Baby Teeth written by Zoie Stage
This is a very gripping psychological thriller. Suzette And Alex have a wonderful life and marriage . They have a beautiful little girl who is not what she seems. She has never talked and no one can figure out why.Her Daddy things she is 100 percent angel and could never do anything wrong. However her Mom is now a stay at home Mom and can sense that things are not right, Her daughter is full of evil and manipulation. She is also a brilliant child with no compassion or empathy.Is she mentally ill or can this child be pure evil!
Suzette know her own mother was mentally ill and emotionally distant Could it be her or could it really be her daughter is evil?
Zoie's main goal is to get rid of her mother at any cost and she doesn't care how she has to do it. Of course Alex and others do not believe Suzette. As Zoie starts pre k she begins to exhibit more psycotic behavior and more things begin to evolve.
Although this is a little far fetched (not wanting to think little kids can be evil ) and at the same time very belieable, especially if you have ever lived with someone with mental illness
An excellently written book with well deveoped characters that you will not want to put down.

A seemingly perfect family is the center of this thriller of a debut from former filmmaker Zoje Stage.
Baby Teeth takes the love-hate relationship between a mother and her daughter to a new level and will make you question just how far can a mother stretch her love for a child who keeps pushing her.

Told from the point of view of emotionally-exhausted Suzette and precocious but silent Hanna in interchanging chapters, mother and daughter play protagonist of their own stories, and each other’s antagonist.

Stay-at-home mom Suzette loves her daughter, but Hanna is making it hard for her. Gone is the dark-haired angel she brought to life replaced by an intelligent but devious, cunning and manipulative child with the full intent to harm her. With a husband who is too blind to see that there is something wrong with their child, Suzette is backed into a corner helpless as she fears for her life and watches as her idealized, perfect family falls apart.

Hanna loves her father and she wants him all to herself. With the help of a late 17th century witch as her imaginary friend, she finds her voice and plot ways to get rid of her mother, the only person who stands in the way between her and daddy.

I have to be upfront, Baby Teeth was a tough book to read. There were parts I loved and parts I didn't. I will try to detail both polar ends as much as possible in this review without spoiling the story starting with the things I liked about this book.

Baby Teeth is a well-written book. Zoje Stage is sure to hook readers, reel them into her story with her snappy, straightforward writing. It's jarring, but she does not sugarcoat things, neither does she go into unnecessary detail - what you see is what you get no matter if you like it or not.

Another thing that I really love about Baby Teeth are the characters. Stage's characterization of both Suzette and Hanna is so strong you could just imagine them pop out of the pages. These two characters are the heart and soul of this book, driving the plot and moving the story with every step, every decision they make, which is a testament to just how perfect Stage played Suzette and Hanna against each other.

Now, for the parts that could have been done better.

From start to finish, I had one major problem while reading Baby Teeth - I couldn't suspend my disbelief - and the reason for this, Hanna. Though she speaks like a 7-year old, the way she thinks is more apt for a 12-year old, which is why I just can't picture her as she is described in the book. The whole time I was reading the book I find myself asking myself this question: "Can a 7-year old really make very detailed plans?" And the answer I keep on getting from both a personal and professional viewpoint: "No". It just stopped me from fully enjoying the story, which takes a big chunk of how I rate books.

Still, Baby Teeth is a worthy read. It's a strong, controversial debut, and I'm sure other people will love it. I guess, it just wasn't for me.

This was one of the most disturbing and messed up books I've read in a LONG time. Enjoyable writing style, I'd pick up something else by this author.

As a mother, this book really bothered me. I think all parents deal with issues, many of them they can't readily share with others for fear of being judged. If society was more open and understanding about mental health, perhaps parents wouldn't have to navigate through a mine field of shame and guilt. Hanna is clearly troubled. I would have liked the story to really hone in and when and why her anger at her mother manifested and when she transferred all of her love to her father.

Suzette made me so frustrated. She kept anguishing over the events caused by Hanna and the injuries Hanna gave her but never once did she consider installing a few video cameras, a Net Nanny, to catch Hanna in the act. Maybe this could have been solved much sooner, maybe Alex wouldn't have kept thinking Hanna was a sweet adorable child, would have seen she was a nasty little monster.

And Alex...I wanted to throttle him. Such an oblivious idiot. I kept fearing he might actually be in cahoots with Hanna. Now THAT would have been a disturbing twist!

The ending was doubly disturbing. I fear for this family when Hanna comes home.

Wow. The book is an emotional roller coaster throughout and then it ends so vaguely? It's begging for a sequel. This book will make you mad, sad, and so glad your child is sane. It's also skin-crawling creepy at times and made me want to stop reading. I'm giving it 3.5 stars because I thought the characters were I unrelatable. The family dynamic was too weird for me. I also didn't like the ending even a little, but all in all, not a bad book. I think some people will love it. I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it!

The book was different from just about any book I have ever read, which is difficult to do- great read!

I had mixed feelings about this book. I really wanted to like it, but I really disliked all the characters. THe mom is martyr who thinks that she has is much harder than everyone. I found her especially annoying because I also have Crohn’s Disease, a very severe case, so her minor complaints made me folly my eyes. I hate the way the au5or and mom chose to portray Crohn’s Disease. Suzette only focuses on the poop coming out of her fistula and how the worst thing in the world would be to get an ostomy. 75% of people with Crohn’s will have surgery in their lives. It happens... it helps and the life goes on. Only Suzette never get over it and continues to whine about it for the entire book. She also spews out facts about Crohn’s and medications that are not always accurate. The Dad had no backbone and was in constant denial of his daughters behaviors. Not because he had never heard or seen them, but because he chose to turn a blind eye and deny any allegations against his daughter. The daughter, Hanna, was mentally disturbed and lashing out at everyone around her except her father. I think her behaviors were partially genetics and partial nurture. She was allowed to get alway with extreme behaviors and then coddled afterwards. I also found how the schools kept kickin* her out with no solution a bit unbelievable. Alternative schools like the behavioral school are setup to handle extreme cases like Hanna. I know this because I worked in one of those schools. I also didn’t understand why her parents were so set on her attending a private school after so many failed attempts. There were points in the book I wanted to give up on reading because I hated and didn’t care about the characters. However, parts of th book were engaging and I wanted to see if the parent saw every didnwhat was right for Hanna. I have to give the author credit for writing a book about a different topic. I had very mixed feelings about this book overall.

I received a free ARC from Net Galleyin exchange for an honest review.

Baby Teeth was a frightening look into a family with an absurdly evil child, that only shows that side to the mother. Of course that leads to all types of issues within the marital union. In all honesty, this book read like a car crash you couldn’t look away from. I had to keep reading but I was holding my breath and felt sick inside. I had to see how this wound up! Not sure I would classify this as a thriller but more as a scary, suspenseful book.

If the author intended for me hate most of the characters than she did her job well! I literally wanted to smack the heck out of the mother who was weak and needy and the father who was completely selfish. As a couple, they were amazing together sexually, but emotionally they never honestly shared their inner fears about their situation.

I will not speak of the young girl in fear of spoilers, however I will say she spoke at a much higher level than her age. The ending took me for a loop as it finished with a cliffhanger. I wanted a conclusion! Many of you love cliffhangers, me: I’ll leave them at the door. This book has also gotten good reviews from other sources, maybe I’m in the minority on this one.

2.5 stars. This is a tough review to write. The plot is pretty simple. There isn’t any huge twist or revelation. And to be very honest I did not like the story line. The whole idea that a child can behave like this is somehow difficult to digest. So much malice, despite what the reason are, somehow is hard to imagine. You just want it to not be true. To imagine a young child behave like this in real life makes me shudder. It sends a a chill down my spine and this is actually what I like about this book. I don’t like the story, I don’t like the characters much but I like how much it makes you ’feel’. It’s a deeply disturbing book and the author has done a great job in writing it.
Thanks NetGalley and St Martin’s press for giving me an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Wow! This book was truly creepy! I enjoyed it immensely! I love psychological thrillers but the ones with children are particularly disturbing. I loved the author's style of writing, the back and forth was an interesting way to tell Hanna and Suzette's story. The challenges that a non-verbal child presents were described very well in this book. I would read more from this author. The ending definitely poses the question...will there be a sequel??

It’s about a family A mother, a father and a little girl. What a book! If you want highly suspenseful, can’t put the book down story this book is for you. Hannah is 7 years old and loves her daddy, but must spend her days with her mommy. Hannah is having behavioral problems and is being homeschooled by her mommy. But things aren’t as you make might expect. Read more of this suspenseful story.

This is a horror story and I don't like horror stories. It was well put together by the author, switching voices did make it more interesting. I had trouble with it because of all the news stories of children going bad, but that does not make it a bad book.

This book was a very atypical read for me, Not my typical type of story but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone. I'll admit I had to step away from it for a bit because the story just struck a cord with me and I was struggling with it. The mother daughter dynamic in this book was so intense and hard to wrap my head around. After coming back to it and having finished I was left with a "That's It" sort of feeling. I felt like the author ran out of gas at the end or has more in store possibly later.
It is an intense book so if intense mother daughter stories have you intrigued this is the book for you.

So, it’s possible that I’m just too much of a Southerner for this book, but Baby Teeth absolutely did not work for me. (Well, that's not 100% true: I think the book's title and cover art are phenomenal. It was just so melodramatic and implausible that I found myself doing the deepest of eye rolls on more than one occasion, and turning the page became a harder and harder task the further I got along in these pages.

The premise of this novel is very simple: A seven-year-old terrorizes her mother but puts on an innocent face for Daddy, driving a wedge between the couple and driving the mom to desperation. Think The Orphan (2009) meets We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). With that out of the way, we can move on to the merits and non-redeeming qualities of this book, shall we?

One of my pet peeves in fiction is when entire plot lines hinge on implausible circumstances. I heaved this book into that metaphorical pile pretty early on and it will remain there forever. Baby Teeth was kin to those horror movies where the pretty blonde girl is running through the night in her heels and instead of running outside of the house for safety, she runs upstairs to the collective annoyance of the audience. Like, the plot didn’t make ANY sense! Why, you may ask? Because the entire narrative would have been different if one of two SIMPLE things had happened: (view spoiler). That’s why I say I must be too much of a Southerner for this book, because I don’t know anyone, of any color or creed, who would let their kid get away with the things little Hanna got away with – and then crawl and grovel on their knees for this child’s forgiveness after THEY, the PARENT, have been assaulted . Seriously, implausible.

Aside from the sheer improbability of this story line, it also wasn’t very well-written either. And, there are very few things more unforgivable than that to an avid reader. I mean, yes, there were words strung together in a way that made sense in the English language, but I didn’t feel that there was any remarkable skill on display whatsoever. I didn't feel like I'd stumbled across anything that I would take with me for more than 4 minutes after I turned the final page of that book. It read as a first-time novel for sure, clunky and clumsily done.

I’ve seen Baby Teeth listed as a thriller; it wasn’t that at all, but it COULD have been. It probably would have been a much more enjoyable read—cringe-worthy moments in the plot and all—if it had been written from Suzette’s POV only. Then we could have seen her mounting terror and desperation and feel it in a more pure form—the way that she did. But Stage decided to try her hand at writing in a child’s voice via Hanna's chapters and it Did. Not. Work. Honestly, a terrible idea given the level of skill she displayed in this novel. Not only did it take away from the suspense to know exactly what Hanna was going to do next from her POV, but the clunky and inauthentic way in which Stage wrote Hanna made reading her chapters a real chore. Of course, I understand that Stage was attempting to speak simplistically, as a child might, but it didn’t sound anything like a seven-year-old’s way of speech and mannerisms in this slightest. Her editor would have done better to tell her to hold off on that.

I nearly didn’t finish this book. I found it to be THAT ridiculous. But, as we readers often do, I just HAD to trudge on to see if my mind would be magically changed in the end. It wasn’t, though the end result of the book was one of the better parts of the plot, so at least there’s that, right? 2 stars **

Baby Teeth is a creepy debut novel by Zoje Stage that will make readers question their decision to procreate and will certainly take the name Hanna off of the potential baby names list. Kidding aside - this is a bone-chilling novel about a seven-year-old girl who loves her father but not her mother. It's a psychological thriller about a mother who loves her daughter but questions if there is something seriously wrong with her. This is a polarizing book. Some readers will love the outlandish plot, and others will have a difficult time with the unreliable narration.

I did not like this book at all. As some reviewers have said, it is either for you or it is not. It was not for me.

My thoughts are still racing, this book kept me on edge it was definitely a psychological thriller, and though it is not for everyone it is one I could not put down . Hanna is a wild child with scary defiant calculated behaviors who has her Daddy, Alex wrapped around her little finger and doesn't make nice with her Mommy, Suzette. She wants her gone away for good. Suzette suffers from Crohn's disease and is often too overwhelmed to take care of Hanna the way she thinks she should. Although she tries to tell her husband Alex what occurs, he isn't home when Hanna targets her mom . He doesn't believe there is anything wrong beyond Hanna's selective mutism even though she has been kicked out of several schools for hurting other children. There are several escalating events that brings the dysfunction to a crisis point and several diagnoses and treatment venues are presented. Will there be something to help Hanna, and bring hope to the crumbling relationship between Alex and Suzette? This book is brilliantly written and the ending is one I don't want to say anymore about except it leaves the reader wondering .... for those who love psychological thrillers, this is one to read.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review. Suzanne is Hanna’s mother but they never really bonded. Hanna is now 7 years old and she can’t or won’t speak. As Hanna’s behaviour towards her mother becomes more manipulative and disturbing but she saves her best behaviour for her father who does not believe his little angel could do wrong. Baby Teeth is told in alternating points of view between Suzette and Hanna and you will not be able to put this one down. So dark, creepy, and makes you think real hard about your child’s motives. Such an amazing psychological suspense that I bailed on life just to keep reading. Really disturbing in only the best ways. As a bonus for me, Suzette has Crohn’s Disease like I do. I thought this addition and the description of her fears and pains and worries were so spot on for me. I have always felt alone and a little crazy freaking out over every stomach pain but you never know when another flare will take hold, and this was described perfectly. I liked how it added to Suzette’s state of mind and some of her insecurities around her relationship but was not the focus of the story. It made me feel like my concerns are normal for someone with a chronic disease and made me feel less alone. Also, my son did not speak a word until he was 3. Luckily, that is where his similarity to Hanna stops, but Suzette’s fears over it being her fault or her parenting was the cause, searching for a diagnosis, all felt very deja vu for me too. Publishing July 17, 2018.

T his book was an incredible read. The story of a couple and their daughter Hanna.
We are introduced to Hanna at age 7. She doesn't speak and her mother is always taking her to doctors for tests to see why she doesn't speak.

Hanna and her mom are constantly engaged in a battle of wills and her dad who works outside the home never sees this side of his daughter.

Hana resents her mother and plots to harm her and kill her thereby leaving her with total access to the good loving parent: her dad.

Hanna plots constantly to be kicked out of the schools she's placed in by being abusive to other children and at one point taking red paint and mixing it with water to appear as fruit punch and giving it to another child to drink.

She also hits a toddler in the supermarket after the child hits her.

She hides her mother's jewelry ass well as a babysitter's jewelry and cuts her mother's her while she's sleeping.

Her violence towards her mother escalates to a point where her father is home and observes when she tries to kill her mother by burning her with embers from a fire pit.

The psychiatrist tells them that as long as Hanna lives in the house with them her mother's life is in danger.
She advises them of a facility where other children like Hanna live and are treated until they are no longer a danger.

Hanna is taken to the facility and after a period of time she is allowed to phone her parents. She talks to both of her parents, astounding both of them and tells them she's very sorry and promises to be good if they will relent and take her home.
Her father seems to be on board with idea at first until his wife make him realize that its just another scheme of Hanna's and she's not

At the end of the book we see that Hanna is indeed plotting: she has figured out that if she exhibits good behavior at the facility they will think she's cured and release her to go home.

This was an amazing story: of an intelligent evil child who is manipulative and very cunning: evil incarnate

This book really creeped me out! How heartbreaking to have a child who is mentally unstable. The child’s father loves her so much and is in denial to the extent of his child’s illness. Born to a woman who grew up iwith a disfunctuonal mother. For me it was a very hard book to read but I would recommend it to others. Be ready to be freaked out..

Baby Teeth is a psychological thriller that is so hard to put down. I read every page waiting to see what was going to happen next and to see what the twist would be. Loved this book and read it in 1 day. Wish the ending would have wrapped up a little more clearly...makes me think there might be a sequel?? Highly recommend.

(reviewed on goodreads)