What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**2.5-stars rounded up**
Here’s the thing, normally when I finish a book, I like to let it stew for a while before I write my review.
Generally, I will rate a book, write a couple of quick thoughts and return at a later time to compose a full review; giving myself permission to alter that initial rating.
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I will raise or lower the rating depending on how the story has impacted me more long-term.
Unfortunately, What Big Teeth is the type of story that I feel like if I wait any length of time at all, I will remember nothing about this.
Here I am minutes post-turning that final page and I already feel the details of this book flying out of my brain like dust in the wind.
This story follows Eleanor Zarrin, who was sent away from her family home many years ago. She was shipped off to a private school and never even returned to visit.
Now as a teenager, after being the perpetrator of a violent act at her school, Eleanor is forced to flee and return to the unopen arms of her estranged family. The Zarrin Estate is set on the coast of Maine in a little town called Winterport.
Over the course of the story, Eleanor becomes reintroduced to the monstrous relatives she had left behind. She begins to come into her own in this strange place; learning more about herself and her family history than she ever knew before.
And that’s really all I’ve got by way of a summary for this book. I didn’t recognize much of a compelling plot for me to sink my teeth into other than learning about the family.
It was just sort of an odd family drama following a Lovecraftian-Addams family. While I understand that the author probably had more in mind when writing this, whatever it was went 100% over my head.
The reason I am rounding this up to three stars, silver linings, is because of the quality of Szabo’s writing. It really was beautiful. It felt so fluid and I really enjoyed the tone. The point though, yeah, that was completely lost on me.
For this one, these are my full and final thoughts. I am obsessed with this cover. I will keep this on my shelves and I will definitely pick-up Szabo’s future works!