About the Book
-
Author:
- Andrew Joseph White
Cover Story: Montell Jordan
BFF Charm: Big Sister
Talky Talk: Pierce the Veil
Bonus Factor: Representation
Anti-Bonus Factor: Patriarchy
Relationship Status: Wake Up Call
Content Warning: White includes this note at the start of the book: “The Spirit Bares Its Teeth contains transphobia, ableism, graphic violence, sexual assault, discussions of forced pregnancy and miscarriage, mentions of suicidal ideation, and extensive medical gore.” He suggests you have a rag to bite (or don’t read the book if any of those things are triggering).
Cover Story: Montell Jordan
This cover is stunning. It’s super gothic and a little creepy with all of the eyes, but looking at it as a whole gives me the right kind of shivers. Plus, the physical hardcover version has metallic elements (the shard of glass the person in the middle is holding, elements in the frame around them, and the title) and the old-fashioned texture of the cover is the kind I want to run my fingers over like I would the fur of a soft puppy.
The Deal:
Silas Bell wants to be a surgeon. He’s fascinated by people from a medical perspective and has studied through his brother, who’s a doctor himself. The only problem is: Everyone thinks Silas is a girl named Gloria, a girl with violet eyes that indicate a prime breeding candidate for The Speakers, a group of powerful men who can pierce the veil between the living and the dead and use ghostly magic for their own gain.
When Silas attempts to become a Speaker himself, disguised as a different young man and reveals himself while trying to repair a grievous injury, he’s taken to a “hospital” for young women with Veil sickness, a fake disease that only serves to keep women—and Silas—down. He soon realizes that there’s something very amiss at the hospital, and sets out to reveal the truth, at any cost.
BFF Charm: Big Sister
In addition to being a trans boy, Silas is autistic and pansexual (although none of the labels iare used, given the time period this book is set in). He’s a brilliant boy with a fascinating way of seeing the world, and a truth that deserves to be supported and honored. Of course, the large majority of the people in his life treat him as something lesser, something broken and disturbed. He deserves to have people in his life that lift him up rather than drag him down. And I’d love to be that person for him.
Swoonworthy Scale: 8
While at the hospital, Silas meets an unexpected kindred spirit who quickly becomes something more. He laments the fact that they found each other in such dire circumstances, but they both lean on each other—both physically and emotionally—and make the best of a horrible situation.
Talky Talk: Pierce the Veil
White doesn’t shy away from graphic depictions of medical situations and abuse, and there’s a passage in which Silas performs an emergency abortion after a fellow inmate patient slices her stomach open that made me almost have to put the book down. But I’m glad I powered through; The Spirit That Bares Its Teeth is a powerful novel that will stick with me for a long time. It’s impressive when an author can make you laugh, cry, cheer, and queasy in the span of 380 pages, and even more impressive when the combination of all that is housed in such a powerful story.
“When something terrible happens—or at least, when you learn about it—it feels like it should affect the entire world. It feels like something should change. But it doesn’t.”
Bonus Factor: Representation
Silas struggles with his truths throughout the book, and there’s no label for anything that he is in the era in which he lives; no internet to help him look up his symptoms and characteristics; no social media to help him connect to other people who feel the same way he does. He’s put into a literal haunted house to “fix” him, and yet he knows deep down that nothing is wrong with him, although he does have a believable amount of bad days. I feel like a lot of teens will connect with Silas on a number of levels, for a number of reasons, and that’s so, so important in a world like ours.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Patriarchy
Although The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is set in an alternate universe in the late 1800s, the struggles of women, queer folk—basically, anyone who’s not a white, well-off man—feel very modern. It is such a downer (understatement) to realize that the mistakes of our past just. keep. happening.
Relationship Status: Wake Up Call
You challenged me, Book, and even made me uncomfortable. But I needed to be shocked out of my stupor, and I value the message you shared. I’m not going to stop thinking about our time together for a long while.
Literary Matchmaking
Jennie Wood’s A Boy Like Me also features a trans boy who’s struggling against what everyone in his life assumes and expects him to be and do.
Anna-Marie McLemore’s Dark and Deepest Red is another historical fantasy featuring a fake disease, a persecuted community, and queer characters.
Mindy McGinnis’s The Female of the Species is a contemporary novel that deals with similar themes in an equally powerful (and often graphic) way.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Peachtree Teen, but got neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is available now.
