I absolutely flew through this book. I totally wasn't expecting to be so gripped by it, but every chapter I found something to relate to, hungry for the next thing and the next thing. Jessica Andrews is a stunning writer, with sharp prose and cutting insights into contemporary life.

The quick writing style reflects the frenzied nature of the protagonist: short chapters, dashing onto the next anecdote before you realise you're there, are the perfect form for this story. We have two timelines. One is a love story, of a woman in her twenties who doesn't know whether to follow her new lover to Barcelona. Is this right, is it what she wants for herself? The other is a coming of age story, in which a young girl grapples with understanding her own desire. Desire for food, friendship, sex and romance.

cw: eating disorders.

You don't often see discussion of how 'thin' glamour culture affect specifically the working class women. It's perceived as a very middle-class, white problem, but this book delves into how the dangerous, Kate Moss-trends of the noughties were so pervasive, especially for teen girls. I'm the wrong age for my experience of growing up to match the protagonist's exactly, but some of the scenes struck a scarily familiar chord. So many of us know what it is to deny ourselves something, for fear of what it means if we accept it, what it will mean for our bodies and the way we're percieved. Fundamentally, this is what the book is about, that relationship between hunger, wanting, and denial.

A short, but very sweet, read that tugs the heartstrings. I'd recommend this to fans of Deborah Levy, Sally Rooney or Elena Ferrante - except it's also completely different to any of those books. I've not read Saltwater, but I'll certainly be seeking it out.

2.5 rounded up. Milk Teeth is the kind of book that I would’ve loved perhaps five years ago, but now – in my jaded and nihilistic old age (of 29) – I found it slightly overdramatic and overwritten. It’s full of very grandiose statements like “I don’t want him but I want to be wanted, to feel shiny and powerful, less permeable, someone solid” and “’do you ever wonder who London is for?’” Both the protagonist and her love interest are slightly unbearable, although gems such as “I wonder if anyone actually knows what they want, truly and deeply, without people or situations clouding their judgement” do slip through. I also resonated with her childhood experiences, and I appreciate Andrews’ work to normalise female sexuality developing at a young age. The parts that really made my eyes roll were the nonsensical, needlessly theatrical similes – “your voice breaks around my shoulders like a wave” – and metaphors(?! It’s been too long since I did my degree) – “I can smell the power in my own skin, creamy and bitter, like burnt milk”. I’m not sure if this, again, is my pessimistic outlook on contemporary literature/writing, but I can only assume that these survived edits because they are generally consider…edgy? But they only came across as pretentious, and interrupted my reading flow. The angsty teenager that still occupies a large part of me was drawn to this book, but my today self found it a bit underwhelming and irritating.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC

Andrews writing is beautiful, this is definitely a book to be annotated and quoted from for sure.
A heart breaking look at how women try to shrink themselves to fit in told in small snippets of our main characters life while simultaneously following on her current dating journey.

However because the chapters are so short it sometimes takes you out of rhythm of the story.

‘I needed to learn how to look at the woman inside me without flinching, learn how to feed her and care for her, to recognise her as me.’

—

Andrews writes in beautiful and lyrical prose, reminiscent of Lisa Taddeo, intertwining chapters seamlessly, meaning you just fly through the book, even though the content itself is not chronological, but rather a dissection of the protagonist’s life. I found myself highlighting something on every other page, and making notes as I went, so this review wasn’t written after I finished the book like my others, instead I compiled it while reading. Now let’s see if I can string those thoughts together to write a cohesive review..

‘Milk Teeth’ doesn’t shy away from heavy topics. It discusses body dysmorphia, addiction, anxiety and eating disorders, as well as all the loneliness and frustration that come with people you care about listening but not hearing your cries for help and need for support.

The vivid descriptions of the three cities at the centre of the book, Barcelona, England, Paris, exposed their nuances and intricacies in a way I hadn’t read before. This imagery simultaneously gave us a look into the protagonist’s conscious as the descriptions often reflected her mood, another aspect i really enjoyed.

This book also discusses toxic relationships. When he manipulates you into thinking it’s your fault that the night’s gone sour because you called him out on something he did wrong. And it happens over and over until you make so many compromises that you’re no longer yourself. It’s about trying so desperately hard to become someone you’re not because you’re desperate to hold onto something that will inevitably slip through your fingers anyway.

The book also uses second person, which reminded me of ‘In the Dream House’ Machado, a book I love and recommend to everyone. The second person creates an accusatory tone in the book and really has an impact on the reader, at least that’s what I found. You see the main character’s mistakes and you wish she wouldn’t make them again and again, acknowledging how hard it is to form new habits, and break out of old ones. Andrews beautifully explores the monotony and repetitiveness of life. The novel meditates on feelings of denial, emphasising the need to learn acceptance and the importance of letting go.

This is the kind of book I wish I’d written.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is about a young female born in England with a father who is never around. She has issues with how she looks. I found this to be depressing as she is constantly obsessed. The main character is not very likeable and her views on things are a bit meh. Yet, like another author who’s writing was elegant but had a depressing outlook (Sylvia Plath) the writing was at least decent.

I thought I was going to love this - I really enjoyed Andrews’ debut novel Saltwater - but I found it a bit overwritten and abstract for my liking. The unnamed narrator find her life underwhelming, not knowing what to do with her time and seemingly terrible at making decisions, so it was hard to properly care about what she did do in the end, which was pretty much just follow a man to Barcelona and then continue her apathetic existence. Don’t get me wrong, I saw a lot of myself in Milk Teeth and that’s why I kept reading, but I don’t necessarily think that makes for an engaging novel.

🦷Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews🦷
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

When I began to read Milk Teeth, I thought I'd be rating it as a pretty meh book, but then within a few pages, I was hooked; I knew it was going to be spectacular.

The writing was excellent poignant, descriptive and lyrical, flowing so beautifully. It was so easy to just carry on and on with the reading until, before you know it, the final page has arrived. I am so impressed that I want to read everything Andrews has ever written - I have Saltwater downloaded as an audiobook, and it's now bumped up the priority list.

The plot is non-chronological, flipping between our unnamed protagonist's present and past relationships as she attempts to come to terms with her life expectations, wants and regrets, predominantly that she's not living up to her potential.

“I think about all the years I have struggled to articulate myself in my own language, pushing my words into my body instead."

"I needed to learn how to look at the woman inside me without flinching, learn how to feed her and care for her, to recognise her as me.”

Andrews deftly covers the toxic diet and body culture of the early 2000s with our young protagonist, who, for most of her life, has been subjected to this culture from magazines, television shows, friends and family in her life etc.

Her struggles as she juggles thoughts about herself, her body, and questioning will people genuinely want to love her for herself or purely on how she looks are painfully and realistically portrayed.

The book is heavy with heartbreak, loneliness, want and desire, but there's plenty of love and positivity too.

As the title suggests, it's about letting
go of the past and becoming who you are destined to be.

Overall, a poignant and spellbinding read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this ARC in return for an honest review.

I wanted to really like this book but the constant jumping and back and forth in the time line became annoying. In part, because so many contemporary books do this and it has become (for me) a very tired way of tellling a story and often frustrating. Our unnamed narrator escapes to London as soon as she is able from a toxic family situation In Durham. Taught to feel shame about her body and looks she has an eating disorder and we follow her as she tries to become less self destructive and more comfortable in her skin. I think this will appeal to younger women, especially those who may be experiencing similar issues. It was a bit navel gazing for me in my present state of mind and time of life.

I loved Jessica Andrew's debut Saltwater so was extremely excited to be approved for her new novel! Much like Saltwater this flits between past & present in short chapters and dreamy prose.

Our unnamed narrator grew up in Durham and leaves for London as soon as she as able. The pervasive diet culture during her formative years forces her into disordered eating that she struggles with the entirety of the book. She then meets a man and not long after their relationship he moves to Barcelona. She joins him. She struggles with belonging and not knowing what kind of life she wants for herself, whether she can even make the life she wants at all.

I enjoyed this so much, especially the food writing which might be strange to say considering so much of it comes from a place of disordered eating. This is a book that I know I will be thinking about for quite some time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sceptre/Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to review this book!

Jessica Andrews is an author I think I like more than I actually do. Everyone raves about her prose so much I forget I actually find it oversaturated and too abstract and full of meaningless metaphors. I read Saltwater long before people on bookstagram started being obsessed with it, and I liked it but didn't love it. I feel similarly about Milk Teeth. It's about an unnamed narrator from County Durham, her relationship with food and her body and taking up space, and how all that changes when she meets someone new and finds herself drawn to Barcelona. I liked the story at the heart of this book, and I read it in a day and a half. I don't really know what I liked about the story; maybe it's just that fiction centring on young women and their London lives always appeals to me.

But despite the speed with which I read this, I feel completely underwhelmed. Milk Teeth darts between the past and the present, but I was nearly entirely uninterested in the flashback chapters, and the present-day chapters were so detached and abstract that I found it hard to connect. There's Normal People levels of miscommunication, but delivered without Sally Rooney's finesse, and the book often read like a long list of 'here's all the ways I feel like I need to punish my body' and 'here's all the things I did in Barcelona'. I finished feeling like I didn't actually know anything about any of the characters in the book, other than their pivotal trauma. Speaking of, the central theme is reiterated far too often, to the point of overexplanation; I felt like I read different variations of the same paragraph at least fifty times, and I'm not sure what each reiteration was supposed to add.

I'll probably be in the minority with this opinion, but I guess I wanted more of Milk Teeth. I'll definitely read whatever Jessica Andrews writes next because I think she's a cool person and because I too am a female writer from a working-class background not from the south of England and I guess I really appreciate a mainstream literary fiction author writing about this kind of thing. Anyway. Not for me but I'm sure it'll be for lots of other people.

❤️‍🔥REVIEW: MILK TEETH BY JESSICA ANDREWS❤️‍🔥

Nobody was as excited as I am to be approved for Jessica Andrews long-awaited second novel Milk Teeth on Netgalley. According to NASA, the squeal I made could be heard in space.

Everything about this book was sensational. I remember the feeling I had reading Saltwater and, although I got a slight Rooney vibe overall, I felt like I hadn't read anything quite like it. Milk Teeth was the same.

I loved that the story had so much to give. From the protagonists unease around love and her body image to the incredible detail in every single page. Like Saltwater, I love that it's very ~reader friendly~ in that the chapters are short and sweet, but even though they're compact, the segments are full to the brim with so much.

I could partially relate to he protagonist in a few ways, that's why reading Milk Teeth felt like such an incredible experience. From body issues to the idea of being undeserving of love, you really stand side by side with her and she goes through this part of her life.

The story weaves in and out of the past and the present, packaging up quite nicely a story that makes you feel less alone in your loneliness and reminding you that you are at the helm of your life.

Here are some quotes I adored from Milk Teeth:

I had often wondered whether my passage through the world would be different if I wasn't a young woman, whether I would be taken more seriously or if I would have more power. I had tried to imagine how it might feel to inhabit a body that I was less aware of, that I rarely thought about, that was just a part of me.

I sat in the grass trying to breathe evenly, thinking about all the best were I had spent burrowing my feelings in the darkness of my body. I wondered if I could learn how to brsis them into the rope of a sentence, so I could reach down my throat and pull it out.

Milk Teeth is coming out in July and I urge you all to buy it. Especially if you loved Saltwater.

Thank you again #netgalley and Hachette for the honour.

💘

Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews is a novel about belonging and identity, love and loneliness, self-image struggles.

In this novel we meet a young girl who is growing up in a society where she's judged on what she eats and how she looks. This follows her through her life and the novel looks at her oast and present and how the trauma of growing up impacts her adult life. Beautiful prose and vivid descriptions of food make this an enjoyable read

Where to even begin with Milk teeth by Jessica Andrews! Well firstly let me just say, this was my first Jessica Andrews book and oh you can betcha that i will be getting to Saltwater ASAP. What’s even better is that I’ve got it out from the library right now 😍.

So my first Jessica Andrews book experience was a complete and utter success! A book that wowed and flawed me in so many ways. The writing for one 👀👀 Now I could go on about the writing (well this whole book) for days, just so flowy like your just travelling down a lazy river relaxing and just seemed to just entrance you by taking in each word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph.

Told in one of my favourite book structures of having short chapters in long chapters, In this vignette kind of style it was so easy to just carry on and on with reading until before you know it the final page has arrived.

Now a little bit about the book.
Jessica Andrews writes about the toxic diet and body culture of the early 2000s
Following a young woman who for most of her life been susceptible to Said Toxic culture from magazines, tv shows, people in her life etc etc. we see her as she juggles thoughts about herself, her body and questioning will people truly want to love her.
Flipping between past and present as while we are following our protagonist in the now, we also see snippets of her childhood and teenage years.

A book about love, loss, healing and navigating a world/culture that tries and tells you to be accepted and successful in society you have to look a certain Type of way. What a belter of a book this truly was and it’s easily in my top favs of 2022

TW: Eating disorders

After reading Saltwater last year and falling head over heels for it, I was incredibly excited to be given early access to Milk Teeth on kindle. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this!

Andrews is back with more poetic and mesmerising prose. Many of the themes from Saltwater were similar in this book. A young female protagonist, born in North-East England, with an absentee father and issues with her self-image - but primarily, trying to understand her place in the world, especially in relation to others (whereas in Saltwater this person was her mother, in Milk Teeth it’s her current partner). Milk Teeth has the added bonus of being partially set in Spain. Evoking this setting through this novel was irresistible and sublime.

However, despite my enjoyment, I didn’t fall head over heels for this in the same way as her previous book. Whereas I felt great affinity for the protagonist in Saltwater, I grew tired and annoyed of this one. Sections felt relatable, but this time it felt almost too earnest and navel-gazing. She was contradictory, hypocritical, selfish and cruel at times. If Andrews was looking to create an unreliable and dislikable narrator, she succeeded. But something tells me that this was not the primary aim. Perhaps it’s just me.

Overall, if you liked Saltwater I’d still recommend this. The writing style is similarly gorgeous!

Jessica Andrews' work is always unique, surprising, honest, raw, engrossing - her voice undeniably distinctive. Milk Teeth has an intriguing plot, and, as ever, I love how Andrews weaves vignettes together, part-narrative, part-memoir. Personally, I did not really enjoy the super-flowery language (it felt a bit laboured at times), which is why I have to rate it 3. BUT I'm very aware that this is my personal opinion, and would encourage anyone to give it a go, particularly if they love to read very modern poetical, confessional prose.

Gah, it’s official, I love Jessica Andrews.

Like Saltwater (also by Andrews, also loved), Milk Teeth has a dreamlike and meandering character-based plot. Andrews writes with such lyricism that a grotty house party in a mouldy flat in London, feels just as ethereal as staring up at a full moon in the Pyrenees.

Milk Teeth is 295 pages living in the body of a woman tugging at and hiding away the parts of her body she doesn’t feel comfortable with. It is at times uncomfortable, heartbreaking and frustrating, but also strangely familiar and soothing. A really lovely book.

I loved Jessica Andrews's first book and this book did not disappoint. Fast-paced 'coming of age in your late 20s' novel that is relatable and addictive. I love the prose and style - short paragraphs with past and present interspersed, Her writing is so alive - I was instantly at home in London or Barcelona, and eager to continue reading if I had put the book down. There is a great quote: "My younger self threw her body into dangerous places, chasing the night and the whirling stars, never caring about whether she came back alive ... I wish I had held on to her dreams like balloons, tied their strings around her wrists so that I could look up now and remember them."

This was an incredible book, it was well written with a gripping storyline and an engaging narrative that helped add suspense to the storyline as the reader doesn't know who the narrator is. The characters are well developed and relatable. I loved it.

Milk Teeth follows a restless young woman who meets a man at a party for the opening of her friend’s exhibition. Days later they go dancing and spend the night together sparking a passion that consumes them both. They see each other often: he loves to cook; she fights her constant struggle to eat freely and with appetite. When he’s offered a research position in Barcelona, she's bereft, visiting him for a month which she finds both liberating and constraining. A second visit brings about a crisis and a choice must be made.

Jessica Andrews alternates her unnamed narrator’s past and present, delivering both in short, vivid snapshots. Her writing is striking. The descriptions of food are particularly memorable, emphasising the tensions between the narrator’s appetite and what she will allow herself. Shot through with an aching sadness for this young woman - lost, self-destructive, longing to understand what she wants and needs from life and to be able to take it - it’s an impressive piece of fiction, accomplished and insightful.