A solid, creepy suspense novel that interrogates the possibility of unconditional love under unusually trying circumstances. Namely: Would you be able to still love your seven-year-old daughter if she came at you with a hammer? Should you?

Baby Teeth isn’t perfect, but it was a fun reading experience. I spent a lot of time ranting about the characters, feeling genuine rage at their actions and poor decisions. I love the catharsis of screaming at a book, and Baby Teeth made damn sure that I got to do that.

I knocked off one star primarily due to qualms I have with the second act. There’s a red herring that I wish had been explored more, because it would have taken this book to darker places and would have set up so much more tension between two of the characters. As it is, the book just seems temporarily unsure about which characters the reader should consider worthy of empathy. I understand the introduction of this moral ambiguity, but it sacrifices some of the plot’s momentum and leads to an ending that could have packed more of a wallop than it does.

I guess this is me saying that I wish Baby Teeth were a less restrained book than it is, whatever that implies about me. I’ll be eagerly anticipating Zoje Stage’s future books to see if she really Goes There.