#CBR10 Review #45: Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz
I actually just heard about this novel from a recent list on Pajiba
titled: “6
Romance and YA Novels We’d Like to See Netflix Adapt Following ‘To All the Boys
I’ve Loved Before’”, and upon seeing it described as being about a “magical
gay fish boy”, I immediately started text-hollering to my best friend about
what a big time it is for fish-people/cryptid… lovers (which is one of our running
jokes right now, I KNOW it’s not as funny to anyone that isn’t the two of us). But
anyways, I just had to know more. And what I got was a strange mix of magic and
escapism, but a lot of realism and emotion too. It didn’t entirely work for me,
but it also wasn’t awful either so I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it at
the end of the day. Let us dive in:
Teeth is told
from the point of view of a teenager named Rudy, whose family has recently
moved to a small, remote island where people go when they are ill to feed on a
specific species of fish which only live there: these fish are said to have
magical properties and work to relieve the symptoms and progression of many
illnesses, including the cystic fibrosis which Rudy’s young brother has. Rudy
is out of sorts here, and is facing a crisis of his place in his family, group
of friends, and the world in general, when he happens to meet a mysterious fish
boy about his age, who many on the island refer to as a “ghost” or see as some
kind of spirit. Over time, Rudy and the fish boy (who goes by the name Teeth)
bond and Rudy learns more about where Teeth came from, as well as the realities
of the fishing trade and fishermen around the island. Their relationship is a
strange one, punctuated by a lot of misunderstandings and anger, but there is also
a lot of connection and love there too.
But while this
book brings a certain magical edge, there is quite a darkness to it, even aside
from the original setup of illnesses bringing people to this island as a saving
grace: there is an inherent loneliness throughout the novel, as well as other deep
feelings of regret, conflicted morality, and searching for an identity. Another
major facet of the novel is the subject of sexual assault and the lives thereafter
of victims and survivors of it, which for the most part I felt was effectively
dealt with, though it maybe could have been more directly spoken on at times:
actually, a few topics could maybe have been expanded on, as some of the
interactions and dialogue felt a bit clipped at times, though this is in part
due to Teeth’s somewhat lacking vocabulary (I never knew how annoying the word “whatever”
could get after being used repeatedly), as well as a reluctance of the
characters to want to talk on some subjects, which is completely
understandable. Unfortunately, though, this distance in the dialogue and
internal narrative made me feel like I wasn’t really being let in fully, and
this was a barrier that I just couldn’t break into in order to get the full
effect of these potentially really powerful emotions that others might find.
So at the end of
it all, I found Teeth to have a lot
of potential and honestly a very interesting protagonist in Rudy, as he
struggles with personal faults and coming to terms with the realities of his
life. But ultimately, I felt like I was being kept at arms length in a way, and
wanted a bit more from this novel in a way that I don’t if I can really
explain. Definitely a darker YA novel than some others I’ve read recently, and
with an interesting premise that I think might intrigue those looking for
something a little different (shoutout to The
Shape of Water, by the way, which obviously I couldn’t help but think of in
relation to this book).
CBR10 Bingo Square: Listicles
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