“It felt like walking in a neighborhood you think you know, and then after a while you’re lost but you can’t remember where you took a wrong turn.”

What a devastating read. A fair warning to those who choose to read it, it can be triggering if you have been in an abusive relationship of any kind. However, the way the book was able to capture the reality of an abusive romantic relationship, especially in a sapphic couple, was great. It’s something that you don’t see in a lot of books but it’s a very real thing that happens. It’s also hopeful toward the end which I enjoyed because it’s good to remind survivors of DV or DA that it will not be the end and that good things are still to come.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! I absolutely loved this novel, it broke my heart but did do its best to put the pieces back together. TW, it does deal with domestic abuse in a queer relationship. I know the comparison is too easy since there aren’t many books dealing with the subject, but if you loved Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House then I’d definitely recommend reading this fiction novel to explore the topic further.

Sorcha is tired of the fleeting hook ups that litter her late 20s, so when she meets Chris, looking like a dyke Leo di Caprio from the 90s, at the farmer’s market, she lets herself be swept off her feet, tugged along by her desire for a stable relationship and a child. What follows is a devastating spiral which sees Sorcha trapped in an increasingly (emotionally) abusive relationship, all the while gaslighting herself that everything’s fine. This book really nails the ‘frog in a pot of boiling water’ analogy. Chris really gets under your skin, like I felt anxious and claustrophobic as a reader so I’d say Burnet does an excellent job of depicting an abusive relationship.

There’s also some mystery and intrigue in the form of a family drama, and I enjoyed the way Burnet wove Sorcha’s backstory throughout the book. I definitely agree with another reviewer than some of Sorcha’s behaviour/inner monologues in the second half come off as biphobic, but I think (hope) it’s meant more as something Sorcha has to unpack and unlearn than an actual representation of something normal to think - if that makes sense!

Overall, a fantastic debut full of emotional depth.

This was a borderline weird girl book. It was about a lesbian couple named Sorcha and Chris. Without giving up too much of the story, Chris becomes emotionally and verbally abusive. We follow the POV of Sorcha, who is desperate to have a family but also not to bring a child into a volatile relationship. The author did a great job of depicting what feeling stuck in this situation would feel like.

I did enjoy this book. It made me actually get to know and care about the characters. I liked the tooth drawing at the start of the chapters. However, I didn't love how it was written. Sometimes, it would be hard to understand when someone was talking with the lack of quotation marks. Sometimes, it would float around too randomly, and I would get lost as to what was going on and how much time had passed.

Thank you, Jaime Burnet, NetGalley, and Nimbus Publishing, for the ARC of this book.

This book is such a perfect examination of abuse, how it can start slow and then ramp up. Sorcha initially has an excuse for everything Chris does that her friends see as red flags. As time goes on and the abuse ramps up, Sorcha can no longer make excuses and begins to look for a way out for herself and her future child. I really enjoyed this book even though it was a tough read at times.

My fourth grade teacher would spend about half an hour a day reading out loud to our class. As someone that was already an avid reader by that point, this book-focused time was something that I both looked forward to and dreaded in equal measure. I looked forward to it because any time spent amongst the magical worlds of stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Wrinkle In Time or even Where The Red Fern Grows was something that felt meaningful and necessary to my existence. They were an escape from those parts of the real world that would keep my eyes open at night - unable to calm my brain, unable to dream. But I also dreaded our time with those books because it meant that eventually, we would have to leave those worlds and wait an entire day to find our way back to them. I longed to skip ahead with my own copies of the books, but I felt some sort of allegiance to experiencing the stories at the same pace as the rest of the class and not ruining things.

As I grew up, I found solace in books where the worlds that were presented to me were quite a bit less magical and more grounded in some form of reality. Stories that enveloped themselves in pain and regret, stories that basked in the triumph and the fall of love, stories that didn’t shield me from their pulsing, damaged hearts and invited me inside to bathe me in warmth as they simultaneously ripped me to shreds. I began to live for stories that exemplified what the London-based band Shame once wrote, “They say ‘don’t live in the past’ and I don’t. I live deep within myself, just like everyone else.”

Despite the difficult subject matter of Jaime Burnet’s Milktooth, I mowed through it in two sittings over the course of one day, but then found myself pausing to write or post anything about it over the past…two months (?!?) as the intense struggle at the core of the story rattled around my brain like a handful of forgotten stray coins loosed from a pair of jeans in the dryer. Milktooth and it’s narrator, Sorcha, have lived with me over these past months in a sort of delicate balance of wanting to hold on to this story just for myself, while also feeling like I am bursting at the seams to talk about it, open up about it, connect it to every experience I’ve ever known - connect it to every feeling that I’ve ever hidden deep inside of myself.

In the first half of Milktooth, we are thrown into Sorcha’s current life as she spends her days working at a glorified mini-mart in the intensely gorgeous, but remarkably remote village of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Immediately, a number of hallmarks of abuse are present - the sheer panic she feels when missing a text from her partner, sneaking food that her partner wouldn’t approve of, the endless guilt of having to ask her partner to drive her anywhere, the disassociation that she works in a bookshop rather than a convenience store. As the story unfolds, we are given glimpses into the past where we allowed to see a happier, more outgoing and vibrant version of Sorcha in the larger city of Halifax as she immerses herself into a world surrounded by her found family of best friends.

Sorcha’s life is upended when she meets Chris, described early on as a lesbian Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike, and the two embark on an intense relationship that immediately consumes her and alienates Sorcha’s friends. Chris is jealous, possessive and becomes a wedge between Sorcha and her merry band of misfit friends and eventually convinces Sorcha that it would be best for them to move away from the distractions of the city to isolate themselves in a small town where they can work towards the process of starting a family together. Despite the lingering voice in the back of her head that she’s had enough of Chris’ constant emotional manipulation and her insistence that Sorcha choose her over her friends, she makes the decision to leave her life in the city and follow Chris just about as far to the east as she can go, to the middle of nowhere.

While what follows in the second half of the story becomes much more hopeful, that hope also presents itself attached to a significant amount of change and upheaval in Sorcha’s reality, which is, at times, absolutely gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking to read. Jaime does a phenomenal job of allowing us to live inside of the mind of someone being deeply emotionally abused and manipulated to the degree that you begin to feel it across your skin and in your bones. The tension and worry that she creates on behalf of the situation that Sorcha has found herself in is thick and I found that as I read along, all of my nervous tics came flaring outward in grand procession as I went along for the ride.

Milktooth is a piece of art that examines how the abuse that you accept from the people you trust implicitly early on in your life - your family - can translate into a reality where you will continue to accept that level of abuse until you work to break the cycle…and even then, it never fully disappears. As her story unfolds and she finds herself handcuffed even further to Chris via an IVF pregnancy, Sorcha discovers family secrets that unlock doors in her mind that had always been closed off to her and help guide her to the people in her life that have her best interests at heart without any expectation of receiving anything in return outside of love.

With Milktooth, Jaime has crafted a document that shines an essential and bright light on queer relationships, the machinations of abuse and the lifetime of trauma they create, the human ability to fight and to survive at all costs and the beauty of finding your place among a found family and allowing yourself even an infinitesimal shard of happiness. Milktooth is a force of nature in the shape of a novel that I will have planted in my brain for many years to come.

milktooth is a novel detailing the progression of Sorcha’s relationships – with her girlfriend, her friends, and her family. When Sorcha’s abusive relationship with her girlfriend Chris ramps up in intensity when they move out into a remote city and attempt for a child, she turns to her estranged aunt for help.

Burnet created a book that was both terrifying and heartwarming. The gradual ramping up of the abuse, both physical and psychological, was scary to bear witness to but written extremely well. Sorcha’s voice and the pacing of the book was incredible, and kept me invested throughout. The recurring imagery of the milk and the salamander was really interesting, and I felt like it fit really well. It was a devastating story, showing how hard it is to escape toxic and abusive relationships like these. The psychological abuse is quite detailed, so that is definitely something to keep in mind if that is a trigger for you. However, the story is also about Sorcha’s healing, and how it is possible to get away and the importance of a support system. All of the side characters, Sorcha’s friends, her family, etc., were also full of depth and there was not a single boring moment in the book. Definitely got emotional at more than one moment in the book.

I really enjoyed this novel, and will definitely be checking out Jaime Burnet’s future writing! Thank you to NetGalley and Nimbus Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a love letter to all those finding their way out of emotionally abusive relationships. The first half of the book had me both pinned to the page while simultaneously feeling sick to my stomach. Burnet captures the very real feelings of words being twisted, blame being turned, the fear and guilt. I appreciated that we got to see the build up of the relationship over time and see how it tied in with Sorcha’s identity as a queer woman and also her desire to have a baby.

At about 60% into the book, I felt it hit a bit of a lag after she’s in Scotland for a minute. It felt very repetitive of she goes to work, eats a scone or something milky, talks to Agnes about plants and life. I guess I just found it jarring compared to the pacing of the rest of the book, but maybe that’s the point.

And a slighter note, I found Sorcha’s thoughts mildly biphobic (judging the queerness of a queer woman dating a straight man as if it negates her identity) and I thought that was icky.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved the way the story flowed. The internal conflict of the main character felt really real, and I was rooting for her so hard. I think the way the abuse was portrayed was incredibly realistic, how easy it is to be manipulated and how trapped you can feel in that situation. It was lowkey triggering to read, but I persisted because I wanted that happy ending. I wouldn't say the ending was happy, but it was satisfying.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Vagrant Press for an e-ARC!

I was unfortunately unable to download the file before it got automatically archived, however I remain very excited to acquire a copy, post my review to all platforms and adjust my rating as soon as release date has passed!

Thank you to NetGalley and Nimbus Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was layered, emotional, raw, heartfelt, and a meditation on love (or what masquerades as love) in various forms. To read Sorcha's story surviving emotional abuse was difficult, heart-wrenching, and unbelievably empowering. I really appreciated that the story focused on a queer couple, and how Sorcha's forgiveness or excuse of Chris was wrapped up in being a 'good dyke'. Speaking from my own perspective as a dyke, too often we try to soothe the trauma of our partners to our own expense and confuse messy partnership with red flags that we need to actually run from. When you're treated from society as less-than, it's easier to accept maltreatment from others, since oftentimes our self-worth has already taken a beating from just living through a queer/transphobic world. The backstory we get from Sorcha informs so much of her present with Chris. Burnet casts this lyrical dance between past and present which only becomes more clear as Sorcha reels from PTSD flashbacks. What seems to really ground Sorcha is her pack of incredible friends and her generous Aunt Agnes. This book really speaks to found/chosen family in a way that I think many queer people can relate to.

The theme of dairy throughout the book was very clever. From her chugging the carton of milk in quiet defiance in the first chapter all the way to the end where she licks milk off her finger. Burnet wove a complex story with dairy as a compelling metaphor. As much as this book is about showcasing the insidious reality of emotional abuse, it's very much so about Sorcha (re)building herself perhaps for the first time ever- abuse from Chris might be the inciting incident but we see throughout the novel that I'm not sure Sorcha has ever truly chosen herself and felt whole. I found her pursuit of herself terribly moving. Hauntingly, I don't think Chris even understands her wrong-doings; she thinks of herself as a victim throughout this story which made my skin crawl. This book illustrates so clearly how volatile and at times naturalized this type of abuse is.

As a Canadian who has travelled through Cape Breton and Halifax, it was cool to read a book that was so unapologetically Canadian (and the East Coast at that). The similarities, yet stark (emotional) differences between the Cape and the Scottish Highlands, offers so much depth to the novel that I really appreciated.

If you're a vibe/seasonal reader like me, I think that if you're travelling to Eastern Canada or Scotland Highlands then this would fit perfectly. It would also really work if you're somewhere remote in a forest (think cottage-core) to really bring out the theme of isolation that is present in a good chunk of the book. I did note that there were a few important Christmas scenes, though this is not a holiday book by any means. BUT if you're looking for something that briefly touches on Christmas while not being cheery (it's giving Trauma Christmas) then this book might fit that need for you. Friendship as family is such a huge theme of this book so if you're in the midst of relishing in your queer friend group, or if you're longing for something like that, then I think this book will offer a really lovely perspective in chosen family.

This book is beautiful as it is heart-wrenching. It's a story of resilience and the importance of having a support network. I recommend everyone and anyone to read it, but especially to my fellow dykes out there. <3

"milktooth" was such a gripping read from start to finish. In this story, Jaime Burnet skilfully portrays the reality of romantic partner abuse, touching on the importance of having a chosen family. The situation of initial love-bombing and then controlling and isolating is showcased believably, as well as the process of exiting such a dynamic and the aftermaths of it.

Despite the dark and uncomfortable topic, "milktooth" is simultaneously uplifting and at times quite funny. The author takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster ride that is well paced from the beginning to an end.

This is a beautiful book that fills me with hope. It covers heavy subjects, such as abuse, but love ultimately wins out in this story. I really took to Sorcha and the relationship she had with her aunt/grandma and her pack. This story could have fallen into the trap of being ordinary lit fic, but there's something special about it. Every detail matters, and I was always excited to keep reading.

This was so painfully & beautifully written. If you’re in a toxic relationship & need some extra strength to move on, please read this. You travel through the life of a woman who falls too fast for the wrong person, and cheer her on as she digs herself out of it. She can do it. You can do it too. It puts into perspective how grateful we should be for our “chosen family” 🖤 Get yourself a cup of tea, a scone & a comfy chair cause you’re going to want to eat this book up as fast as you can.

Thank you Netgalley, the publishers, and the author for this ARC!

this book was gut-wrenching and very well done. it took a bit to understand some of the time jumps happening but ultimately i feel like that choice makes sense when you think about how memories are affected by abuse. highly recommend this queer litfic.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book was just much too smart for me, and I also felt like it also wasn’t that smart at the same time?

I’m not really sure how to explain that reading experience, but I overall just didn’t really enjoy it.

I loved this book. Such a quietly powerful story about coercion and gaslighting in a relationship. This is brilliantly written and so tense that I really regretted every minute that I didn’t spend reading it. I raced through it.

This book was hard to read.

Emotionally heavy from start to finish, I think this might be the most realistic portrayal of an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship that I've ever read. I just wanted to reach in and hug Sorcha. There were so many lines in this book that broke my heart and will sit with me for a very long time. My only real complaint is that the ending felt really rushed- I'd have liked to have some more time and development there.

Sorcha, with a history of abusive relationships finds herself in another with Chris, the 90s heartthrob like woman of her dreams, and then isolated from friends and family, she has to figure out how to escape and make a new life.

I really liked this book about the quiet banality and domesticity of abuse and how it’s not always black eyes. How controlling Chris was and how the cycle of abuse continues. But more than that I enjoyed the way Sorcha, after finding love from friends and other family is able to bloom and grow and escape.

This was well written and really interesting.

This was a very engrossing book that tackled difficult themes with a lot of care. I read this in a few hours in one sitting, I couldn’t put it down!

this was a great book! I think it was extremely well written, it had so many good scenes, and it kept me entertained the whole time!! It was so well written, I love the connections the characters had, and how the story flowed. I think it is extremely good!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!