Chandler Baker | Cutting Teeth

The Book: 

Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker
Published July 18, 2023 by Flatiron Books
Date read: July 19, 2023

The Characters: 

Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon

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The Plot (from Goodreads):

Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood—their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. Their children, though, disrupt their plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood.

Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds.
Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects . . . and so are their mothers.

As the police begin to look more closely, the children’s ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious. Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, Cutting Teeth explores the standards society holds mothers to—along with the ones to which we hold ourselves—and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

How did Cutting Teeth end?

Click here for book spoilers for Cutting Teeth
Book spoilers ahead–if you haven’t yet read Cutting Teeth, I suggest you turn back now.

The Reveal:

Pastor Ben was siphoning funds from the youth center project. Erin was the sister of a boy Ben had killed in their youth. Ben found Marybeth in the classroom looking for evidence and tried to strangle her. Marybeth had a stroke (those headaches weren’t nothing) and woke up in the hospital.

The Ending:

Marybeth thought Noelle had killed Erin. Really, Ben had hurt her and left her to die, and Noelle was drawn to the smell of blood. Erin was still alive but in need of help, but Marybeth killed her to protect Noelle.

The Review: 

Thank you to @macmillan.audio for this gifted ALC.

This book was so bizarre and so much fun to read. It’s mostly a murder mystery, but has a lot of commentary on how motherhood forces you to give everything you have to your children–literally blood, sweat, and tears. I laughed out loud at some passages.

I loved Chandler Baker’s little Easter eggs of narrating a few passages. What a fun way to get the author involved in the audiobook process. I also loved to learn that she listens to audiobooks “aggressively quickly” just like I do!

I flew through this listen and enjoyed it the whole way. It’s certainly unique, and I highly recommend it for a lighthearted mystery.

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