After reading the synopsis of this book, I was immediately intrigued by it as it sounded very interesting to me. It was pitched as We Were Liars meets The Raven Boys, which made me even more interested in reading it. The story centers around a 17 year old girl named Marin James whose cousin is found dead on the property of a mysterious and prestigious school called Huntsworth Academy. I love novels revolving around spooky schools so I thought this one would be right up my alley but I am sad to say that this book did not live up to my expectations. The premise itself was promising and sounded interesting but the actual execution of the novel was just okay. Marin ends up going to Huntsworth in order to find justice for her cousin, which I found to be intriguing. I liked the characters but the pacing of the novel was a bit slow for my taste. I found myself growing bored as I read the novel and it never really picked up for me. I definitely wish I liked this novel better than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Dark academia at its finest! Full of obsession, twists and complicated characters. The prose are beautiful, lush and immersive––I was immediately drawn in! If you're looking for an addictive, page-turning dark academia read...this is the one for you!!

Wow! This book was SO good! Captivating, Dark academia and vampires, but not the normal ones. The FMC Jamie did really aggravate me at time s but otherwise such a great read.

This is one of those books you're going to want to not think about anything too hard and just accept how convenient and unrealistic things are if you want to have a good time, once you’re past how easily things are handed to the MC you can appreciate the book. The writing is lovely, and definitely gives those dark academia vibes you'd want.

Boys with Sharp Teeth seemed right up my alley: broken characters, a murder mystery, an elite boarding school, revenge. The cover was gorgeous and I had high hopes for this story. However, I was disappointed with the slow, meandering pace. Although there were hints of some dark supernatural force, it didn't surface until 3/4 of the way through and it felt messy and underdeveloped. I'm sure this would appeal to some readers, but it was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Jenni Howell for the ARC.

I wanted to love this book. The title and artwork immediately drew me in, promising dark academia with an eerie, supernatural edge. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations. The story kicks off, becomes quickly farfetched, then drags painfully slow only to rush through the ending.

The idea of the main character, Jamie, sneaking into an elite boarding school under a false identity, determined to uncover the truth about her cousin Sam’s suspicious death sounded very promising. But plot holes like an enormous tuition check passing unquestioned, dyeing her hair to successfully mask her identity, and no family members wondering where she went made it hard to stay immersed. The world outside the central characters barely exists, making the setting feel hollow rather than atmospheric. Jamie’s growing romantic tension and inner turmoil overshadows the mystery, pushing Sam’s death into the background. Instead of a gripping investigation, the story leans too heavily into manufactured drama, diluting the stakes and making the last-minute supernatural elements feel even more out of place.

Overall, while the concept intrigued me, the uneven pacing and lack of depth in both the mystery and world-building left me underwhelmed. There is an audience for this out there - but it’s not for me.

This book was provided to me for free in exchange for my honest review.

Title: Boys with Sharp Teeth  
Author: Jenni Howell         
Genre: YA   
Rating: 3 out of 5

Seventeen-year-old Marin James has spent her entire life living in the shadow of the exclusive Huntsworth Academy. And when her cousin’s dead body is found in a creek on school property, Marin knows exactly who’s to blame: Adrian Hargraves and Henry Wu, the enigmatic yet dangerously alluring leaders of the school's social elite.

Swapping her ripped jeans for a crisp prep school skirt, Marin infiltrates Huntsworth to seek justice. But her quest is quickly muddied by a confusing attraction to her new life, and to the two dysfunctional and depraved boys who somehow understand her better than anyone ever has.

When Marin uncovers an otherworldly secret the boys are hiding within Huntsworth's ivied gates, the lines between right and wrong, love and hate, and nightmare and reality begin to crumble -- and nothing is as it seems.

Welcome to Huntsworth Academy.

It requires a rather large suspension of belief to accept that Marin was able to get herself into Huntsworth Academy so easily—and that absolutely no one from her old life (right down the street) bothered to look for her. I liked Baz a lot, but she, Henry, and Adrian seem like they’re the only people who even go to this school. And the entire novel happens within the space of a few weeks, but felt like it was spread out over months, so that didn’t really line up. The writing was excellent and I loved the feel of this book, but it just didn’t make sense to me.

Jenni Howell was a middle school teacher. Boys with Sharp Teeth is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Macmillan Children’s in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 4/15).

I really enjoyed this. We don't often get to see dark academia romance like this and especially such a compelling title!!
If you're craving a twisted tale dripping in obsession, mystery, and characters you'll obsess over— (meeee all the time)- even if you don’t quite trust them—then Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell is exactly what you need. This book is addictive in the best, most unsettling way possible.

Henry is enigmatic, slippery like shadows dancing just beyond reach, always leaving you guessing whether he's a savior or a spectator enjoying your struggle. Graves, on the other hand, hits differently—he’s stone, electricity, intensity personified. Howell brilliantly forces you to pick a side; you're either drawn to Graves’ intense edges or to Henry’s unsettling softness.

Jenni Howell’s prose? Absolutely stunning. It's lush and intense, almost screaming off the page. She writes moments that creep under your skin—small movements feel huge, like a brush of hair against a cheek or a breath grazing an ear, and you’ll find yourself highlighting passages just to relive the shiver they send down your spine.

This isn’t your typical dark academia romance; forget sweetness or tender anticipation. This is attraction fueled by tension and obsession. Every interaction drips with intensity, the lines blurring between hate and desire until you're not sure which emotion you’re truly feeling.

Yes, this story demands a leap of faith—some plot points stretch reality—but the experience is worth it. Howell's prose is hypnotic, spiraling through paranoia, uncertainty, and just a touch of the paranormal, keeping you perpetually on edge. Even when you're frustrated by the chaos, you're undeniably hooked, desperately flipping pages to see how it all unravels.

Prepare yourself—Boys with Sharp Teeth isn't just addictive, it's intoxicating. I, for one, can't wait to see what dark brilliance Jenni Howell unleashes next.

I don’t even know where to start with this review. The book took me completely by surprise and blew me away. It was dark and toxic and brutal and vicious and haunting. The prose was absolutely stunning, gripping me from the very first page and never letting me go, even after I finished. The dark academia atmosphere was immaculate, with the old boarding school, dangerous wealth, secret philosophical pen pals, and more. The characters were equally well written. They were all so flawed and complex, and I found them so compelling. I especially loved the main character, with her visceral, well developed grief and slow but deep descent into madness. Then there were Bax, Henry, and Adrian. I felt so close to them and loved them despite everything. There was also so much convoluted tension between the four of them. As for the plot, it was fast paced, with so many twists and turns and a hint of the supernatural. The ending was perhaps unusual, but I loved it. So overall this book consumed me and I highly recommend it.

The cover is stunning. I love dark academia books, but this one just didn't do it for me. I can usually read a book in a day if I love it, this one took me about 3 days to get through. “The Raven Boys” “We Were Liars” "Queer Reads" = None of that is true for this.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4/5

“We spend our entire lives fearing death, when death is only the beginning.”

Boys with Sharp Teeth was haunting and addictive.

Set in no-where Tennessee, Boys with Sharp Teeth follows Marin James as she infiltrates Huntsworth Academy in search of her cousin’s killer. Determined to find justice, Marin instead finds herself caught in a web of deception and lies.

I found Marin’s character relatable in many ways. She’s a 17 year old from a small town and relatively poor family, with dreams of becoming more… of course she would jump at the opportunity to attend an elite academy! The ease in which Marin enrolls herself in the academy with forged transcripts and a fraudulent check isn’t realistic. But this is a fictional story, and her rich mom excuses seemed valid enough for the headmistress (who am I to question this).

It’s obvious that Marin craves a sense of belonging and wants to be understood. By assuming the identity of Jamie Vane, she unexpectedly finds that in the very people she considers to be suspects. Marin was expecting rich and entitled teens with the depth of a kiddie pool - not Adrian Hargraves, the brooding violinist, and Henry Wu, his charismatic best friend. Each a little broken (quite literally insane), they somehow fit together (it’s trauma-bonding). Despite her distrust for Adrian and Henry, Marin finds herself drawn to them. Like her, they’re struggling under the weight of life (or maybe death).

I think Jenni Howell did a great job exploring concepts of life and death throughout this story, especially from the perspective of teens. Obviously, there’s a supernatural element to this story and a literal death (or two). Setting that aside, everything at 17 feels like life or death and it’s interesting to see how Marin navigates her situation. She wants justice for Sam, her cousin, but she also wants this life for herself. It’s the more she’s been looking for.

As the story progresses, everything we thought we knew starts to unravel. Illusions shatter, lies are exposed, and the cause of Sam’s death comes to light. The characters become more obsessive and unhinged, Marin included. This is not a romance and there is no happy ending, but it’s an absolute ride.

If you enjoy dark academia, absolutely unhinged characters, and monsters lurking in the dark - this book is for you!

(Thank you to Net Galley, Macmillan, & Jenni Howell for this opportunity!)

3.5 stars. A good book, would recommend it to those I think may like it, but would not necessarily recommend broadly to everyone. Trigger warnings for death, violence, blood, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

Some books invite you to solve a mystery. Others drag you into the mind of someone who thinks they already have. Boys with Sharp Teeth does both. I find this to be an incredible effort for a debut work. The atmosphere is thick with tension all. the. time. and the prose is hauntingly vivid. I found the way Jenni Howell described things as simple as seeing your breath in the cold poetic and nearly palpable. But I also had to suspend a lot of belief throughout the book and, even then, was left incredulous at the haphazard way our main character, Marin, develops her beliefs and makes decisions. The plot rolls steadily along until the last 25%, where there's a rush of activity and revelations and twist after twist after twist - a good number of which I did not predict, which was nicely surprising. The prose beautifully but I was so frustrated with Marin for so long that this work doesn't quite reach 4 stars.

We follow Marin, racked with grief from the very recent (think 3 days ago) passing of her cousin Sam, deceiving her way into a private school as one Jamie Vane. She somehow manages to procure the fake paperwork she needed, submit it to the school, have them admit her, dye her hair, and get to the school by that third day immediately after finding the body of her best friend/cousin. Ok, I can go along with that. She's convinced Sam's death was orchestrated by one or some members of a trio at the school Sam had mentioned befriending: Adrian, Henry, and Baz. When she gets there, she is assigned to a suite she shares with Adrian, while Henry and Baz share a suite on the same floor. I will admit it took a lot to get over the fact that this fancy private school allows for mixed gender suites with shared in-suite bathrooms. But this access is what allows Marin to integrate herself into this friend group and push towards finding out what really happened to Sam.

Let's talk about Marin. Marin is so sure of her ability to read people, to "discern truth." The problem is that she is absolutely terrible at it. Without getting into spoilers, Marin essentially believes what she wants to believe, sees the evidence that prop up her beliefs, and explains away the evidence that suggest otherwise. This seeps into everything - from her investigation to who she chooses to trust. She is constantly in denial and she doesn't start questioning herself until the very last part of the book. She jumps to conclusions and makes bizarre choices. She is a terrible detective, and I did want to yell at her to ask more questions, look into more things. But she was focused in on one theory of the crime, had her horse blinders on, and we have no choice but to go along with her on this ride.

As for the trio, Henry is a complete maniac (and you'll find out why), Adrian is basically a punching bag, and Baz is the sweetest person but comes across as more one-dimensional compared to the others (and she's not even on the cover or in the book blurb, justice for Baz!!). The relationships between each of the characters, Marin included, is definitely toxic, obsessive, possessive.

In terms of the supernatural aspect, I do wish it was a bit more clearly explained or just had more time to play out. It lingers throughout the book, but really comes to a head at the very end. I was still left quite confused by the end on how exactly the supernatural aspect worked.

Overall, I was left not quite grasping what the themes of this book were. What Howell wanted us to get out of it. A book definitely doesn't need themes - you can certainly just want to write a good story. But I kept feeling like the book was trying to get something across that I didn't quite get.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the audiobook and eARC for this title. My opinions are my own and 100% honest.

First, this cover is absolutely beautiful! That was actually what first drew me toward this book. Real review:

Did I have some issues with the logistics of this plot? Yup. Was this way different from what I expected? Yup. Did the ending feel abrupt and maybe even a bit unfulfilling? Also yup.

Did I devour this book and enjoy the vibes every step of the way anyway? I sure did.

This is a very slow-moving, atmospheric book. I wasn’t expecting the fantasy / almost horror element, and it felt like the ending on that was a bit too rushed (especially in comparison to the pace of the rest of the book), but I was really intrigued by the story anyway. I love morally gray characters, and that’s what this book has all around. There is soo much mystery, sexual tension, and philosophy woven in as well. There were places where that felt a bit cliche or forced, but I’m a sucker for the relationships here, so I didn't mind. I especially loved that weird homoerotic, dependent energy Adrian and Henry had going on. I kinda wish it was focused on more, even.

This debut novel had themes of dark academia, complex characters, and a little bit of the supernatural. The premise of the story seemed very promising, but unfortunately as a whole didn’t quite deliver.

I feel like if this was set in a college environment it would have been more believable. Especially given the fact that FMC just casually infiltrated an elite boarding school without any trouble at all.

The characters did draw me in, but I wish their backgrounds were fleshed out a bit more because I think it would’ve added more to the story. It was really hard to be truly invested in the the progression of the plot because the FMC was lacked the confidence needed to pull off her plan. It felt like a lot of the book was super wordy and much of what was written didn’t have any impact.

Overall, this was an okay read. Unfortunately, it just missed the mark for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.

Boys With Sharp Teeth
Genre: YA dark academia
Rating: 2/5

Thank you to Macmillan for an ARC of Boys with Sharp Teeth c/o NetGalley!

Unfortunately this is just not it for me! The suspension of disbelief was just too much for me to get behind from the start and when coupled with the devastatingly try-hard writing, it was never going to be higher than 3 stars in an absolute best case scenario.

The premise (local girl forges admission to elite boarding school to catch her cousin’s murderers) was shaky and then the author did herself no favors with the poor world building (boys and girls share dorms? we don’t interact with any other students?).

Pros:
- Not a single character is likeable and I mean that in the best way possible— 17 year old broody boarding school trust fund kids *are* a nightmare and this one did capture the self-important angst pretty well.

Cons:
- The author tried very, very hard to make every paragraph worthy of a Kindle-highlight and it read like a series of poorly connected one-liners from CW shows.
- The paranormal twists and turns didn’t land well with me.
- The final twist was cuckoo bananas — what did I actually just read??

I loved this book, it was exactly what it said it was and exactly what I wanted. The characters are intriguing, if archetypal, but that fits the story. The setting was also very well crafted, so it was easy to imagine what Huntsworth looks like. I feel like a lot of authors want to create the dynamic that these characters have, but aren’t willing to go far enough or get dark enough, so I really appreciated the commitment to actual obsession and codependency. This is what the “dark” in dark academia is supposed to be like! It would be nice if there were more critiques of academia, which is the other important aspect of dark academia, but I think this story wasn’t necessarily the place for that anyway, it had other things to focus on. People saying it was long-winded or pretentious just don’t know how to have fun. Some things were confusing and occasionally hard to follow or believe, but I still loved it!
My only real gripe is that the cover art doesn’t look quite like the characters (specifically Henry’s hair), and that the owlcrate version fixes that.

After her cousin dies under mysterious circumstances, Marin James infiltrates Huntsworth Academy under an alias. Her goal is to find out what happened and enact revenge on the students she knows were responsible: Baz Hallward, Henry Wu, and Adrian Hargraves. But things quickly get murky as she starts to make friends with all three…

BWST is described as We Were Liars meets The Raven Boys. I haven’t read the former, but I easily see the Raven Boys comparison– we have a poor local girl mixing with affluent prep schoolers and a clear Ronan stand-in. Like The Raven Boys, BWST also delivers more than I expect out of a YA novel. For TRB, it’s a YA book with very little romance. That’s true for BWST as well, but it’s a surprising commitment to the gothic, disorienting side of dark academia where up is down and no one is innocent (especially the protagonist). In recent years, it seems like dark academia is often just used as an aesthetic indicator for a boarding school story that involves a mystery and maybe some vampires, so it’s refreshing to see some gothic elements really come into play, like themes of guilt, insanity, and so on.

This is an impressive debut novel, imo. I think its failings are in the remarkably rushed ending and interstitial bits that make the world believable. For example, Marin sharing a suite with one of the boys doesn’t make a lot of sense. She takes an action toward the end of the book that, despite her moral greyness, feels rather unsupported. Also, the school doesn’t feel fleshed out– maybe it’s just the otherwise gothic feel, but I really wanted the setting to act as a character in itself too.

I wish my dreams didn’t have such sharp teeth.

Boys With Sharp Teeth gives the reader vibes of elite academies, revenge plots, twisted games, and mysteries wrapped in philosophical idealism.

I was initially drawn to this book by its cover and the comparisons to We Were Liars and The Raven Boys. While the influence of these works is loosely present, the story didn’t quite capture the same emotional connection for me.

The dark academia atmosphere is undeniably immersive, and the author excels at building tension between characters. However, I struggled to feel a connection to any of the characters or their relationships among the group. The pacing and flow of the narrative occasionally faltered, making it difficult to stay fully engaged.

Considering this is the author’s debut novel, I’m curious to see how their writing evolves. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for future releases.

I wanted to read this just by the cover! I was really going into this hoping for a sort of poly dark academia with that only being slightly fulfilled. I finished the book but I skimmed over the last 80ish pages. This had a lot of potential but I think it was a little too convoluted in its attempt to throw plot twists. The relationships between everyone interested me but the big "reveal" did not really make a ton of sense to me and I did not feel that one of the friend's death was necessary. I was hopeful that the class commentary would come through more but it could have been done better. That being said, there is definitely an audience for this so it will be easy to sell. I just won't recommend it as being one I really liked.

Boys with Sharp Teeth is a stunning, darkly beautiful, gorgeously written paranormal novel about love, hate, revenge, and obsession. When Marin's cousin is discovered dead in a nearby creek and authorities declare it an accidental drowning due to drugs, Marin is irate. She knows that there was nothing accidental about Sam's death; in fact, she not only knows it was a murder but also knows who the murders are. Now, determined to extract her revenge, she infiltrates the elite academy where her cousin was a security guard and seeks out her version of justice. What Marin was not expecting was to find a likeness with those she was targeting. Darkness seeks darkness. What is reality and what is nightmare? Boys with Sharp Teeth has the reader questioning themselves, their reality, their perspectives, and what they're reading.

I am obsessed with this book! Reading Boys with Sharp Teeth instantly brought me back to my amazing philosophy classes of undergrad. I just wish I was in a reading group to discuss all the characters, themes, actions....everything in this book! The characters are well-developed, morally gray, and extremely complex. The ending of this book is absolutely perfect. After reading it, I think I would have been disappointed if it ended any other way. I will definitely be reading more by Jenni Howell. I just hope all her characters are as deep, brooding, and, in my opinion, as lovable as Adrian. Boys with Sharp Teeth is already one of my favorite books of 2025. I will be recommending this book to everyone! Easy 5 stars!