Okay, here we go. Let me be upfront: I LOVED this book. I was so excited when I was approved to read it on NetGalley, you have no idea. I can’t be objective. This is just going to be several paragraphs of gushing about how much I enjoyed The Spirit Bares Its Teeth.

Now, first of all, this is a YA book, and I’m not part of the target demographic. At the time of writing this, I’m twenty-four. So, usually, I’d go into a YA book on the understanding that I might not get into it the way I would have done when I was younger. That wasn’t the case here. I was obsessed from page one.

So, let’s talk about Silas. Silas is a fantastic protagonist and narrator, like none I’ve ever seen before. I have autism spectrum disorder, and I’m often wary of books with autistic characters — how will they be portrayed? Will they be a fully developed autistic character or a vague, flat portrayal of autism? Didn’t need to worry about that with Silas. He felt so real. I understood him so deeply that it made me want to cry.

Every autistic person is different. It is, after all, a spectrum. But in Silas I saw, for the first time since I was diagnosed, someone who was autistic in the same way I am. More accurately, he’s autistic in the way I would be if I hadn’t had books and TV to learn social expectations and etiquette from (I use the word ‘learn’ loosely). But still, I had that wonderful moment of ‘he’s like me! He’s like me!!!’

This story is dark. Very much so. It’s EXACTLY the kind of thing I wanted from YA horror when I was a teenager. Andrew Joseph White is not afraid to get gruesome when it comes to details. I read his debut novel, Hell Followed With Us, a few months ago, so I thought I knew what I was in for with TSBIT. I did NOT. And I mean that in the best way. It’s graphic, it’s grim, and I LOVED it. There’s this bit in Chapter Fifteen… well, I won’t say it, but if you’ve read it then you know what I’m talking about. Yeah. That. Wow. And then there’s Chapter Twenty-One, in which… well. You know. One of the most memorable and shocking scenes I’ve read in a while, that’s all I’ll say.

And the ending!!! The ending!!!!! Physically, I was sitting still and staring at the last page. Mentally? Oh, I was rubbing my hands together in glee.

I read TSBIT in under a day. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a book so quickly. I’m sad to have finished it. I’ll have to buy a copy when it comes out so that I can go through it with a fine-tooth comb. I’m going to underline all my favourite parts and write a plethora of notes in the margins.