiliar.

On the periphery of, yet highly central to, the plot is daddy. Mommy is the stay at home variety and daddy is the go to work, and the gym, and have a life variety.

It is difficult to pin this tale into a single category. It is about the family dynamic alongside the interpersonal relationships of the individuals that comprise said family. It is a psychological study of way nurture plays different roles in different households. It is a horror story of unimaginable ferocity.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed reading this book. It was in no way an enjoyable experience. However, not all books are written to provide joy and uplift. Some are written to provoke thought and intense reactions. BABY TEETH certainly does that. To enumerate my emotional reactions would be to give away the farm (so to speak), and I just don't do spoilers.

I’m not sure how I feel about this book, honestly. It was dark, which I love, but a lot of it because of the lack of dialogue (the girl doesn’t speak) made it hard to follow and stay interested in. This is definitely a book that makes you think and terrifies you and I had to find out how it ended. So, overall, it was okay! 3/5 stars...not my favorite, not one I’d necessarily recommend but I didn’t hate it.

gahhh this book is so freaky it's so good! I have to say that the cover is what hooked me first. The cover alone gives you that creepy eerie feeling. It's sweet, innocent, and shattered? Did I just describe the book? lol I love reading stories about messed up families. They really stick with me and when I'm done, they make me question ...other families. The change in POV is why I liked this book so much. It was great to experience this book through different views rather than just one biased view. There were a couple things that were left open ended that i still wonder about, but overall I'm extremely satisfied with this book. I can't wait for everyone to read it.

Baby Teeth: A Novel (July 17, 2018) by Zoje Stage
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (July 17, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250170753

Entertainment Weekly writes that Baby Teeth was like “We Need to Talk About Kevin meets Gone Girl meets The Omen....” I’m still a bit haunted by We Need to Talk About Kevin so I hoped that I would like the book.

The story is told in alternating points of view between the mother, Suzette, and the daughter, Hanna. I did not really want to read a seven-year-old’s point of view at first but even this turned out to make the book creepy. At times this narration was a bit too omniscient for my taste but by the end of the story it worked.

Unlike We Need to Talk About Kevin that includes a much longer period of time with the *I’m-glad-he’s-not-my-kid* Kevin, Baby Teeth sticks to a much shorter time period.

What’s creepy: Hanna does not talk. Except, of course, when she conjures a French accent for her first (creepy) sentence to her mother. This very much reminded me of Richard Matheson’s “Drink My Red Blood” with young Jules who “never spoke a word until he was five. Then, one night coming to supper, he sat down at the table and said, ‘Death’.” Hanna’s phrase is not explicitly problematic but I doubt it would sit well with any parent.

I liked that the narration lets us see how Suzette speculates about Hanna’s condition: is her daughter possessed? Is her daughter a psychopath? Is her daughter being molested by her father, whom Hanna adores?

There are specialists, counselors, special schools, and Suzette is more likeable than Eva (see, I keep going back to We Need to Talk About Kevin) but she is whiny.

Dad is in major denial but I doubt you will hate him for it. He is also Swedish, which brings an interesting aspect to the book since some phrases are purely in Swedish with no translation. There is an emphasis on Swedish traditions. Further, there is a witch theme and they celebrate Walpurgisnacht, which surprised and delighted this reader.

In some ways, the book nods more to Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts, which to me is the ultimate compliment because that book was amazing.

I was not too surprised by the ending but I also liked it; and, if you know me, I cannot stand neatly *tied up with a happy bow* endings so be forewarned.

Received from Netgally in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This review is for the first 40% only; I decided to DNF after that. I'll be talking about what I did read, and my general thoughts on it.

This is a bit of a weird one for me. Uncomfortable to read, even. I know that this is an entirely personal thing, since it seems that a lot of people really got into this -- that's cool. Just wasn't for me. I'm still going to write as fairly as I can about it, of course.

First thing's first for me -- the technical side of the writing seemed perfectly fine, for the most part. (I'll go into the most part bit a little more in a minute.) It was readable, comfortably so, and I don't recall hitting any major 'brain stalls' in general, where I would need to reread sections to know what I was seeing. For the most part.

Where I started getting stuck were Hanna's sections -- not because they weren't as decently written, technically, as the rest of the chunk that I read, but because I found it so hard to suspend disbelief for the bulk of her internal monologues. The issue for me was that I just...found it so difficult to believe that a seven-year-old girl would have access to some of the vocabulary and knowledge that she did, even if she does have essentially free internet access from Alex's computer. It contrasted so jarringly with her childishness (her 'innocent' immaturity did feel natural and normal, from what I read, for the most part) that I ended up both struggling and racing to get through her PoVs and back to Suzette's.

I have to point out that I was so excited that it might be a case of Hanna somehow being possessed by the spirit of a witch, causing her acting-out to amp up dangerously, which would cause Suzette some sort of internal struggle of having to choose to save a child that has been so much trouble for her. . .perhaps that's a bit on the dark side, but it would've held my interest like nobody's business. (Especially if a HEA was involved.)

As it was, though. . .this was uncomfortable for me, and not because of the whole 'creepy child' thing. As someone who isn't neurotypical themself, a lot of Hanna's 'weird' actions...didn't seem all that weird to me. It's mind-boggling that, when it was clear she wasn't learning to communicate verbally at the age other children would, Alex and Suzette didn't learn and teach her ASL. Instead, Hanna was subjected to mountains of tests and stresses and knowing full well that her mother wasn't all too keen about this development in her young life, whether she really does love her or not. (Alex, while all but useless for certain parts of her development, at least doesn't try to act like something's wrong with her. He accepts her.) Why on earth didn't they try ASL with her before all of that?

I honestly don't know if it's addressed later on in the book, but it's something I just can't get over. The refusal to accept Hanna at face value and adapt how they communicate with her, instead of trying to force her into doing something she clearly isn't comfortable with. Suzette's inability to see past her own image and desperate need to present as a Perfect Wife & Mother Combo, despite how disastrous it is for both her and her daughter. Alex's aloofness when it comes to Hanna's misbehaviour, choosing to believe what he sees and not what his wife tells him happens when he's not around. The option of Alex staying home and Suzette working never really coming up seriously, to give her time away from the home life that's destroying her.

And I know that so much of that is very much a part of the story, but there's just so many pieces that could so easily slot into place and change the entire path of the story that realistically should've happened...that didn't. Like the ASL thing. Like Suzette simply choosing healthier options of accepting her daughter as she is, rather than trying to change her to fit society's faulty standards. 

For all that, though, the technical side of the writing was quite good, as aforementioned. I'd be keen on reading something that this author writes in the future, and would be more than willing to give her stories another go.

(Also -- that cover! That title! I love them both. They're evocative and totally fit the story.)

This is a book that will keep you guessing about everything. There is merit to being afraid of things you don’t understand. A child who either refuses to talk or is unable to is scary. This is for all readers of thrillers out there who love guessing what is going on I highly recommend this to all boom lovers.

Loved this book. I like how it goes back and forth between what hanna who is cannot speak is thinking to her mother and fathers perspective. You can tell from the beginning something is different with Hanna . Suzette is an interesting character as well. This book really makes you think.... would you be able to love your child no matter what they did , to you or others? Would you still love ypur child if they show no emotion except hatred towards you. Its a hard concept to imagine but in suzette s world its a reality. I really hope there is a sequel so we can find out if the marshes really do help here or if shes beyond help

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin Press for the advanced copy.

When I first read the blurb for Baby Teeth, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it! Anyone who knows me, knows I love a great physiological thriller.

Sadly, Baby Teeth didn't really work for me. The writing is good but the story and characters really started to annoyed me at around 50% . I found myself wanting to throw my Kindle across the room with the tit-for-tat between Hannah, Suzette and Alex. Hannah clearly need help with everything she was doing to her mother but the parents made excuses for her actions nonstop. Being a thriller junkie, I've read many disturbing things in books but it didn't work well for me coming from a 7 year old little girl.

Oh my God. As I was reading this book, all I could think was that someone needed to pick this kid up and throw her down a well. Because seriously, what the what??????

Hanna's mom, Suzette, is at her breaking point. She feels like she is going crazy since she quit her job to stay home with her new baby. The only problem is her baby hates her. Has hated her since birth. And now seems to be intent on hurting her.

The added wrinkle is that Hanna doesn't speak. Although she can read and communicate in other ways, she refuses to speak.

Even though Hanna hasn't been successful in any type of school, her Daddy thinks everyone is being too rough on Hanna, because she behaves completely different in front of him. He loves his wife, but he thinks she is becoming a little unhinges (she is).

As Hanna steps up her game, she finally starts to show her father what she is really made of and then things get even more interesting.

It definitely made me think, what do you do if you give birth to a true sociopath? And one that wants to hurt you? You would still feel some love and connection to the child, even though you would be terrified. I don't know what I would do, but it was a truly scary idea.

Current Goodreads Rating 3.82

This would have made a good short story, but I don't think there was enough to justify a full length book. What would have made this so much better would be to cut this story down to half of its length, then continue on for the second half of the book. As it stands, the book ends right when things start getting good. We leave the antagonist in a precarious position and with the hint that there is still much more mayhem ahead. As a reader, I don't want to walk away with this. I also don't want to read a whole second book about this character. So overall, an interesting idea for a novel, but for me the pacing is off.

Zoje Stage’s debut novel Baby Teeth is a disturbingly entertaining look at being a mother to a problem child.

Suzette wants to be a loving mother to her daughter Hanna. She wants nothing more than to have a happy and functional family.

But Hanna has other ideas.

Hanna wants a happy family too, but she doesn’t want Suzette to be part of it. She wants it to be just her and her father, Alex, and Suzette is in the way.

The more Hanna tries to eliminate her mother, the more Suzette feels out of control. Alex doesn’t believe her, he sees Hanna as his little angel and refuses to acknowledge that something is wrong. But as Hanna’s behaviour escalates, Suzette needs to convince him that maybe their home isn’t the best place for Hanna.

So a quick side note before I get into this review: I’m not a big fan of kids. I started reading this all ready to hate Hanna for being a little brat. And that’s definitely how it started out. She flushes Suzette’s diamond earrings down the toilet, she shits on the floor making the babysitter clean it up, and she punches another child in the supermarket. Definitely a little brat.

But then Zoje Stage does something amazing. She makes you feel for Hanna. She writes from Hanna’s perspective and lets us into why Hanna acts the way she does. She wants to be included and doesn’t understand when her parents do things that don’t include her. It’s hard not to feel for her. Hanna doesn’t speak so she can’t explain any of this to her parents.

But then, of course, she does something so sadistic, like tamper with Suzette’s medication, that you go back to thinking she’s a psychopath. She makes it clear that she’s choosing not to speak rather than not being able to. You go back and forth between sympathy and horror at Hanna’s actions and I have to admit there were some parts when I was a little impressed at her ingenuity (don’t judge me).

Suzette is interesting as well. She has some mother-issues of her own and is trying her best to give her child the love she felt her mother didn’t give her. She’s also struggling with her health, which gives the book some extremely uncomfortable scenes where she describes her surgeries and fistulas resulting from them.

You feel for her and it’s impossible not to imagine how difficult her situation is. To have a child that you know loathes you, a husband that doesn’t believe you, and a fear for your life when your daughter’s actions turn dangerous can only be torturous.

I loved Baby Teeth more than I probably should have. I’ve heard a lot of people saying they didn’t enjoy the disturbing nature of Hanna’s behaviour, but it’s what made me want to keep reading. She’s such an interesting character, nothing like any other book I’ve read before. I’ve heard it being likened to We Need to Talk About Kevin, so that’s definitely going on my TBR list.

If you’re a fan of unusual kids, a layered plot, and some visceral imagery then you should definitely give Baby Teeth a read

While I found the writing to be clunky and the plot quite messy, I must commend this book for fixing the problem that I have with every other book of 'bad seed' fiction I have ever read: THE FATHER BELIEVES THE MOTHER OVER THE CHILD.
He's suspicious at first, for sure. But he still believes his wife when she asserts that his daughter isn't so angelic when he looks the other way. Unlike the father in We Need to Talk About Kevin, this father believes the testimony of the nannies, babysitters, teachers and therapists that deal with the 'bad' side of his daughter. He and his wife work as a team to make sure they stay safe and ultimately protect their daughter from her evil impulses.
The book still put the fear of god into me- what on earth would I do with a child who was 'born bad'? I was glad to see the various professionals portrayed as rational adults also- the family received support from teachers and therapists, rather than coming under suspicion. Their little girl wasn't as smart as she thought she was, and I took guilty pleasure in seeing her get her comeuppance after wreaking utter havoc for so many years!
While I found some of her exploits pretty far-fetched- namely her ability to speak accented French after reading a Wikipedia page- I was frightened by her ability to turn emotions on and off and push her luck just as far as her parents would go. I read Lullaby (the killer nanny book!) in the same week as Baby Teeth and felt that they worked well together.