I was very excited to be granted an e-arc of “Boys with Sharp Teeth”, the debut novel by Jenni Howell.  Everything about it seemed tailor made for me from the dark academia setting to the spooky vibes and mystery. Unfortunately I’m very sad to report that this book really didn’t work for me.  I struggled mightily with the pacing; the first half was gripping but everything slowed way down in the second part and I struggled to focus on the book enough to finish.  I also found the characters to be a little flat — Marin and Adrian were the most fully drawn but Henry and Baz were very flat.  

I did enjoy the atmosphere and the concept (although I was expecting polyamory based on the cover and was sadly disappointed).  I am willing to try the author’s next work because the vibes were impeccable and I’m interested to see how she develops as an author.  Overall I think that this could be a great read for someone who loves dark academia and is willing to overlook somewhat flat characters and slower second half.  

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Roaring Brook Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A fun time! I thought this was a strong debut with a hooky premise and an interesting cast of characters. Can't wait to see what's next from this author.

2 stars - siiiiigh. This should have been good! The writing is there stylistically, but everything else lacked substance. This really felt like some sort of fanfiction and I hadn’t consumed the parent content.

The relationships made no sense. The reader is just supposed to believe these boys are attracted to the FMC when Adrian had barely had a conversation with her. No one was buying Henry/Jamie. And even Jamie and Baz’s friendship was stuttered and confusing.

Jamie (Marin) suffered from the typical stupid FMC trend. An insane amount of hand waving about Marin even getting into the school. That piece alone could have explained much more about Adrian, Sam, and Marin. The fact that she insists on believing Henry was innocent is just baffling.

The “magical realism” piece of the book was some sort of afterthought. It could have been such a cool piece of this mystery and instead just left me wanting more.

Lastly, idk if we all thought this book was queer because of the cover or because it was advertised as “The Raven Boys” meets “We Were Liars” but it had nothing in common with the Raven Boys other than a boarding school.

This novel is a dark, emotionally layered exploration of power, desire, and identity. The writing is immersive, rich with atmosphere, and carries a quiet tension that builds steadily. Characters are drawn with nuance, their flaws and contradictions making them feel painfully real. Relationships shift and strain under the weight of secrets and unspoken truths, adding depth to every interaction.

What sets the book apart is its careful balance between emotional realism and eerie, otherworldly undertones. The strange elements never overshadow the story’s emotional core; they sharpen it. The result is a narrative that feels both grounded and dreamlike, familiar yet unsettling.

This is not a story that offers easy answers. It invites the reader to sit with discomfort, to question motivations, and to follow the emotional logic even when it resists neat conclusions. It is a book that lingers, quietly haunting and unexpectedly moving.

I was confused to see "Boys With Sharp Teeth" on my digital shelf because the name and cover art implied that it was gay vampire erotica... which isn't EXACTLY wrong (but isn't exactly right either). According to the blurb, it's a Dark Academia novel about a girl who infiltrates a posh private school because she believes three of the wealthy students murdered her closest family member. I will have to take this description as truth because in spite of having just finished the book, I couldn't possibly tell you what it's about.

The story starts out slow, but the language was so rich and sumptuous that I was initially fine to just revel in Jenni Howell's descriptive wordplay. I figured I could catch up to the plot without much difficulty since it was taking its time to unfold. This was both true and false... the main character quickly developed a strong sexual attraction to the two main suspects, a pair of abusive jerks who were also erotically obsessed with each other. Jamie's drawn to the only other suspect , a female student, as a potential friend but continues to harbor suspicion about Baz's involvement with the death of her cousin Sam. Beyond this, the plot is muddled and disjointed. I started to wonder if I had a glitchy copy where every other paragraph had been deleted because the connective tissue was missing from so many scenes and conversations.

Somewhere along the way, the lovely descriptive language dropped off and instead, the same odd words began to appear again and again. Characters "scraped" their hands through their hair 24 times and they became fixated on cupping or caressing each other's jaw (55 mentions) or cheek (57 mentions). They spend a lot of time intimately touching each other but there's not so much as a kiss until we're 60% through the book. Jamie also starts to exasperatedly reference things the other characters "always" say or do, as if she hasn't known them for less than a week. In fact, the whole school plot takes place in less than 2 weeks; we're introduced to Marin-as-Jamie about a week after her cousin's December 3 death and the final showdown happens at the winter formal on December 21. And the MELODRAMA in that two weeks... I mean, I guess it's high school so melodrama is the whole vibe, but Christ on a cracker this was over the top.

The story finally started to pick up a little when they introduced The History of Philosophy book with the mysterious margin notes that kept appearing, engaging JaMarin in a secret-admirer style correspondence, leading her to decide that she was in love with one, no BOTH, no probably just one of the manipulative asshats she was investigating. Reminder: this happened over less than 2 weeks. I have leftovers in my fridge that are older than that. And then the final section at the school formal absolutely drags on forever.

At the point where MarJam starts slapping the shit out of herself and talking about how she never sleeps and she's hallucinating and becomes paranoid about the other students, I started to think maybe this was a story about a person with bipolar disorder, like possibly Jaime was the manic state and Marin would be the depression part but no such depth here.

Then there's some zombie stuff with souls trapped in a mirror, like WHUT. Then everyone dies. No, really.

Everyone dies.

Technically, two of them still have living bodies and their souls are trapped in a mirror, but... that is the end of a book that I just read.

I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for access to a digital ARC. My honest review is my own opinion.

This book was not what I was expecting. Mysterious and dark, it thrives in the cracks of philosophy and horror. I felt the book sometimes got caught in its own circumlocution. However, it was also atmospheric and interesting enough to make me wonder if that was on purpose. I was sometimes left guessing if I was supposed to be left guessing.

The plot follows Marin James, who leaves to attend a local private academy where her murdered cousin once worked. She intends to befriend the social elite of the school, whom she believes were involved in the murder. None of them is what they seem though.

Was it an entertaining read? Yes. Would I read it again? Probably not, unless I, too, wanted to drive myself mad with nuance.

It was well written and enjoyable. I did have trouble initially getting into this story but with time, I started to enjoy the characters and the plot.

I just felt like this book just wasn’t for me. The cover is absolutely stunning, I enjoyed the world building, and the characters, but I felt like the plot was quite random at times and also dragged on for a bit.

Thank you Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Roaring Brook Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own

3.75 stars
I could have rounded up but not going to lie I lost the first half of this book. Since I know it was an ARC there were typos but even without that this was a rushed story, I liked the idea and even the play on name not being about vampires that everyone thought. I will say it was interesting, but I think in the way I wanted to understand what was going on, there was so much happening that I wanted to understand it gave the vibes of vista Nostra. I did think this book was written by someone's whose first language was not English though as some of it didn't seem to make sense like how some translated stories are.
I was into finishing it and I feel I understood more as it went on, but I will say a lot of it didn't make sense. It didn't seem a well thought out story as it could have been especially being a mystery thriller book it was not tied together well.

This one just didn't do it for me. I did not like the characters, it felt a little all over the place/hard to follow along. Perhaps that is on me, but overall, this was disjointed and uninteresting.

really good mystery. Kept me on my toes and loved all of the characters and what they went through on this journey. Loved that they a happy ending happened.

I was sooo excited for this book since the bio said it was similar to Raven Boys. Loved that series, and reread it as an adult. However, I ended up DNFing at 50% after 2 restarts.

Several aspects are done well, the dynamic of the school/town is one and the purpose of the main character concocting a crazy plan is another. However, there were a lot of issues. The main character is too foolish to like, and can barely stick up for herself despite all of her fire. Baz is usually saving her…which is nice, but is Baz one of the murderers of Marin’s cousin? I get the rich versus poor aspect because of the town, but again this makes our main character look foolish in multiple scenes.

The setting is very dark academia, and many elements are shown (philosophy, literature, darker colors, old buildings, astrology, etc.) throughout the first half. I did feel like I was on the campus, and we even get to see some motivation of the school admins themselves. It’s giving prestigious and pretentious for sure.

On top of that it’s a mystery/thriller/whodoneit. We don’t really get a whole lot of that. We’re feed bits and pieces while Marin/Jamie skips classes (we only see Latin, literature, and philosophy -the set up of her being placed with the suspects in this particular class is a bit offputting- WHERE is math, history, science, or electives….the focus of the classes is unrealistic) starts falling in love with someone she suspects of murder, and then 1/3 of way through we finally start to understand what happened to the mom/why mirrors might be important. It’s just messy. There were too many elements that were just not connecting to one another very well.

I would love to maybe read book 2 or 3 from this author. This book had so much potential, but it wasn’t executed that well. I would not call this like the Raven Boys if the main comparison is rich kids boarding school that is dark academia and mystery themed….so many other books like that.

I was provided a free advanced reader copy courtesy of Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan Children’s Publishing and Jenni Howell via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

#arc #advancedreadercopy #NetGalley #BoysWithSharpTeeth #JenniHowell #MacMillanPress #RoaringBrookPress

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have received an advanced copy of Boys With Sharp Teeth from the author and NetGalley! 🫶

“To all the ones too monstrous to loved, it isn’t true.”

Boys With Sharp Teeth is a masterpiece! 🥹🖤 If you can imagine Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews meets The Raven Boys meets Pretty Little Liars meets Hollow by Taylor Grothe then you get a beautiful literary masterpiece called Boys With Sharp Teeth! 🫶 This story is an intricately designed onion with so much depth and with so many layers that all fit in together like a puzzle! 🥰 I seriously made the mistake of starting the book on a night when I had to wake up super early the next morning because I couldn’t put it down and I finished in one sitting sometime after midnight in shock because it was one of the wildest experiences I have ever been on while reading! 🙊🙀 I still have so many questions and it’s been days since I have finished because I haven’t been able to get this book off my mind! 🥺🖤

Jenni Howell’s writing style gave me goosebumps so many times as I was reading and the number of quotes I wrote down while reading this story was so many that I can’t even keep track! 🫶 The writing style is a combination of eerie, haunting, and poetic and it was beautiful to read! 🥰

To everyone reading my review, pick up this book immediately because my words don’t even begin to capture how incredible this book is! 🫶

DNF for now at 36%

While the world and characters are really intriguing to me, the writing is occasionally a bit blunt and simple, and over a third of the way in I am still really struggling to get a grip on who the characters are. Their personalities and relationships are eluding me, and while I do think that in part fits the vibe of the book it is also making it hard for me to feel invested.

The vibes really are so cool, and I would love to give this story another go at another time when I am in a different place and mindset, but for now I need to put it down and call it. Continuing when I have gotten stuck in a rut wouldn't be fair to the characters or their story, as I'm not ready to listen to what they have to say.

This YA dark academia novel has some bite to it! Not the vampire kind, to be clear, this is not a vampire book. More like a "no one gets a happy ending" kind of bite. I think this is a book teen me would have devoured, and it is one that adult me read in just a few seconds. The cold, isolated atmosphere of the school versus the heated, tense interactions between all the characters created a compelling vibe imo. I must say, to all the reviews calling this overdramatic: Damn, do you not remember being a teen? EVERYTHING is dramatic then! If you're a reader who can let a story take you on a ride when the vibes are right and this review compels you, give BWST a shot!

Ever since I first laid eyes on this book, I was smitten. Just look at that cover! I'm still drooling over it. But with a great cover comes great expectations... and my expectations weren't met.

Boys With Sharp Teeth started off eerie and sharp. Marin—or should I call her Jamie?- had a purpose: to find out who killed her cousin and why. Jamie managed to get into this exclusive school where all three of her suspects were. Perfect. All she had to do was get close to them and gather evidence.

Despite the school being the main setting of the story, it lacked the academic depth typically expected in dark academia. To my disappointment, the only “academia” element was a single philosophy class, which came across as highly pretentious. The school itself was scarcely described, with only brief mentions of the dorm rooms on one floor and the library. Students are just a backdrop to the four main characters, and only one notable teacher and a principal appeared in the narrative.

Aside from the lack of world-building, there was also barely any movement in the plot, which made the book feel more character-driven than plot-driven, despite initially presenting itself as a mystery. And as much as I found Henry somewhat interesting, none of the characters had real depth or distinct personalities. They mostly came across as a group of emo, overly sexualized teenagers.

There were a lot of internal monologues, all pretty much very angsty, sad-girl, and emo. Which, in all fairness, is true to the cover, but that’s it. That’s all there is to it. Just the angst.

The writing is quite poetic, and if you read “for the vibes,” then this book might be for you. Unfortunately, I personally need a bit more than just quotable quotes, so this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Wish I liked it more.

Dark, paranormal, murder mystery vibes. I ate This book up!
The main character has to join Huntsworth academy and blend in to befriend the students in order to find out who killed her cousin.
There’s a paranormal aspect and twist that was pretty interesting that takes it away from a normal murder mystery. It’s dark and twisted and pretty fun to try and see if you can figure out who did what!
I was blown away, heartbroken, aghast, and pointing fingers back and forth!
I was Not expecting the twist and I definitely did not see the ending either!!!

Right away this books starts off strong and fast paced. We follow Marin under a false identity going to an elite academy to figure out what exactly happened to her cousin Sam. She befriends all of his old friends in the hopes of finding out which one murdered Sam. However, along the way she becomes infatuated with them just like Sam was and trying to reveal who the murderer is becomes challenging.
Even though the book started off strong, I felt like about 50% into the book it began to drag. Marin going back and forth between which boy she liked and how she could she use them to unveil Sam's murderer dragged out a little to0 long for my liking. It did pick up again about 70% into the book and then I couldn't put it back down. Every theory that I had of who it was and how it happened was completely wrong. There is something more sinister and otherwordly than I could've imagined at play, and it was well done. And the epilogue was chilling.
The ending did conclude the question of who murdered Sam, but she also set it up for another book, and I cannot wait to see where the story is going.

If you like murder mystery, dark academia, mixed with a little horror, you will love this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Publishing Group for an e-arc of this book. :)

Loved this all the way to the right before the end, then was disappointed by the ending. Reminded me so much of If we were villains. It had the same dark academia vibes and mystery, but with more secrets.


Thank you to NetGalley for this e-arc!

This book was very weird to me. There is tension, but not really any romance. There is a plot, but it seems to be more like a side plot than the actually main plot of the book? I had a ton of questions, and not many answers. I still have questions, but fear I don't have the curiosity to figure them out. This book was drug out, and probably would've been more enjoyable if it has been much shorter. The ending also did not make a lot of sense to me.