With Teeth, you have two choices: you can either read it, or someone can hit you over the head with it. The end result will be the same: you will end up bewildered and wincing in pain. It's kind of in it's own special category. There are no books I can really compare to this. It doesn't follow the rules and really, there shouldn't be rules when it comes to fiction! I love this woman for writing this crazy, magical, yummy treat of a book. Thank goodness for your enviable imagination. But the themes in Teeth are significantly darker than they were in Gone, Gone, Gone, making me hesitant to recommend it to those unable to cope with issues of serious and repetitive sexual abuse. Teeth is dark. Teeth is very, very gothic and depressing and sad. Sometimes I wondered if it was too sad, too dark, too emotive. There’s very little cheer and fun to be had in it. But it turns out it’s just the right amount of dark, sad and emotive for me because I still loved it. I don't even know what to rate this. I hate it and love it at the same time. It's unconventional. Unique. Special. Funny. Annoying. Sweet. Poignant. Silly. Horrifying. Touching. So February, huh? The month of February is about ghost stories for me, I don't know why. And oh boy, do the ghosts got stories to tell. I don't know, don't know, so don't ask me why. That's how we are, La Seine and I. 2013. Gone. Sorry, couldn't resist. Even if that song is not over.

I find it interesting that Moskowitz always manages to work in a mention of the book or author that influenced her. In Invincible Summer, all the characters are quoting Camus and the book itself is influenced by Camus’ existential prose. In Teeth, which is so obviously kafkaesque, Rudy and his friend Diana read and discuss The Metamorphosis. With this, she robs her readers of the chance to recognize these connections and influences for themselves. Similar to A.S. King, Moskowitz is an author to watch for YA "eccentric" novels filled with substance. Taking on heavy topics such as sexual abuse, TEETH is a semi-quiet read that leaves an intense impact. As dark as this book was, and it definitely was, the way that both 'Fishboy' and Rudy became almost everything to one another kept it from going to a bad place for me.February is for Ghosts. I have said goodbyes way too many times for it to be anything other than the inside of my skull. I have said plenty, I'll say even more so. The birth of the night happened in this month and it will end here too. Oh, I know. I had loved you and you still love me. Don't speak. I'll say hello and you'd say stay. How are those stars any different from the ones I showed you. But thank you for showing me all the stars on your body. I have said it before and I'll say it again. This is not a goodbye, but a thank you. February. You were good. What happened to your kingdom? Teeth takes readers on a disturbing journey into the role teeth play in our health and our social mobility. Otto “doesn’t just dwell on the numbers,” according to NPR, “she makes what could have been a turgid health policy tome spark with outrage over the stories of people who have suffered.” Her subjects include the pioneering dentist who made Shirley Temple and Judy Garland’s teeth sparkle on the silver screen; an up-and-coming beauty queen awarded thousands of dollars of free cosmetic dental care; and Deamonte Driver, a young Baltimore boy whose death from an abscessed tooth sparked congressional hearings. With such a strong family bond and attachment to Rudy, his parents, and his younger brother, we now have the dilemma that Teeth brings with him. At first, Teeth is a rather strange character, one that, as the reader, it is impossible to know what to think of. With the progression of the novel, however, Teeth becomes every bit as real to us as Rudy and his bond of friendship - or something a little more - with Rudy is just as compelling as Rudy's bond with his younger brother. With each chapter that we read, layers of Teeth's past and his difficult life are slowly revealed to us, beginning the progression of heart-break throughout the novel. Teeth is such a deep, devastating, and depressed being that it is impossible not to love him, to want to help him and be there for him always. Even better, it is him who is willing to sacrifice his family of magical fish if push comes to shove. For Teeth, who has no family and whose existence itself is a mystery, it is the magical fish of the island that he is related to who make up his life. I guess this is one of those it's-not-you-it's-me incidents. Maybe Teeth is the kind of book that gets better upon a re-read.

An ARC was provided to me by the publisher. No gifts, favours or money was exchanged for this review. Rudy’s family just moved to a remote island, hoping the magic fish Enki would cure his little brother of cystic fibrosis. As much as he loves his brother Dylan, Rudy is desperately lonely and bored out of his mind – until he meets Teeth, half-human-half-fish boy with whom he starts a tentative friendship. You know what? It's so funny. Donald Trump is the reason how I got this book, sort of. See, there is this political writer Jim Wright, he is utterly brilliant, kinda like a much more reasonable Sam Harris though their respective areas of expertise are quite different. Anyway, Moskowitz had written to an elector in Texas politely asking him to reconsider his position on Trump before the formal vote, just that and Wright pointed out it was civic and legal, but she got a rather rude reply, plus emotional name calling, nice adulting there. Mary Otto brings history, policy and painful personal realities together in this compelling and engaging book about our nation’s highly preventable epidemic of oral disease. Teeth should be read by every policy maker and health professional who believes we can and must act to reduce the current barriers to dental care.” —Louis W. Sullivan, MD, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 1989–1993, and chairman of the Sullivan Alliance to Transform the Health Professions And the worst part of it all is the fact that I like it. A lot. I hate myself. I keep doing this to myself, I hate myself. No, please, let me hate myself.Coming to characters, Rudy and Teeth were brilliant but I wish some of the secondary characters had a bigger role to play – especially Fiona and Ms. Delaney. Judging from the way things were in the first half, I thought these characters were all leading somewhere but they’re mainly absent in the second half.