Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz
8:00 AM
Publisher: Simon Pulse
ISBN13:1442465328
Genre:Young Adult
Review by Phil
Synopsis (Goodreads.com): Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.
My Thoughts:
Originally I didn’t think I would ever be able to review this book. Why you may ask? Frankly, Teeth is f*****g weird! Not like Alice in Wonderland quirky weird, I mean full on “What the hell am I reading?!” weird. This is the kind of book you would be uncomfortable telling your parents about. The kind of book that if everyone knew what it was really about, you would need to hide it under a newspaper if you ever wanted to read it in public. Yes, it is really that weird.
Now you may be saying to yourself “seriously Phil it can’t be that bad; I mean it is a YA book, it can’t be that scarring”. Don’t believe me? Maybe this will change your mind: Mermaid Rape. No, you didn’t read that wrong, I promise you this book really has full on rape, and not only mermaid rape (but I can only give that much away).
This book centers around our main character Rudy, a teenage boy who has recently moved to a remote island in search for a cure to his ailing brother’s cystic fibrosis. On the island, there is a special fish called Enki that somehow cures diseases, whether it be cystic fibrosis or cancer, the Enki fish can heal anything and anyone. After living on the island for about two months Rudy begins to feel lonely, and yearns to be with someone his own age.
He soon meets Diana, a girl who has been living on the island this entire time, but is forced to stay inside by her overprotective mother. The two quickly (so quick it is almost humorous) start a very strange and unrealistic relationship that had me questioning if Moskowitz had ever even met a teenage boy before writing this book. Rudy is also quick to meet and befriend the strange mer-boy that lives in the water surrounding the island named Teeth; whose scales resemble those of the Enki fish. Teeth and Rudy form an unlikely, and sometimes uncomfortable relationship together and they grow very close to one another. And then, around page 108, I was scarred for life by a scene involving a fish and lady parts and then the ending happens which is at most lackluster, leaving the reader asking themselves “WTF did I just read?”.
There were many things in this book that bothered me, such as:
- Rudy isn’t even that surprised when he finds out a mermaid is living in the ocean near his home.
- Diana and Rudy’s relationship is just pathetic.
- It seemed as if Moskowitz got her “male voice”(if that is what you could even call it) for Rudy by watching a handful of crappy teen movies where the only thing boys between the ages of 13-18 care about is sex.
- Page 108
- the fact that the Enki fish could cure cancer and all disease, but not that many people knew about it?! (because lets be honest, if that was real the government would breed those fish like crazy and sell them for major money)
I gave Teeth 2/5 dull stars.
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