by Andrew Joseph White
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2023
400 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
A blood-soaked and nauseating triumph that cuts like a scalpel and reads like your darkest nightmare.
Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.
London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old trans, autistic Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife.
After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton's Finishing School and Sanitorium. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton's innards and expose its guts to the world—so long as the school doesn't break him first.
Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White's much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.
"Redefines the concept of a 'visceral' book... . parallels to the dangerous pressure to conform (especially for trans or autistic teens) and the importance of being seen and understood are masterfully shown... . readers, take care." —Booklist (starred review)
"White wields prose like a scalpel, cutting deep and spilling guts with gruesome precision... . Visceral and vindicating." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] riveting, spellbinding Victorian horror about a neurodivergent trans boy desperate to escape the life his family has planned for him... . White shows in this sharp, tense novel the same kind of visceral prose that garnered such acclaim for his debut, Hell Followed with Us." —Shelf Awareness
"A book that cracks and spreads the ribs before massaging your heart underneath, this is a must-read that will haunt you long after it's over, proving that Andrew Joseph White is the reigning king, draping visceral horror in a feral kind of hope." —Jamison Shea, author of I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me
"Andrew Joseph White brings his phenomenal talent and searing prose to an unflinching tale of a violet-eyed boy, desperate spirits, and very human monsters. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is as brutal and necessary as a surgical incision." —Kate Alice Marshall, author of Rules for Vanishing and What Lies in the Woods
This information about The Spirit Bares Its Teeth was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrew Joseph White is a queer, trans author from Virginia, where he grew up falling in love with monsters and wishing he could be one too. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2022 and has a habit of cuddling random street cats. Andrew writes about trans kids with claws and fangs, and what happens when they bite back.
The Wren, the Wren
by Anne Enright
An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.
The September House
by Carissa Orlando
A dream home becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.
25 Copies to Give Away!
A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
