LoveReading Says
Part wildly wicked murder mystery, part razor-sharp dissection of motherhood, Chandler Baker’s Cutting Teeth is the kind of novel that’ll leave you wondering what the hell just happened! Featuring frazzled moms, vampiric four-year-olds, a hot pastor, and a murdered pre-school teacher, it’s an outrageously unique story that’ll have you flipping the pages at breakneck speed — guaranteed.
Healthy-eating obsessed Rhea is a single mom to four-year-old Bohdi, while Mary Beth, mom to Noelle, takes counsel about having more marital sex from Pastor Ben, a man who’s handsome like a “nineties heartthrob”. Then there’s Darby, a woman whose breasts “used to be quite nice before her kids literally ate them”, and whose four-year-old daughter Lola is a biter.
As more kids at the Little Academy preschool hop aboard the biting bandwagon, their teacher Miss Ollie is murdered on school grounds. Little by little, more facts about the murder are revealed. When the media gets wind of them, questions about juvenile vampirism (AKA Renfield’s syndrome) are raised. Then the Poop Bandit strikes — which kid has taken to depositing do-do around the school?!
On top of the unfolding whodunnit mystery, Cutting Teeth offers incisive commentary on the unfair standards mothers are held to — while men are able to become “the dad that gets their shit together”, in contrast “there’s no redemption for mothers. Mothers better be born perfect. Pure and virgin white.” Add to that the novel’s indecent levels of humour (“Mommy? Should I bite him?” asks little Lola when the police take Darby in for questioning), and Cutting Teeth amounts to a roguishly satisfying read.
Joanne Owen
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Cutting Teeth Synopsis
ISN'T PARENTHOOD ALL ABOUT SACRIFICE?
Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood - their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. Their children, though, disrupt these plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood.
Then a young teacher is found murdered, and the only witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds. But as the police draw closer to the truth, it soon becomes clear that the children aren't just witnesses, they're suspects . . . and so are their mothers.
Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, CUTTING TEETH explores the standards society holds mothers to - along with the ones to which we hold ourselves - and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781787304369 |
| Publication date: |
17th August 2023 |
| Author: |
Chandler Baker |
| Publisher: |
Harvill Secker an imprint of Vintage Publishing |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
310 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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| Other Genres: |
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Chandler Baker Press Reviews
With devourable writing and pitch-perfect humor, Cutting Teeth is a sharp, original, wickedly astute look at the sting of modern motherhood. -- Ashley Audrain, author of THE PUSH
Deliciously dark, Baker's novel exposes all the little horrors of motherhood. Cutting Teeth will make you question what's expected of the perfect mom-and have you wondering just how much you're willing to give. -- Kirsten Miller, author of Good Morning America Book Club pick THE CHANGE
Bestseller Baker takes readers on a stomach-dropping emotional roller coaster in this suspenseful and darkly comic tale of motherhood and murder... Baker's descriptions of the joys and trials of raising children bolster the mystery at the book's core. With winning cynicism, she delivers a wicked thriller that doubles as a glimpse at motherhood's dark underbelly. - Publishers Weekly
Complex and gripping, featuring a brutal murder and an eye-opening look at suburban motherhood and the competition among the moms to be 'the best' ... Dark secrets, retribution, and the lengths a mother will go to to protect her child all feature in this twisted, disturbing story that will keep readers off balance from beginning to end. - Booklist
What could be a more perfect and hilariously dark metaphor for privileged modern motherhood than Baker's invention of pediatric Renfield's syndrome ? Any parent who has imagined that their young children are draining the life out of them will both get the joke and feel the (piercing) pain....In keeping with the ruthless satirical tone, though, what they want to protect their kids from most isn't bodily harm-it's a bad reputation. Red herrings abound and clues are dispensed tantalizingly. The building social tension is so good that the murder mystery can feel almost unnecessary. Will it come back to bite readers in the end? In the meantime, Baker limns the fascinating ways parents in a community can be simultaneously at odds with and bonded to each other and how the pressure of parenthood makes crisis hard to define. Gruesome, funny, jam-packed, sharp as baby teeth. - Kirkus
