Going into this book I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t read any reviews, and couldn’t really remember the blurb either. I think that’s the best way to get into What Big Teeth.
As soon as I started reading I had questions. I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and couldn’t quite decide if I liked Eleanor or not. By the end of the book I still had many questions, and I still hadn’t made up my mind about Eleanor, but that didn’t detract from how much I enjoyed this strange book.

I had initially thought that this would be a murder-mystery type novel, but it leaned into the gothic aspects far more than I was expecting which was really cool. The pacing was slightly off for me though. The first few chapters had me gripped and I couldn’t wait to find out more about the characters, then in the middle of the book we never really got that depth I was hoping for from anyone. The ending felt a little rushed for me, and there were a few plot points that I would have liked some more clarification on.

The characters were all so gripping, and I think that’s a big reason why I enjoyed the book so much. There was something so unsettling about all of them and I loved it. I feel like so many books pussyfoot around fully committing to a genre like gothic, but What Big Teeth really leaned into the unease it created. Whilst I often didn’t fully understand the dynamics of the family, it didn’t mean I enjoyed it any less.

Overall a really enjoyable, creepy read. I struggled a little with the pacing, but the characters kept me absolutely hooked and I couldn’t put the book down. I think this would be enjoyed by adults as well as older teens, as I feel younger readers might not be a fan of the lack of solid answers and how some things you just have to accept without questioning too hard. Can't wait to read Szabo’s future work, and I really hope they come out with a full horror novel because I just know it would be deliciously scary!

I recieved an eARC of this book from NetGalley in return for my honest review.

An unusual story this one. It’s a gothic, bizarre and, in parts, disturbing fantasy read.

I was drawn to it at first sight due to the beautiful cover. However, the story was a bit unexpected, not exactly what I had in mind.
I have a bit of mixed feelings but the aftertaste of reading this is not bad.

I like the way the book starts with the mystery of what has happened and we ended up at this point. The book keeps this vibe throughout the plot and the ending comes pretty much when the main character puts all the pieces together. However, this is not a mystery or horror story. At least it doesn’t feel this way to me.

The characters seems a bit superficial and I would like the book a lot more if I could see more depth in them. Actually, for the length of the book, I was expecting that.

Moving on, I would say that I felt the story having gaps. Or to explain it better, I would prefer better transitions in the plot with more logical or detailed explanation in some parts, so the reader can get a clearer idea.

The main idea of the book is very interesting and I like that we see the struggle and sacrifices that different people have to do to blend in. Acceptance is a main driver of the plot and evident in most of the characters.

Overall, it might not be a five-star read but this book is leaving me with a hopeful feeling!

First things first, I absolutely love both of the covers for the book. You can’t help but be curious

Hauntingly bizarre and disturbing in all the best kinds of ways.
The character build is fantastic. Twisted and terrifyingly interesting.

I love that plot is left like breadcrumbs to put together as you’re going. To keep you hooked and sinking into the book.
While I agree it has the Miss Peregrines peculiar children crossed with Addams family vibes, it’s most definitely unique.

I recommend giving this a read!

Firstly, a huge thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This novel has all the makings of a classic Gothic fairytale from the setting to the characters, Szabo does a great job of capturing the essence of the Gothic and bringing it to a contemporary fairytale.

Eleanor was a very interesting protagonist, sent away to a boarding school when she was young and, even upon returning, felt very much like an outsider in her own family. I really liked the way Szabo illustrated the stone Covenant between Eleanor and the rest of the Zarrin family. In the beginning, you feel just as uncomfortable as she does, wi­th unsettling animalistic descriptions that fell out of place for a typical family dinner – but the Zarrin’s aren’t a typical family.

It doesn’t take long before you start to wonder if Eleanor is treated as an outsider for a reason and that she is being unnecessarily harsh towards her family. I found myself being more drawn to the rest of the family like Grandpa Miklos, Margaret and Rhys and didn’t tie the way they were treated by Eleanor – especially when Grandma was around. The complicated character and family dynamics are one of the ways that this story gets its claws into the reader. There is just so much we don’t understand. The mystery contributed to the uneasy atmosphere which made this a novel that is very difficult to put down, even if it was difficult to follow at times.

At the start of the novel I did find it a little confusing working out what had happened between the prologue to the current day. Whilst this did make the pacing feel a little slow at first, it all quickly ramps up and I was totally inverted in the plot and in the characters. Each one of them has a mystery for you to unravel and Eleanor soon realised that she has no idea who she can trust. The only person she thinks she can trust is Arthur, who seemingly hasn’t aged over the eight years she’s been away and who everyone in her family appears to be infatuated with. I also loved how different Grandma Persephone was from Grandmére, both formidable matriarchs who have a lot of secrets and have very different ideas on how to protect their own.

The way Szabo writes is captivating, I also really enjoyed that there were some aspects that you have to just accept without any explanation which is something we don’t always have in contemporary Gothic stories even though that can be crucial to a successful Gothic novel. Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read and a must read for any Gothic fans. If the stunning cover hasn’t already sucked you in, the first chapter definitely will.

This was one of my most anticipated reads but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it, it has taken me so long to get through this book and it isn’t a long book. Part of why I disliked this book so much is that I just didn’t like the characters and they made me not want to read it. I also struggled with keeping track of the book, it confused me and because I would leave it so long before picking it back up it just confused me more. The first half was better than the second for me and there were things that I could have loved. I think this is just a book that I don’t get along with and I know many more will like it.

What big teeth by Rose Szabo.
A good read. Good story and some good characters. Likeable read. 4*.

What Big Teeth is a fantastically strange, gothic horror about a monstrous girl trying to fit into her monstrous family. With its slow pace, eccentric characters, and brutal viciousness, this book would definitely appeal to those who loved the Addams Family.

Eleanor has always been ostracised from her family of monsters, and she hasn't seen them since they sent her away to boarding school. Now she's back, and she's still struggling to fit in. When Grandma Persephone reads her future, what she sees kills her. Now Eleanor has to try and accept herself and her family, monsters and all, or else watch them fall apart.

Gothic fiction is one of my absolute favourite genres, and this one was especially exciting. This book has all the atmosphere, the tropes, the strangeness of gothic horror. Dark, dysfunctional families and relationships? A haunting? Monsters that linger behind human forms? It's got it all.

My childhood was littered with Addams Family references; I even had a cat named after Morticia Addams! I've always been such a fan of the trope of strange, unconventional families who are incredibly loyal to each other despite outsiders contention. The Addams Family is actually more functional than the one in this book, but the vibes are very similar.

One of my favourite themes of this book was how it depicted love not being about control. I don't want to give too much away, some characters are forced into behaving 'appropriately'. The book demonizes this form of control above all else. To love someone you have to accept them and their desires. If they aren't compatible with yours, you leave; you don't try and force them into an unhappy, oppressive box.

The romantic relationship is incredibly strange and dysfunctional, but it fits well with the themes. I don't think everyone's going to enjoy this aspect, but I think the key is you're not supposed to romanticise or idealise it. It includes a very large age gap, and it is quite uncomfortable, but in a way that seems purposeful. Again, I don't want to spoil anything here, but there are explanations for everything. Including why everyone, and I mean everyone, in this family wants this one person.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It was one of the more unique books I've read this year, but I love strange things.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children meets The Addams Family is what ultimately sold this book to me – give me dark, brooding, gothic tales any day. But let’s be clear for a second, The Addams Family are BIG shoes to fill and they will always and forever remain top tier on the ghoulish, chaotic clan-o-meter. The Zarrin Family sit comfortably at mid point. There are a whole lot of fanged snouts, sinister shadows and ghostly encounters lurking deep within the pages of this deliciously dark book but the characters felt empty and disjointed and the plot just plain perplexing. Rose Szabo writes beyond the weird, instead boldly stepping into an otherness that is unapologetically and beautifully strange. Some readers are gonna love it, others not so much. If I had to some this book up in two words it would be, imperfectly peculiar.

Fans of Rory Power’s Wilder Girls will devour this.

One side point though, the title gave me serious Little Red Riding Hood vibes but the plot couldn’t be further from this. This is no fairytale folks!

What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo is a dark and atmospheric horror story where magic and myth combine to captivate the reader.
Eleanor has returned to her family home for the first time in years, she has not visited since she was sent away to boarding school after a childhood incident that she doesn't even remember. Now a falling out with her best friend means that she has fled to the family she barely remembers. What she does know however is just how dangerous they are, and their reaction to her return is lukewarm at best. When her grandmother dies suddenly while reading Eleanor's future in the cards , it is a turning point for the family and they are forced to trust Eleanor to defend them from the darkness and danger that invades their home.
While this is ostensibly a YA release it is dark enough that it will appeal to older readers too. I loved how descriptive the author was about the setting of the book and the members of this very strange family. The story is layered and complex enough to really keep the reader interesting as the mystery unfolds. While the idea of a family of monsters is not unusual, the way that idea is used here is interesting, with the various family members having different abilities that often results in tensions around the dinner table. Eleanor has always felt weak because of her inability to transform, but it seems like the powers she inherits from the other side of her family may more that make up for her lack of transformative abilities. The book is something of a slow burn which makes sense given how important the atmosphere is to the storytelling., but once things start to happen the pace does pick up and the payoff is definitely worth the wait. I did appreciate that the author imbued some humanity into each of the monsters , learning about their past and the family history made them more sympathetic characters that I would have expected going into the book . That being said, I really enjoyed the darkness of the moments where the monsters were being truly monstrous.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publishers, all opinions are my own.

When I saw the cover and title for ‘What Big Teeth’ by Rose Szabo, the first thing that came to mind was Frank Churchill’s 1933 song ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’ made famous in the Disney cartoon about the three little pigs. That song has been my ear worm for the entire reading of this book!

The book focuses on Eleanor, a young girl who has fled her boarding school to return home to a house and family in Maine that she barely remembers. To say her family is unusual is an understatement. Eleanor’s memories of her family are very vague and she hasn’t spoken to them in a long time. She doesn’t know where she stands with them and she has always felt like the outsider. A death in the family shocks them all to the core and Eleanor is left trying to keep her family together. Eleanor asks her Grandmére, a woman she has never met, to come stay with them and help her to negotiate her new role. Something monstrous lurks within Grandmére, something that could destroy Eleanor’s family.

‘What Big Teeth’ is a quirky book; a mixture of a number of genres. The characters which Szabo introduces to the reader are an eccentric bunch; you immediately feel sorry for Eleanor as she tries to find her footing in a family that don’t seem to have missed her over the years and make her feel like an absolute stranger in her own ancestral home. There are a lot of characters who you instantly hate when you read this book and Szabo’s descriptions of their traits is really insightful. Everyone appears to have a secret, no more so than the mysterious Arthur who seems to have a number of the Zarrin family members under his spell. The story which develops is very bizarre; the events that unfold are equally terrifying and strange. This book reminds me of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children mixed with the Addams Family (particularly the creepiness of the family members!).

‘What Big Teeth’ is an interesting, quirky read, perfect for the YA audience that it is intended for. Themes of searching and trying to find out who you are prevail throughout the book, particularly with the character of Eleanor. The growing sense of darkness building up throughout the novel adds a nerve-wracking dimension to the story. I look forward to seeing what Szabo does next!

‘What Big Teeth’ will be published on the 6th of July by Titan Books. Thank you to NetGalley and to Titan Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an EARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
This is quite possibly the most bizarre book I have ever read but in the nicest way possible. This sub-genre of horror-type novels with paranormal elements has been creeping into the YA genre over the past few years with books like Harrow Lake and Wilder Girls and this is truly a great addition.
What Big Teeth follows our main character Eleanor as she returns home from boarding school to her eccentric and foreboding family after years of seclusion and little contact. Filled with equal parts confusion and intrigue, Eleanor must entagle her own recollections of the past in order to move forward into herself, in a Addams Family esque coming of age novel filled with literal monsters as well as the monsters inside of us.
The premise of this book is truly unique, and that is not debatable. There is a gothic feel about it with a lot of the factors we would expect of a paranormal story however the author has succeeded in turning these on their head. Creating a rather brilliant atmosphere that lays the groundwork for the story.
In a way this story is an exploration of grief and trauma, of letting go and moving on and finding your authentic self when those around you all want you to be like them. Somehow it truly is all of these things in eccense however there were a few parts of the story that were lacking for me, even though the ideas behind it were strong.
The characters were interesting but really where caricatures in comparison to our main character, but I could have looked past that if it was a particularly plot driven novel. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of that either which left me a little confused if I am honest. The main character was definitely quite naive and the novel as a whole would have been considerably shorter if she had reached some of the revelations at the speed it took me to work them out.
That being said, I have never been entirely sure where I stand with speculative novels, as they tend to be pretty hit or miss. So, if you are a fan of this sort of genre I would recommend you have this book on your raidar.
Rated: 3.5 Stars

I really wanted to love this one. It had all the right things to make me love it, but it fell just short of making me care about Eleanor's struggle.

I will say, however, that even though I didn't care for Eleanor's decisions, I did appreciate the intrigue of the story once the *plot* finally kicked in. I wouldn't have minded if more time had been spent on dealing with the antagonist.

Overall, I would recommend to fans of unlikeable main characters who also happen to like unreliable narrators. Atmosphere wise, I also recommend it to horror fans who fit into the above subsets.

I was so disappointed in this. I was really hoping for a great werewolf story with family and secrets and passion.
What I got was a confusing bog-witch who thinks she's better than everyone else trying to 'save' her family.
Many things didn't make sense and many more were just bizarre.
I ended up DNF at 45 %
Very disappointed.

We all know what happens when the wolf meets Grandma - don't we?

Eleanor has run away from school after doing something so terrible she can't even think about it - and the only place she can go is back to the family who sent her to school many years ago and haven't allowed her to return since. She has no idea how she'll fit in after all this time: her beautiful wild sister, Luma, and equally wild cousin Rhys, her quiet, almost insipid father, kind mother, monosyllabic aunt, matriarchal grandmother and alpha male grandfather. And of course, her family aren't like other families. For a start, they live in a gothic mansion on the outside of the small town, at the edge of the ocean, deep in Maine. And then there's the fact that her cousins, father and grandfather turn into wolves at will, her mother is part sea reef and needs continual water and her grandmother is a witch who keeps the family fortunes through selling love potions and poisons.

Once back Eleanor wants answers: why was she sent away all those years ago? Who is Arthur, family friend and accountant and the object of the whole family's affections? Why is she different? And what about her other grandmother over in France- maybe she has the answers they need. Eleanor's questions crack open some deeply buried family secrets with deadly consequences that will change them all forever.

This is an enjoyable and inventive dark gothic fantasy, twisty and unusual, that never quite goes where the reader expects. Recommended.

Eleanor runs away from Boarding school after another 'incident', back to the ancestral home she barely remembers. She had been banished from a family of werewolves, witches, mermaids and the like yet she apparently was the dangerous one. Shortly after her return her Grandmother dies during a tarot reading that seems to foretell the family are in even more danger leaving Eleanor to try and navigate her way through hostile family dynamics.

Thank you to the publisher for letting me read via Netgalley!

A weird tale of an estranged young woman seeking refuge with the monstrous relatives who sent her away 8 years prior, this story follows lonely Eleanor as she deciphers her fears and desires and hungers for a place within her dysfunctional addams type family. I really enjoyed this book, it's animalistic language, the concept of turning yourself inside out to reveal your other. A bizarre read that I would definitely recommend for gothic vibes and a unique take on werewolves!

This book was a bizarre and disturbing rollercoaster with many ominous twists and turns. Whilst this wasn’t what I expected at all it was a strong debut. Eleanor’s family are strange and not just because they’re werewolves. We explore their secrets and mysterious incidents surrounding them. There was always a looming sense of dread throughout this book and whilst the pacing was slow at times, the unsettling and fun atmosphere of this book never made me feel bored or confused.
Would recommend to anyone looking for a light gothic/horror experience.

(Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc for an honest review!)

What Big Teeth tells the story of Eleanor, a young woman who was sent away from her family to attend a boarding school across the country several years ago, and hasn't seen or heard from them since. After a violent altercation at school with one of the fellow students Eleanor packs her bags and heads back to her home. She's not expecting a warm reception, for several reasons, and finds a family strangely familiar, yet also alien to her; her family having moved on in her absence.

The Zarrin family aren't just normal people, however, and each of them holds a dark secret within them. Her grandmother, who rules the household, practices magic, her mother is covered in strange coral-like polyps and must stay wet, and her grandfather, father, cousin, and sister can all change into monstrous wolves and stalk the forests around their home. Despite this strangeness Eleanor seems to be the strangest of all of them, because she's not like the rest of them. She can't become the wolf, and despite trying all her life it doesn't seem like there's one within her. Instead, she has vague memories of something else stirring inside her, something she has no words for.

When her grandmother dies shortly after using her magics to read Eleanor's future Eleanor is left in charge of her grandmother's business, and charged with protecting the family she feels so separated from. When she learns that her mother's mother is still alive she writes to her, asking her to come and help, but this might not be the lifeline she's expecting as shortly after her Grandmere arrives things in the house begin to get worse.

From very early on reading What Big Teeth there are some definite Addams Family vibes going on in this book. The family are all creepy and odd in some way, have connections to magic and folklore, and live in a big mansion away from the rest of the small town community; a community that fears them. It has a Gothic feel baked into every character and moment, and I feel if you put a mood board together for this book it'd be creepy old houses and Tim Burton movies.

Rose Szabo is really good at putting this kind of aesthetic into the story but not going too far with it and making it feel over the top, too much like a caricature. They're able to infuse the house and the family with a strangeness that feels so other, yet everyone in the family feels like a real person. Yes, they might be extreme in some way, but you always feel like you understand what motivates them, why they act the way they do. Szabo is able to make these larger than life beings feel like real people, even if they can also transform into wolves; and that's a hell of an accomplishment.

The character of Eleanor is our main point of view for the book, and thanks to her having spent a number of years away from her family and needing to relearn who they are and what it's like to live with them we get to see them through this fairly fresh perspective. Their strangeness isn't new to her, but thanks to the intervening years away from them is feels like it is. Not only does this allow the readers an easy way into this family, to be shocked by their oddness, but it works well for the story too, and really help to set Eleanor as an outsider, which sets the story up to go in some interesting directions.

I liked Eleanor as a character, despite her making what I felt were some bad mistakes at times, but then that's part of any character's journey. Eleanor is the reason things go wrong in this book, or more precisely, her choices set the family down the path for things to go wrong. But where the rest of her family only seem to have one way of dealing with things, striking out violently, Eleanor is smart enough to know that that won't help them here, and has to use her difference from her family in order to save them. She doesn't have the power or the physical strengths of her family, so she has to learn to use her mind.

Ultimately, this seemed to be one of the main themes of the book; learning and looking for answers. Eleanor has to learn to find her place in a family that she doesn't recognise. She's searching for answers for why she's so different, and to learn more about the thing hidden inside of her. And she's digging into the family's past, trying to discover how they all ended up here.

These brief glimpses into the past were some of my favourite moments, and I loved it when her grandfather told the tale of his home country, some unnamed place somewhere deep in Europe. His story of this land where language didn't exist, where the bells sounded to warn the people of the approaching monsters, and his encounter with the powerful dark entity that stalked them may have been one of the shortest moments in the book, but it left a lasting impression. I think this was the moment that I realised that there was something a little special about this book, and about Rose Szabo as a writer. This tiny part set the tone for the whole novel, and was one of the creepiest and most disturbing moments. I'm hoping that we get to see more like this in Szabo's future work, and I know that if they ever decided to write an intense horror story it'd be incredibly chilling.

What Big Teeth is an interesting, Gothic YA story filled with mystery and horror elements. It's a story about finding your place in the world, of learning to accept your family for their faults and their strangeness. And it's a story about discovering who you really are; and all of it's wrapped up in this wonderfully dark, delightfully queer story. An outstanding debut from an author we should all be keeping an eye on.

This was a strange book. It was haunting in places and terribly blunt in others. It follows Eleanor who returns to her strange, isolated family after years in exile. When she returns it’s as an almost stranger and everything starts to fall apart and gets dark quickly.

This novel is a mash-up of eastern European lore and fragments of fairy stories and urban legends. None of the characters are particularly good or moral and you never really know where they stand. I liked Eleanor well enough as a main character, but she wasn’t brilliant and none of her family members connected with me overly well.

The language and writing style were lovely, it was eerie and mesmerizing and there were some fantastic descriptions. I wasn’t a huge fan of the pacing, but it worked well enough.

I saw a lot of reviews talking about how this had LGBT representation and whilst it was there it felt perfunctory and performative at best and a little bit stereotypical in at least one circumstance, so I wasn’t a fan of it.

Overall all this was a pretty decent read with an interesting narrative and lore.

This was a real mind fuck of book and a mash up of genres, and made all the better for it.
The best way I could describe this would be a magical realism werewolf elements with a twist of horror thrown in.
This is extremely different from any other werewolf story I've read, so if you're going into it expecting the typical werewolf tropes...I'd suggest you to keep an open mind as it's not the main focus of this book, but nonetheless gives it an interesting twist.

The monstrous qualities of these characters made them so much fun to read about, especially Grandmere. Some of the descriptions of her in the latter half of the book were chilling.
There's something charmingly human about the monsters of this family, however. They each have their own personality and different familial bonds with each other. They may be monstrous but they still deal with real life family issues such as keeping secrets and misunderstanding each other.

There are some very strange elements to this story that I'm still not fully sure I understand, mainly surrounding Arthur and the family's strange magnetism towards him. However I don't believe this impacted my reading enjoyment so much as to detract from the rating.

I'd be really interested to see what else Rose Szabo writes in the future.
I think fans of Rory Power would also enjoy this.