What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo (ARC Review)

Title: What Big Teeth
Author: Rose Szabo
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Mystery
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date published: February 2, 2021

A complimentary digital copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.

Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together — in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.

⤖ My Review ⬻

My original plan was to read What Big Teeth around spooky season last year but my life, and therefore my reading schedule, had other plans. As I’m trying to read more spooky books year-round though it worked out that I read in May of this year, haha. I remember when I first came across What Big Teeth, I was super intrigued by the synopsis, and this didn’t change while it sat in my TBR pile, waiting for me to read it.

Now, I can also say that my initial instinct that I should be intrigued was correct. This may have been one of the more—if not the most—unusual YA books I’ve ever read. I’m actually a little unsure about What Big Teeth being categorized under YA, and felt this way throughout the book as I found it to read like an adult book at times—not the subject matter so much as the vibe as well as the author, Rose Szabo’s, storytelling style—and at other times I found that it pushed the boundaries of a number of genres.

Before I continue, please let me clarify that I like how unique What Big Teeth was and that it didn’t quite fit into any specific box. I like that the author didn’t hold back as it made me feel as if the story could go in any direction, which was thrilling and frightening at the same time (which was thrilling in itself, making What Big Teeth double thrilling for me to read! Haha.)

I definitely liked What Big Teeth quite a bit—especially the way the slightly modern, probably Western setting mixed with what felt to me like Eastern European lore and superstition. I look forward to seeing what else Szabo will come out with, including their newer release We All Fall Down which is most definitely on my radar.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Rose Szabo is a nonbinary writer from Richmond, VA, where they live with an assortment of people and animals and teach writing at VCU. They have an MA in English from the University of Maine and an MFA in creative writing from VCU. Their work has been published in See the Elephant and Quaint magazines. What Big Teeth is their first novel.