Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America

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Moskowitz has a talent for characters, I believe. They are depressing, sad, flawed, and filled with inner darkness. She made me feel a lot of empathy for both Rudy and Teeth. These two characters are layered with many layers.

I believe that Teeth is a special novel. The kind of special that only rarely comes into the world. Does that sound over dramatic? Maybe. But this is how I truly feel about this book. Now please just go read this book so you can experience the ugly beauty of it yourself. Don’tet your fear of the strangeness this novel has keep you away from it. I doubt you will regret it. Looking for a nice mermaid bedtime story? Don't look at Teeth. If you what a twisted, freaky, macabre take on a tale, look no further. She grins. Her cheeks are getting all flushed. She gets more turned on when we talk about books than when we kiss. I shouldn't be okay with that. I'm beginning to think I'm using this girl as some kind of symbol and that's really not okay with me. I wish I were a different person. I kiss her like that will fix me.

This book is not a ghost story but it haunted me. Certainly, Moskowitz's writing is haunting. I am not really sure what this book is, how to put it but that's not what makes it so haunting. It's the fact the book knows exactly what it is and how you feel about it that is completely up to you. That's what haunts us. All those words, there, not there. Alone. Try to catch the glimpses of them as they flit by. Despite what I said, this book is full of ghosts. Now here I must quote Civil Twilight; What comes first, the courage or the fall? Is that a savior outside my window? Or is that a reflection of me? I had no idea what this book was about until after I was approved. I was amused by the description but I'm always open-minded about reading different things. A book about a gay fishboy? Yes please! Rudy’s family just moved to a remote island, hoping the magic fish Enki would cure his little brother of cystic fibrosis. As much as he loves his brother Dylan, Rudy is desperately lonely and bored out of his mind – until he meets Teeth, half-human-half-fish boy with whom he starts a tentative friendship.

I mean, God, her writing . . . That is the number one reason I want to own and devour every one of her books. The two words I can use to describe her writing are raw and real. Even if this book is about magic fish and a boy who happens to have scales and a tail fin, it still felt so real, as if I were reading a contemporary novel. February is for Ghosts. I have said goodbyes way too many times for it to be anything other than the inside of my skull. I have said plenty, I'll say even more so. The birth of the night happened in this month and it will end here too. Oh, I know. I had loved you and you still love me. Don't speak. I'll say hello and you'd say stay. How are those stars any different from the ones I showed you. But thank you for showing me all the stars on your body. I have said it before and I'll say it again. This is not a goodbye, but a thank you. February. You were good. What happened to your kingdom? So February, huh? The month of February is about ghost stories for me, I don't know why. And oh boy, do the ghosts got stories to tell. I don't know, don't know, so don't ask me why. That's how we are, La Seine and I. 2013. Gone. Sorry, couldn't resist. Even if that song is not over. We are a groan away from a watery death, and we'll all drown without even waking up. because we're so used to sleeping through unrelenting noise." I believe that some books should be written just to be an exercise to the brain. Teeth is one of these books that constantly makes you think and analyze.So I very highly recommend this read and as for a reunion sequel? Yes, please. That would be a definite pre-buy for me. : ) Teeth would fall under the magic realism genre, though it is not as surreal and trippy as Ali Shaw's writing (Shaw, an amazing talent, you should read him) Reading this book, of course, reminded me of Beauty and the Beast and Pigtopia by Kitty Fitzgerald (a must must read). To read such nostalgia for old objects and customs, evoked with such enthusiasm, is haunting. White Teeth spans a period from the mid-1970s until the late 1990s (give or take a few excursions into the more distant past) – so the past the book describes is often closer to the time when Smith was writing than 2000 is to our own present. Eighties allusions fattened books such as The Northern Clemency and The Line of Beauty at the start of this millennium, but White Teeth is not just ramming in pop-culture. Smith is reminding us that the past is a foreign country, where things are done differently. I liked that this book ended on a hopeful note, and it seemed that Rudy managed to find the right balance as he did the right thing for Teeth and his brother. It gives me hope that there is a chance that man might someday get the bigger picture and find the optimum relationship between ourselves and our environment. And something small and insignificant inside me shatters, just like every night, and feelings hit too hard for me to stand. I bend at the waist and cling to the windowsill. I won't scream. I won't throw myself against the walls until the supports give and we fall into the ocean. I won't think about swimming as hard as I can.

And the fact that it wasn't a happily ever after should have pissed me off (as it usually does), but I felt oddly hopeful in the end -- despite how I really shouldn't -- as they were both resigned to their own fates. (Neither MC dies, so you can unclench now.) And he opens his mouth, and I'm ready for anger and spit and fire, but instead it's just the smallest voice in the world. "What did you call me?" I busted my ass to get this book. I can't even count the times my requests were declined, but I kept on requesting, just so Simon & Schuster could really see how desperate I was to read this damn book. Trust me, after the masterpiece that was Gone, Gone, Gone, I would read anything this woman writes. Overall, I feel Teeth is a very brave attempt on Moskowitz' part. Not many YA authors would dare tread on such a delicate and dark territory. My problems with this book don't have anything to do with what Moskowitz did or didn't do right - it's just that I don't love the genius of it even though I recognize it. In this brilliant debut book, hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “a call for sweeping, radical change,” veteran health journalist Mary Otto looks inside America’s mouth, revealing unsettling truths about our unequal society.

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TRIGGER WARNING : GRAPHIC abuse. I would not recommend it to any reader who can't cope with it (and I completely understand why) No. He'll save me. It's his turn. He would never ever miss his turn. I'm smiling just thinking about it. I'm smiling... This is the first book I've read by this author. I've heard people praise her and from what I've seen on goodreads, she seems like an awesome human being. So when I saw this on Edelweiss, I decided to request it. I didn't think I'd get approved because I always seem to get denied when it comes to the books I really want. But I got it! Moskowitz’s writing style has developed into this amazing, quirky thing, with sentences that surprise a laugh out of you not only because they’re funny, but because of how they’re constructed. She has a way of making these sentences seem like a natural thought process of her main character, an ability that gave Rudy a very authentic voice. Even with all the layers and metaphors and connections with Kafka, what truly kept me reading was this lost and lonely teenage boy and his complicated feelings towards his family. When I was a kid, I always felt like I needed to keep her safe. She was made of marshmallows and candy canes and she knew twenty hundred lullabies.