Horror Annotation

Baby Teeth
by Zoje Stage

Genre: Psychological Horror
Publication: St Martin’s Press (2018)
ISBN: 978-1-250-17075-0
Number of Pages: 304 
Summary:

Hanna is seven years old and hates her mother; she terrorizes her at every possible moment, refuses to go to a school of any kind, and weaponizes her selective muteness to her mother's detriment. Suzette just wants to be a good housewife and mother, unlike her own, but juggling the symptoms of her autoimmune disease, mental illnesses, and Hannah's  behavioral problems makes it impossible. Caught in between is Alex, Hanna's father and Suzette's husband, a loving and devoted man to his family, but cannot see the manipulative and threatening behavior of his daughter. 

Hanna loves her father and wants her mother out of the picture for good.
“Daddy was the most handsome man in the world. He dressed nicely, in crisp shirts and colorful ties, and his favorites were the ones she picked our for him. When she grew up she’d marry him, and then Mommy wouldn’t be competition anymore.” Hanna puts on an innocent face for her father which drives a wedge between her parents when Alex refuses to believe Suzette about Hanna's creepy behavior.

Tone & Pacing: 

The beginning is a slow, suspenseful build into a disturbing thriller. The plot never drags--while Hanna is only beginning to escalate to violent tendencies, the backstory we get from Suzette, her own abusive mother, her romance with Alex, and her history of Crohn's disease are engrossing enough. However, I never felt the sensation of fear that forced me to turn each page; my own annoyance at Hanna prompted a leisurely read for me.

Characterization & Language: 

The novel seperates itself through the two perspectives of Suzette and Hanna. 

 

Suzette is a sympathetic and compelling character--no one, specifically Suzette of all people, deserves a child quite like Hannah. The true horror of the book is Stage's descriptions of Suzette's management of her Crohn's disease. Compared to Hanna's own actions, I felt repulsed and disgusted at the lengthy details of Suzette's digestive tract and frequently paused my reading to thank my own intestine's for working properly. While reading her sections, I felt her exhaustion.

Hanna is not scary; she's annoying. Her attempts at being a 'Creepy child' are a nuisance and I frequently stopped my reading to roll my eyes and outwardly say "are you done yet?" As she is only 7 years old, she is written as clearly intelligent beyond her years that approaches unbelievable and ridiculous. She is selectively mute--she can only growl and bark--to the disappointment to Alex, yet she can still muster up the ability to say some foreboding sentences to her mother--she isn't Hanna, she is Marie-Anne Dufosset, a witch burned at the stake in France in the 17th century. 

Alex just wants a gifted child and is blind to anything besides Hanna's beyond-her-age intelligence. Like his role as a parent, he is central and important, but feels missing from the crux of the situation. He works to support his family as the owner of a design firm (and because is is Swedish, Stage suggests that his designs are akin to an IKEA showroom).

Characteristics of the Horror Genre:

1. There is a dark tone entrenched within the novel--as haunting as an nightmarish IKEA can be anyway--but the Hanna's terror never evoked the appropriate emotional response.
2. There is a touch of graphic violence; the intended impact is the threat of violence from Hanna--she enters her mother's bedroom to cut off chunk of her hair with scissors and the imagery of Hanna standing over her mother's sleeping and defenseless body with a blade is noted. Additionally, Hanna's interest in continually watching her parents have sex definitely enhance the feeling of horror, possibly in an unconventional sense.
3. The ending is definitely unresolved.
4. Stage is a talented writer in descriptive imagery in relation to Suzette
5. Hanna is supposed to be sinister, possibly the reincarnation or possessed by a "witch," as she haunts and terrorizes her own mother.

Read-alikes:

The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong 

Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

The Bad Seed by Willaim March