Review: Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

Title: Teeth 

Author: Hannah Moskowitz 

Rating: 5 Stars

Can you hear that? It's the sound of tiny shards of glass blowing away in the wind. You know what those shards of glass used to be before I picked up this book? My heart. Yes, this book destroyed my heart and didn't patch it up, but I would give my heart to Hannah Moskowitz all over again to have it thus broken if it meant I got to read such beautiful books. I am a masochist at times, I know.

Teeth is unlike anything I've read before or am ever likely to read in the future - and I'm glad. I doubt any other author could tackle this story with the amount of beauty and finesse that Moskowitz has.

Our breath-taking tale starts out on an imaginary island. An island with magic fish who can cure sick humans. Rudy and his family move to the island in the hopes that the fish can cure his youngest brother - and slowly, they do. Yet, for an island so devoid of life, it harbors a dark secret: Teeth. Rudy meets Teeth, an ugly fish-boy, soon after moving and before long, the two have struck an unlikely friendship. When Teeth begins to seek Rudy's help to free the magic fish that are captured every day - fish who are the only family that Teeth has - Rudy risks losing his younger brother to his sickness. Suddenly, the lines of friendships between Rudy and Teeth are no longer so clear. Even worse, Rudy meets Diana, the only other teenager on the island with him and a girl who stays locked up in her house all day. A girl whose mother sobs in the bathroom every Tuesday. A girl with a connection to Teeth. In the midst of all these separate, but broken, pieces, Teeth is the only link and with his ever-changing relationship with Rudy, it seems impossible to save the secret that the island so vehemently despises.

Hannah Moskowitz has always been one for the original story lines and Teeth is no different. In fact, it might just be the strangest of all her works, but perhaps it is also the most heart-felt. You see, if I could, I would run onto the tallest building in the world and chuck this book at everyone passing by. It wouldn't hurt so much, especially as it's such a slender volume, but the words and story inside will rip you up and leave you sobbing in a curled up mess for days afterwards. This is the magic of Teeth. It has the ability to suck you into its world, its strange island and its even stranger inhabitants and before you know it, you're no longer sitting in a comfortable chair with a blanket and coffee. You're tasting the salty spray of the sea, you're falling in love with Teeth despite his ugly demeanor, and your heart is breaking, again and again and again.

What stands out to me about Teeth is, first and foremost, the prose. It's beautiful. In fact, I went more than a little highlighter crazy with this novel and I can't say I'm ashamed about it at all. Once you get past the beautiful writing, however, is the characterization. If there's one thing you can expect from a Moskowitz novel, it's for the characters to come alive for you and wedge their way into your heart. Rudy is an instantly likable narrator, bitter about leaving his friends at home and living on a remote island, all because his younger brother is sick. Yet, at the same time, he shares an immense amount of love for his brother, expressing it the only way he knows how. For someone with a younger brother myself, I can already vouch for the genuineness and authenticity of the familial bond portrayed in this novel, one that touches your heart in more ways than one.

With such a strong family bond and attachment to Rudy, his parents, and his younger brother, we now have the dilemma that Teeth brings with him. At first, Teeth is a rather strange character, one that, as the reader, it is impossible to know what to think of. With the progression of the novel, however, Teeth becomes every bit as real to us as Rudy and his bond of friendship - or something a little more - with Rudy is just as compelling as Rudy's bond with his younger brother. With each chapter that we read, layers of Teeth's past and his difficult life are slowly revealed to us, beginning the progression of heart-break throughout the novel. Teeth is such a deep, devastating, and depressed being that it is impossible not to love him, to want to help him and be there for him always. Even better, it is him who is willing to sacrifice his family of magical fish if push comes to shove. For Teeth, who has no family and whose existence itself is a mystery, it is the magical fish of the island that he is related to who make up his life.

Teeth is a story of friendship and courage, of love and bravery, of heart-break and wonder. It is the story of Rudy and Teeth, of their developing relationship and of the obstacles that stand in their way. Of Rudy's unrelentless loyalty to his brother and Teeth's unrelentless loyalty to his brothers. Of the blurred lines in their friendship. Of fishermen who torture Teeth - of an island who hates their secret. Of a girl who knows more about Teeth than anyone else. Of a quest to prolong the lives of magical fish, of sick human beings, and find a place - or a person - to belong to. It is truly impossible for me to express what this book is, what this book means, or the feelings it evokes. I struggle to put my feelings for this book into words, but it's incredible. Just...read it, okay? Read it.