Thank you to NetGalley and Daphne Press for this eARC!
Wow! I enjoyed this even more than Hell Followed With Us (this author’s debut novel) I feel like this improves on every issue I had with it.
I loved the writing style- it was so poetic but still sharp, to the point and not overly fluffy like some writing can be. Like hfwu, it was simultaneously disgusting and horrifying but beautiful. I also really liked all of the medical metaphors relating to Silas’ ambitions as a surgeon.
I also really liked the characters- all felt distinct from one another and more developed than in hfwu- though some more backstory perhaps could have been nice.The main character Silas in particular was a really great point of view. His internal struggles were really well written. I ended up really invested in him and Daphne- I just want them to be happy!!
The plot was fairly simple I suppose but that worked in its favour, and made it all the more effective! It was horrific at points, affecting and ended up satisfying. The pacing was also pretty much perfect (which is the only thing I didn’t like about hfwu) and I was so hooked that I finished this in two days flat!
I feel like I did want a bit more worldbuilding in terms of the medium abilities- how they with and how they’ve affected the history of this world, but that’s really just personal preference and didn’t affect my overall reading experience so much.
I’d really recommend this to anyone looking for a supernatural/horror novel with a twist. The only thing it suffers from is its very small page count, which meant some worldbuilding and character develop aspects were missing.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ the spirit bares its teeth - andrew joseph white ⊹ ࣪ ˖

★★★★☆

[thank you NetGalley & Daphne Press for this e-ARC copy of the book in exchange for an honest review; the book is out in the UK on 6th of August ‘24]

WOW! where do i start?

the author’s style of writing is so enthralling and despite just how gory the book was at times, i still couldn’t stop reading to find out what happens next! as a cis neurodivergent woman, it’s interesting to me how much i related to Silas; the portrayal of his struggles was just wow, eye opening! i think that the all of the themes - while at times extremely graphic, were handled with a lot of care and well-intended so it made this read very interesting & relatable/emotional!

die hard stan of Elias and Daphne 💘

honestly the best way i can describe this book, is AHS coven (season 3) & asylum (season 2) slightly crossed over with bridgerton; but the protagonist is an autistic trans teenager who wants to be a surgeon - does that even make sense? i think it does - if you read this book, you’ll get it!

i think the only drawback which is why i haven’t rated this a 5*, is that at times it felt like there were too many characters without much character building (more specifically the other girls), i found it slightly confusing keeping up who was who up until about 80% in; likewise i felt the same about the different “main themes” of the book at the beginning - i.e., i couldn’t really understand the purpose of the veil, how it works, whether there was magic involved or was it all paranormal? i feel like these were kind of resolved towards the end but i did feel quite confused for at least the first half of the book!

please make sure you read the TWs prior to reading 🥰

4.5 stars

This was intense and so graphic and anyone thinking of picking this up should 100% read the triggers. In all honestly I found this really hard to read with certain scenes almost being a bit too much for me.

The Spirit Bares its Teeth is probably best described as a historical paranormal gothic horror. This story follows a trans protagonist trying to escape a patriarchal society and the expectations forced upon them.

This story touches on so much in such few pages, I honestly do not know how the author does it. Although fiction with a paranormal theme throughout, this story touches on medical horror, capitalism, patriarchy, ableism, the concept of "female hysteria" and how people are capable of the worst atrocities to prove they are right. Although this is fiction, the story touches on many truths and I would highly recommend reading the author's notes.

I am looking forward to reading more from Andrew Joseph White.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

My initial review of this book: fucking flawless.

And honestly? I stand by that assessment

This book contained all the rage and fight I love to see in queer books. Stories featuring social injustice with all the fight just make me want to punch my fists in the air. AJ White capture that feeling of queer rage every single time.
Plus, I love this type of horror. A blend of psychological, paranormal, body and real-world horror. And wrapped up in such a genuinely fantastic story.
From the mystery, to the horror, to the romance, to the character relationships and fight for existence - this book has something for everyone and is by far my favourite work of AJW.

But the part of this book that spoke to me most, the autistic representation. Silas’s experiences as an autistic person navigating such a ruthless reality, alongside his queerness, in an environment where he is rarely understood not only added to the horror, but was done so perfectly, it is some of the best rep I’ve seen.

I was able to so profoundly recognise my own reactions and thought processes in Silas’ behaviour. And even in the context of a historical-horror-paranormal-fantasy book, to feel so seen in a book is something extremely special.

This book reads like poetry but hits like a kick to the gut.

I loved all the characters in this book. And this is immediately one of my favourite horror books I’ve ever read.

Thank you for the e-ARC

A chilling gothic horror that despite being set in Victorian England, has so many similarities for many living in 2024 today. Wow!

This is my second novel from this author and I am so impressed!

This novel is set in Victorian England and looks at the brutal treatment of women and trans people. This is set in an alternative world where women with Violet eyes are coveted for their ability to open the void, a magical power. However this means they are valuable to men who would use their powers and for breeding powerful heirs. Beyond that these women also face danger from doctors who wish to understand the physical link between these powers and anatomy, often in the cruellest and most brutal ways. The powerlessness of females in this society is horrific.

Our main character Silas is male but his family and society are trying to force him to be female and marry him off to breed more Violet eyed children. Silas is sent to a terrifying school that says it can cure his ‘sickness’. However ghosts are haunting the school, girls are going missing and unnerving things are happening.

This book is truly horrific and rage inducing. I was so angry at the brutal treatment of Silas and the girls in the school. The way they’re treated like property rather than people. The callousness and cruelty of the people in charge and the horror of the actions of the people pursuing ‘science’ no matter the suffering inflicted. It is harrowing, even more so when you read the author’s notes and discover the actual historical research this is based on (not the magic which is fictional, but the actions of humans at the time).

While this book is incredibly dark and challenging, there is one absolutely beautiful undercurrent of hope throughout. That is the love story between Silas and Daphne. This was such a lovely storyline that kept Silas going through the darkest times, knowing they had someone who truly saw them and was a wonderful source of support. I loved this and it stopped the book from tilting too far into darkness. This book is harrowing and really disturbing, and these wonderfully moments between Silas and Daphne helped provide a light in the darkness.

This author is incredible and I now have a third book of theirs to read and I’m certain I’ll be reading anything else they write in the future.

4.5 stars

A chilling gothic horror that deals with some horrific themes but executes it all in a satisfying way. The main character Silas was incredible and practically leaped off the page. A very dark and twisty read and overall really enjoyable.
Definitely check the content warnings before reading.

Thanks to Netgalley and Daphne Press for providing an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

I read both of Andrew Joseph White's published books in anticipation of the release of Compound Fracture and I'm now a big far. The Spirit Bares its Teeth features a truly incredible main character, wonderful side characters, truly despicable villains, and a romance that is suprisingly lovely given all the awful things happening around our main characters. I think the one place where it could have been a little stronger was the worldbuilding (I would have LOVED to know more about this alternate Victorian England) and the ending. I found it a little less satisfying than the end of Hell Followed with Us, however this book stands on its own as a fabulous YA horror book.

Major content warnings for this one, please do take care and check them out!

This one is brilliant, as expected from Andrew Joseph White. Every single one of this man's books has a special place in my heart, always. The writing is amazing, the plot is amazing, and the way he executes it is beyond amazing. I'm unable to properly describe in words what his stories make me feel like.

Thank you to Daphne Press and Netgalley for getting me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Spirit Bares its Teeth is a gothic horror novel set in Victorian England. In this story we follow Silas Bell, who is a sixteen-year-old transboy who is trying his best in a world where he’s not fit in society. That world insists on seeing Silas as a girl who’s fit to be an obedient wife nonetheless. Silas is diagnosed with “Veil sickness”, which is a mysterious disease that drives violet-eyed women into madness. Because of this, he’s shipped away to a sanatorium/finish school in order to become the wife that the society wants him to be. However, what happens to the girls that keep being themselves? And why is Silas suddenly seeing their ghosts?

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. The writing was so horrific, but in the absolute best way. The story itself was very gory and disturbing, but also a little sad. The entire cast of characters was well flushed out. I especially really liked the dynamic between Daphne and Silas and that had me rooting for them throughout the entire storyline.

I can definitely recommend this book if you like gothic horror or fantasy like me. I can’t wait to read the author’s next book!

White has an unbelieveably dark and twisted imagination and I mean that as the highest compliment. The Sprit Bares its Teeth is not for the faint of heart and the author lists the triggers in his intro better than I can. But if you can stomach it (in the knowledge that it is graphic but not gratuitous even at its most detailed) this visceral (in the most literal sense of the word) story of female incarceration and oppression and Victorian Spiritualism is a gut-wrenching, fist-pumping read. Silas is sixteen and longs to be a doctor like his elder brother. More accurately, Silas longs to be a Doctor like the storied Dr Barry, because like the good doctor, Silas has a girl's body in society's eyes and thus a girl's limited place within it. Especially a "girl" with violet eyes and the ability, but not the permission, to breach the veil and make contact with the dead. Destined for a young marriage so that his son's can inherit this gift Silas tries to escape and instead is sent to Braxton's Sanitorium and Finishing School to learn to accept his born gender and the roles associated with it as well as hide all of the signs of his autism so that he can be transformed into a perfect bride and lady. The regime is brutal and the only way to escape is through an acceptable marriage, those who fail are damaged and disappeared and Silas can feel their ghosts asking for help. It is a deeply challenging read, based in an alternative Victorian reality so while the period is recognisable and provides fertile ground for gothic horror it is not intended to be entirely historically accurate. Put this aside as well as any misgivings from other reviews about a trans autistic main character in the nineteenth century as these words are not used to describe Silas's reality though his identity as both is the heart of the novel. White's world-building and his characters are wonderful and there is great style to his writing that is fresh and modern and merciless and bold. I enjoyed this even more than Hell Followed With Us.

Thank you to Daphne Press and NetGalley for my digital review copy.

I really enjoyed this!

I read this straight after reading "Hell Followed With Us" and I knew they were going to be different types of horror, and I loved it.

This book is more of a Gothic horror, filled with suspense and supernatural.

I loved the setting so much (the Sanitorium/Finishing School is a perfect background for a sinister, supernatural Gothic horror) and seeing Silas come to the bottom of the mystery was so engrossing as I just needed to know what happened next.

This book is very heavy on medical horror. There's a lot of gore in a surgeon way (which I hope makes sense) and there's some very graphic medical procedures that we read about on page.

This is a historical fantasy book, so there are liberties taken with the Victorian setting and I really enjoyed seeing White's interpretation of Victorian England.

I think this one may be my favourite of White's books that I have read.

I am viscerally shaking as I write this. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is an absolute masterpiece. Gritty and raw and horrifying and it had me absolutely hooked.

Those born with violet eyes have the ability to communicate with spirits, and the Royal Speaker Society want to control their power and take it for their own. Silas Bell knows this. A trans, autistic boy viewed as a violet eyed imbecile, Silas is set to be married to maintain the gene. What would be recognised as autism and gender dysphoria is diagnosed as ‘Veil Sickness’ caused by the inability of women to handle their powers. He is sent to a Sanatorium with horrific ideas of treatment. Soon, the ghosts of students who have gone missing in its halls begin to step out.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth at its heart is an incredibly difficult and heartbreaking read, dealing with topics of gender identity, sexism, neurodivergence, and imperialism at time where these were unnamed, nevermind understood.

The book is set in the 1800s, but it felt so reflective of the trauma so many trans and neurodivergent people face even now. Oppression through class and gender, the oppression in mental institutions, the cruel idea of conversion therapy before it was named.

The supernatural element was great, but felt like it kind of fell away in the middle, but the story didn’t suffer for it.

Overall, this is such an important read but it is in no way easy. It’s brutal, it’s raw, it’s gory. I ached for these characters, and as a trans* autistic person, I ached for the mistreatment we still face. Andrew Joseph White, you are doing so much so beautifully.

Thank you to Peachtree Teen and Netgalley for the ARC!

Review - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.25)

It is 1883, and a thinning of the veil between life and death has given unspeakable power to those who crave it. Those born with violet eyes have the ability to communicate with spirits, and the Royal Speaker Society will do what it takes to control their power and take it for their own. Silas Bell knows the reality of this all too well. Born a boy but viewed as a girl, Silas is set to be married off to maintain the violet-eyed gene. However, Silas has long been forced to hide what we would now recognise as autism, and is diagnosed with ‘Veil Sickness’ caused by the inability of women to handle their powers. Sent to a Sanatorium to be ‘healed’, the ghosts of students who have gone missing in the its halls begin to reach out - begging Silas to run.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a very difficult and gory read, dealing with important topics of gender identity, sexism, neurodivergence, and imperialism at time where these were even less understood or accepted. The issue of oppression and control using mental institutions and child-bearing was very powerfully present. The supernatural element was interesting, but felt a bit absent at times, falling off in the middle and picking back up at the end. The Speaker Society and their control of mediums was an intriguing plot point which I would have loved to see more of, the glimpses we did see were great and felt reflective of reality. There was a lovely romance included which I would have liked to see develop more, it felt a bit instantaneous. Similarly, the ending felt anticlimactic in a way, as the work they did to uncover the truth went largely unnoticed, but perhaps that is just sadly reality. Overall, a very important read but by no means an easy one, please check the trigger warnings, of which there are many!

‘Dead men have no reason to lie, so they never do. They have no reason to not fight back, so they will. Mors Vincit Omnia, right?’

Thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for a e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

" If we are not perfect, obviously our power has corrupted us.
It doesn't matter how closely we've followed their laws.
It doesn't matter if there's proof or not.
We're sick, so we're guilty. That's all the evidence they need".

I don't usually read horror books, but I saw so many positive reactions to this story that I had to give it a try. I have to say, I was not disappointed. This book left me completely surprised; it was not at all what I had expected. Was I ready for the explicit descriptions of medical procedures? Not really (yes, there are trigger warnings at the beginning), but without these descriptions and the presence of the rabbit, I would have never understood Silas completely.
One thing I hope is that this book will also be translated into Italian so I can recommend it to some of my friends, who I know would love it as much as I did.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

~ 5 ⭐️

I would like to thank NetGaley and the publishers for giving me a chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautifully written original story, full of spirits, history, and important representation. There were very few things I didn't enjoy about this book. I absolutely adored the main couple, loved the complex characters, and hated the villains. However, there was something about the author's writing that just wasn't for me. I'm not quite sure what it was, but, at times, I couldn't really focus on the story and skipped over a couple of parts, even tho I was really interested in the plot. Other than this, I really don't have anything else to "criticize," and I hope that if I read more of this author's work, I'll get used to the way they write and enjoy their work even more!

White truly never misses. Although his books are all quite different in their stories, White’s voice is very distinct in all of them. Trans, neurodivergent kids are a central part of the “AJW universe” and it’s honestly so refreshing. As White writes himself, his books are about “trans folks with claws and fangs, and what happens when they bite back”.

This story was so different from what I expected. I expected more hauntings and ghostly-ness and I think the world White describes could have been expanded a bit more. But though it was different, I still really enjoyed it. The way White writes makes it a completely immersive experience into the world he’s describing and how the character is experiencing it.

This story had me gasping with pure shock multiple times. Even though I expected horror and terror, this story goes even beyond that. Maybe because it’s partly rooted in truth and historical facts (of which the accuracy is even addressed in the end!! I loved that).

Please look up TWs before reading, it’s intense…

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is set in a Victorian England where spirit work is not the work of charlatans but rather a highly respected position and those with purple eyes are marked as being the most powerful. Despite many women bearing purple eyes, they are viewed as only being suitable as bearing children and being good wives, not the powerful spirit-workers they are destined to be. When people look at Silas, they see a woman but he knows that that is not who he is and in order to give himself the freedom to live the life he is meant to, he comes up with a hare-brained scheme however it fails and he is forced into an asylum-cum-finishing school for other purple-eyed young women to shape him into a good wife.

In the author note at the beginning of this book, White notes that the truth of history is often more horrifying than anything we can make up and there is definitely a lot of darkness and pain within this tale. In many ways, this book hits all the harder than White's debut Hell Followed With Us because it feels so much more grounded and that just makes it all the more horrifying.

Something that I really appreciate about the way that White writes about transness is the fact that it is not neat and don't necessarily fit the mould of what some might think of as a trans person. In reading this book, it feels as though White is giving me language to talk about transness that I hadn't found for myself. I connected with the way that Silas simultaneously was able to hold the fact that he is a boy and the fact that society has seen him as a girl and the way he has experienced the world as a result of that.

There are many moments of this book that made me uncomfortable but that was exactly the intention of those scenes. This is a story that may cut particularly deep for some readers and, as always, please make sure that you look into content warnings before picking it up. This book is well worth the time and the pain.

⊰ 4 stars

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

“Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all..”

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a fantasy horror novel set in the 19th Century in historical England. The main character, Silas Bell, is a sixteen-year-old boy who is trying his best to find his way in a world where he is not accepted for who he is. The world, especially the Royal Speaker Society, insists on seeing Silas as a girl; one fit to become an obedient Speaker wife no less. As Silas struggles with his identity and autism, he is forced to take matters into his own hands to escape the arranged marriage that his parents are forcing him into.
When his plans fail, he is diagnosed with Veil sickness – a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness – and shipped away to a mysterious facility in order to bloom into the eligible wife the Royal Speaker Society so desperately wants him to be. But what happens to the girls that don’t turn into eligible wives, and why is Silas suddenly seeing the ghosts of those very same girls?

Our protagonist Silas is trans and autistic, living in a society that would rather he pretend to be something he is not than see him happy. Silas is a very loyal friend and has a determined sense of right and wrong. Being an autistic person myself, I felt very understood and seen when reading this book. The constant struggle with your own mind, trying to fit in, trying to resist your tendencies in fear of others seeing and judging you, it really made me connect to Silas.
Even though this story is set in 19th Century England, I feel like the portrayal of behavior towards people that are different (both LGBTQIA+ or autistic) in this book are still perfectly relevant. This book perfectly shows how difficult it is to constantly be at war with yourself or the world around you and the toll it takes on a person.

I absolutely loved reading The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. My main reasoning behind rating this book 4 stars instead of 5 start would be the very graphic scenes, as it is not something I read often as I do not particularly enjoy them. Nonetheless, I will definitely be reading some other books by this author, because graphic scenes or not, the author definitely has a way with words that is hard to find in fantasy horror novels in my opinion.

Another fantastic YA from the hottest voice in trans horror right now! White manages that tricky balance between suitable for a teen audience and brutal horror with such skill - I’m sure teens will eat this right up nightmares and all but there’s plenty to enjoy for seasoned horror fans too.