Review--Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

 

A young woman in need of a transformation finds herself in touch with the animal inside in this gripping, incisive novel from the author of Cackle and The Return.

Rory Morris isn't thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby's father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she'd put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she's attacked.

Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She's unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver--and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She's changing into someone else--something else, maybe even a monster. But does that mean she's putting those close to her in danger? Or is embracing the wildness inside of her the key to acceptance?

This darkly comedic love story is a brilliantly layered portrait of trauma, rage, and vulnerability.

 

I finally picked up a Rachel Harrison book and thought I'd start with Such Sharp Teeth, because werewolves! I wasn't entire sure what to expect from the story. Something mysterious, something borderline horror...something good! But once again, I found myself reading something entirely different from my expectations. Sadly, this one read a lot like a contemporary novel where the heroine just happens to turn into a werewolf.

Rory takes a leave of absence from her career in the big city to help her twin sister out who is pregnant. She's about seven months along at the start of the novel, so Rory figures she'll stick around for a few months after the baby is born. Scarlett's boyfriend pulled a runner when he found out about the pregnancy, so Rory is obligated to help, and she wants to too. Coming back home after years away is surreal to her, but she finds herself talking to her old friend, Ian, from high school who she knew had a crush on her. And perhaps she is now seeing him in a new light. On her way home from the bar though, trouble strikes.

When Rory accidentally hits a deer on her way home, she gets out for at first, she wasn't sure what she hit and then when she investigates she soon learns what the deer was running from; a massive wolf who takes chase and Rory runs. Rory barely survives the encounter, but lives to tell the tale.

And life moves on. After recovering, Rory does start to notice little things that seem different. She notices smells a lot more, her sister's dog now hates her, she craves meat a lot, and her senses seem heightened. As the days go by, she starts researching what might be happening to her and the term werewolf pops up a lot and she starts to wonder. Needless to say her answers are confirmed on the night of the full moon. Rory is in fact a werewolf now.

With such an intense and fast opening, I was hoping for something exciting to follow this revelation. I can understand the downward slope in pacing due to Rory needing to come to terms with her new set in life. There's things to learn, she has to realize she's changing and all that. But afterwards, after that full moon? I was not expecting everything to just go back to normal. We are talking blatantly normal.

I guess to mix it up a bit, we learn that Rory suffered something pretty traumatic as a child that put a restraint on her relationship with her mother. Sometimes things with her sister seem a little unsteady? As a non-contemporary reader, I would assume this is par for the course. Where there's no action, we deal with feelings and the past and just all that kind of stuff.

You're probably surprised I didn't DNF this one, well, in a way, I am too. I guess I kept hoping there would be some spontaneous murders popping up. Did Rory accidentally kill someone while she was a wolf? What about the wolf who bit her? Would we turn it into a mystery where Rory is determined to find them and figure out why they did this to her? Nope and nope. None of that. We dealt with feelings; both past and present.

If it wasn't for the fact that Rory was a werewolf, I would've so DNF'd this after a few chapters. But I kept hoping and holding out for some big shift in the novel to amp up the game. Sadly, that did not come. It wasn't integral to the story apparently. I will say, we do learn who bit Rory and honestly, I saw it coming pretty much from the get-go. It felt obvious to me. But sadly, even this just didn't do much to add anything to the story.

It was truly one of those "everyday lifestyles" of this character who just happens to be a newly turned werewolf. No murders. No mystery. Nothing whatsoever other than a young woman trying to deal with being a supernatural creature. So yeah, a bit of a letdown if I am perfectly honest. I do distantly recall reading books like this in the past where there just didn't seem to be any real kind of story or conflict. The conflict here was Rory learning what it means to be a werewolf. Plain and simple. She also is still human with an ordinary life to be lived and we see that too, in great detail.

There was the bit of romance she had with her friend from high school. That was cute, but Rory isn't really the commitment type so even that kind of made me not like her all too much as a character. Granted, she goes through lots of changes in the story so it's kind of predictable as to where she winds up.

All in all, not what I had expected from the book with that cover and subject matter. It was mildly disappointing since I kept waiting for that other shoe to drop, but apparently, there was never another shoe. I can only hope the next Harrison book I pick up has a little something more to it. If you're a reader looking to slowly dip your toe into the paranormal world, this would be a good start as the paranormal only plays a very, very small role in things.

 

Overall Rating 2.5/5 stars