Book Review: Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker

Synopsis: 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 their 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 dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds.

Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects . . . and so are their mothers.

As the police begin to look more closely, the children’s ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious. 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.

My two cents worth ...

I can honestly say that Chandler Baker weaves quite an in depth, and pleasantly surprising account of motherhood - the joys, the fears, and the things we never truly admit to anyone else - from the perspective of three very different women. A mother myself, I found a lot of the inner dialogue and conversational pieces relatable, and at some times, laughable for the honesty imbued. I actually think this is where the strength of this book truly lies. The story line, although quirky and somewhat slightly different if you are expecting some sort of supernatural read does ultimately prove to be short of thrills. Without revealing too much of the story, the characters unfold with a level of predictability that offers very little for the reader to figure out. About halfway through this book I knew "who'd done it", but still found myself wanting to understand how the children craving blood tied in with everything unfolding.

The author, although very clever with their formation of characters and creating a true believability, unfortunately fails to bring a sense of relevance to the overarching story. Where I'd hoped for the supernatural element of blood craving to be further developed, it merely operated as a side car to the real vehicle of this novel - the who done it.

With a very real skill in crafting relatable characters and relationships, this author tipped the scales from a mediocre read to something closer to intriguing. If you are searching for something highly thrilling and dripping in darkness, then this novel is not quite the page turner. That being said, the candid and astonishingly inciteful deep dive into the working minds of motherhood is worth the read alone.

3 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐

Kristy 😄