jessiewolf's reviews
559 reviews

You don't even need to read this review--just go on and head over to the bookstore to grab this one now. If you liked THE HONEYWITCH or THE BOG WIFE, you're going to love GREENTEETH. Jenny is a monster who lives in a lake, and she likes to eat fish (and the occasional kitten that's been dropped into the water). One day, a witch is thrown into her lake to drown, and Jenny decides to bring her to her cozy little cave to quell her curiosity instead of immediately eating the human. The witch--Temperance--was sentenced to death by a malevolent new pastor who has big, bad plans for the village. Jenny and Temperance strike up a friendship and decide to take on the pastor--a decision that leads them on a long, trying quest that's the stuff fantasy dreams are made of. 

This dark, sapphic, anti-capitalist dystopia was exactly what I needed. Think Hunger Games, but make parents more complicit, and make the enemy Amazon. In this world, debt is rampant, and a mega company Caerus controls everything. Caerus allows people to charge any item they'd like, but once they are too far in debt, they must give Caerus the name of a family member--almost always a child-- who will be hunted and killed in a livestream for the entertainment of the masses.

Inesa and her brother run a taxidermy shop and do whatever it takes to stay out of debt. Their mother, however, is addicted to many things, and her debt eventually runs too high and she offers Inesa as her sacrifice. Melinoë is a Caerus assassin assigned to kill Inesa, but as the hunt begins, both girls begin to question everything--including their feelings for each other.

I don't know--I liked the snakes and the wolfdogs and the crows and the menstrual blood cakes, but the rest felt like it was either deeply transphobic, or trying to take a radical stance so far that it just fizzled out/circled back around? The elision of gender identity in a book based on sex segregation was deeply confusing--some characters are women who were assigned male at birth, but the cultural fear of penises and testosterone made these girls and their families hate themselves and take measures as drastic as...back alley bottom surgeries. It seemed like this book was trying to be sensational, but didn't really have a message at all behind the drama. The eerie tone and vibes of abandoned convents and snake priestesses kept me reading, but I don't think this book ultimately accomplished anything.