Boys with Sharp Teeth is a thrilling and unique read that grabs you from the start. The mix of suspense, dark humor, and mystery keeps you hooked. The characters are complex and well-written, and the world-building is fascinating. While the story sometimes feels a bit unpredictable, it adds to the excitement and keeps you on your toes. It’s a fun, eerie ride that blends supernatural elements with real emotional depth. A great book for anyone looking for something different, with a solid mix of tension and heart.

For all the Dark Academia Fans out there - it was suspensul, had a good plot and the dark vibes were everything! Just the ending left me a little bit hanging, that's why I can't give 5 stars.

I loved the premise of this book, and I've seen so many rave reviews for it, but I found myself really struggling to read it - so this could be a 'me' problem!

I found the characters, inc. the FMC, rather insufferable (perhaps intentional?) which made caring for any of them rather difficult.

I also thought the writing felt overly prescriptive and repetitive in places, especially in the early chapters.

The setting and atmosphere of the book was great! I'm a sucker for dark academia, and the hints towards a potential mystical element are interesting.

However, I've got a never-ending TBR and as a result, I decided to DNF at 39% as I'm normally a fast reader but this has taken a while to get to this point and I just don't care about the characters enough to power through.

If you like dark academia vibe with murder mystery and otherworldly secrets, this is right up your alley. Marin’s cousin was found dead on the school property. Marin take someone’s else identity and go to the Huntsworth Academy to find out the k!ller. But she gets tangled in other mystery. Author has created such a brilliant plot where secrets are deep and truth is twisted. I loved every bit of this book.

Thanks to the Publisher

DNF 12%. Unfortunately, I knew immediately that this wasn't doing anything for me. A great idea but not the best execution. The characters just didn't feel real and the setup felt quite contrived.

Thank you to Scholastic UK and netgalley for this arc.

My first read from this author but definitely not my last. Full of intrigue, intensity and mystery, this was a truly fascinating read and has made me want to read more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC.

Unfortunately this was personally not for me. I have to say that the cover art and synopsis immediately hooked me, however the actual execution fell flat.
I found it very repetitive at times, particularly from the main character feeling the need to constantly remind the reader of her motivations. It very much felt like a tell not show writing style, leaving little for the reader to infer. The relationships also felt contrived to me - especially when considering she is accusing them of murder.
The atmosphere however was well written and gave a lush gothic vibe.
Overall the world building was not there for me and the plot, despite being an interesting premise, was not quite fully explored and developed.

Boys with Sharp Teeth follows Marin, who infiltrates her cousins elite boarding school to get revenge and solve what she thinks is his murder. She meets the three people she thinks are behind his death, and launched into her plan. Unfortunately this book didn’t quite hit the mark for me, and I felt it was a bit too slow, but I enjoyed the dark academia mystery vibes!

*Received an ARC via NetGalley in return for an honest review*

I hate finishing a book and feeling more confused than when I started it.

This book was, disappointing. The first 3 chapters were clean and concise, obviously well polished and engaging, but the quality dropped off and never recovered. The entire book I felt like I was wading through quicksand trying to figure out what was going on, why the characters did the things they did, and how on earth this school hasn't been shut down already. Seriously, the only way I can describe reading this book is when you have the stomach flu and you are laying on your freezing bathroom floor at 3am, lips grey, cold sweat ALL OVER YOU, desperately praying to any and all gods to simply take away your suffering. I felt so constantly confused and spoon fed with obvious mis-leads.

Marin, aka Jamie, is investigating her cousins mysterious death and his 3 "friends" who she suspects of murdering him. Great idea, hauntingly bad execution. Marin is interesting, she is filled with rage and grief, but it is so unrealistic that less than a week after her cousin is found dead she had come up with an elaborate revenge plan, hacked into a fancy boarding school to make a fake admittance record, forged a check for $23 thousand dollars, and managed to waltz into classes having assumed a fake identity.

This is where it starts to fall off, immediately she hates the trio she is stalking (valid), but even as she starts to realise at least 1 of them is genuinely nice and couldn't have possibly done it, she plots to kill the innocent friend! Like, what? Then, she ends up hating the wrong guy (kind of?) and then falling in love with her cousins killer. Then she orchestrates (semi-on purpose) the death of the innocent one, directly kills the semi-guilty one by injecting him with opioids, and then outs the real killer only to end up falling in love with him when he goes to jail because it turns out both of their souls are now kind of trapped in a mirror hell dimension and he's the only one who gets her?! Hello?

This entire book she is raging against her cousins murder, only to completely give up in the end and just decide that she will date his killer from prison?!?!?!

Up until 75% of the way through I was convinced they were all sharing mass delusion and this was actually going to be a story about how privilege kills and rich kids get away with murder all the time, and succumbing to your rage doesn't help anyone, but even with all of the 'philosophy' spoon fed to you the entire book it ended up having NO MORAL MESSAGE WHATSOEVER.

Turns out the 'paranormal' marketing isn't for vampires like the title suggests, ghosts like the first 80% of the book suggests, but instead hell mirror dimensions where souls get trapped and they have to suck the emotions from people to survive ...

I wash my hands of this book. It was a weak 2.5 stars until the last 5 chapters.

Boys With Sharp Teeth follows Marin, a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl hellbent on revenge and uncovering the truth after her beloved cousin, Sam, was found dead under suspicious circumstances; she knows just how to get it too – infiltrate Huntsworth Academy under a fake persona and get close to the group of students that were close to Sam. Marin, assuming the name Jamie, soon finds there are more secrets behind the walls of Huntsworth than she would have previously imagined, lines are blurred in all senses and nothing is as it seems.

From the start, Boys With Sharp Teeth had me hooked. A gritty and gothic dark academic tale at its core, it was full of sharp twists and unpredictable turns that kept me on the edge of my seat.

I quite enjoyed this group of characters. We of course follow the perspective of Jamie (Marin) as she makes her way through her plan to uncover the truth of her cousin’s death, yet we’re caught up in a web of lies, deceit and a masterfully written unreliable narrator. The tides truly kept changing because just when I thought I knew roughly where the story was going, I’d flip a page and then the complete opposite happened.

I did find the pacing a little slow to start with, but then once it started to pick up it seemed to go from 0-100 very quick. Otherwise though I did enjoy this and would recommend it if these are the vibes you’re after.

The premise of Boys With Sharp Teeth sounded intriguing – I loved the idea of Marin James, aka Jamie, infiltrating an elite boarding school to find her cousin’s killer. She finds herself sharing rooms with one of her suspects and quickly gets pulled into his orbit. Adrian Graves and Henry Lu are at the top of the pecking order at Huntsworth Academy: they’re sophisticated, eloquent, but also dysfunctional and disillusioned. As Jamie gets wrapped up in their games, she discovers a dark and eerie secret and before long, the lines between justice and vengeance begin to blur.
I loved the opening of the novel, but found that pacing was a bit slow for the main section of the novel, and I felt that the reading of it dragged for me. While I loved the concept, I struggled to connect properly with Jamie’s character, which likely exacerbated this. Events sped up again towards the end, but by that point the plot had become quite tricky to follow and I ended up feeling quite disappointed with the novel.
This would absolutely have been the type of premise and vibes I normally love. Unfortunately Boys With Sharp Teeth didn’t quite work for me.

I applied for this ARC purely based on the cover and the comparison to The Raven Boys. For me, this was a struggle to get through and nearly ended up as my first DNF of the year.

I can't say I could see where the plot was going, but that's purely because I found the writing to be so chaotic. It was so riddled with angst and drama that it was a really hard read for me.

There is a hint of supernatural goings on (more prevalent at the end of the book) but it really wasn't enough to hold my interest and I found all of the characters (with the exception of Baz) to be completely unlikeable.

I will say that some of the prose is really beautiful, and the author does a good job of creating an atmosphere of loneliness around Marin. For me, it just didn't deliver based on the description.

Boys with Sharp Teeth is an eerie and gripping book about a girl who infiltrates the ivied gates of an elite school. Marin has lived in the shadows of Huntsworth Academy for years, but its not until her cousin is found dead that she steps into the limelight. She has a clear mission- to seek justice by getting close to Adrian Hargraves and Henry Wu, the two boys she blames for the death. But her mission is not quite as simple as she first thought. She is distracted by the dark secrets she uncovers and the boys themselves. Part murder-mystery, part thriller, part supernatural tale- this is a captivating dark academia story.

I enjoyed reading about the darkness inside of Huntsworth Academy and learning more about our main characters (or should I say suspects?). The book keeps you interested with plenty of plot twists and reveals. Both the protagonist and the reader are kept in the dark, so the book feels like a great puzzle that we have to solve. Similarly, Adrian and Henry are like riddles. Marin isn’t sure whether she wants to pull them close and solve them or shove them away from her and escape. This book is full of unhealthy but fascinating relationships.

However, I would say that the plot could be too convenient and predictable at times. For example, Marin (or ‘Jamie’) is conveniently placed close to all of her suspects at the start of the book. It’s also true that some of the clues that Marin finds make it quite easy to guess the direction of the plot. I often find in mysteries written for a YA audience that the author is too heavy handed with their foreshadowing. I like it more when they trust the reader to pick up on very subtle clues rather than repeating important information over and over again. But, once again, this writing style is characteristic of Young Adult mysteries.

I would recommend this book if you love dark books about mysteries, old institutions and obsession. There is also a hint of the supernatural for fans of fantasy books.

I am so disappointed lol.

This had so much potential but I did not like the execution at all nor did I like the ending or the characters. The writing is also very much not my cup of tea and felt like too much at times.

When Marins cousin, Sam, is found dead on the grounds of the illustrious Huntsworth Academy, she just knows the 'friends' he made while he worked there were responsible

So what does Marin too, the obvious, lies her way into the school year to infiltrate the group and find proof they killed Sam

However, she cannot do this as herself so goes in as Jamie Vane and finds herself immediately drawn to Henry, Graves and Baz

With the intent of getting in with them to get to the bottom as Sam's death, Marin (well Jamie actually) fits herself in the group in any way she can

But Marin could never expect what she would find, and to what end....

I loved the dark vibes of this, and fell in love with easy messy character here. I was invested with Marin but also drawn in like she was, not knowing what her new 'friends' were capable of

One of the MMCs being inspired by Hyunjin definitely made this an even better reading experience for me so sharing this fact incase you love it too!

Will be living in the vibes of this one for a bit!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for the review copy, all opinions my own

Despite being VERY hyped for this (loved the cover, description, and vibes - thought it was giving The Raven Boys... Sadly mistaken) This was a real miss. Characterisation was lacking, characters changed moods and opinions with little to know explantation, it felt like the author lost touch with who was who. The violence felt forced. The romance also felt forced. Definitely read as though the author felt no trust with her readers and could not allow any nuance or subtlety. Was so excited for it but unfortunately this was not for me. I will not be formally reviewing it beyond NetGalley.

This was a highly accomplished debut which kept me turning the pages right to the very end. I found myself thinking about the book in between reading sessions, eager to jump back in to Marin's/Jamie's, Henry's, Graves', and Baz's dark, emotive story. I saw this described somewhere as 'peak dark academia', and that certainly fits - I was reminded of The Secret History with its murder mystery, Saltburn with its imposter among the elites, and We Were Villains with its charismatic, complex characters. The author did an excellent job of making me care about the characters and want to know more about them, particularly Adrian. As a former BA and MA student of philosophy, I also personally loved the philosophical themes, quotes, and debates. My only issues with the book were 1) I felt it was longer than it needed to be, some scenes seemed to be making the same point and could be combined/cut, and overall it could perhaps have done with a firmer edit/cut, and 2) the supernatural aspects, while very cool. were slightly unclear to me. I would have liked a plainer explanation of what was going on there. OH - almost forgot - I LOVED the enemies-to-lovers romance. The chemistry between them was top-tier. Bravo!

🩵Boys with Sharp Teeth stars off impeccably, but the story descends into chaos. There was a bit too much chaos and it was a little too slow for my taste, but the opening academic tension was perfection. Please write more dark academia 🙏

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC.

The vibes were here, but the plot and characters disappointed me. Nearly all the characters felt flat and very one-dimensional, while the plot was predictable and lots of telling instead of showing. The writing gave gothic dark academia, but this book wasn't for me.

There is just something so gripping about a dark academia novel, and this one does not disappoint. With morally grey characters and beautiful prose, this book had me on the edge of my seat. It was tense and mysterious, and the fact that it was a debut novel still blows my mind.

Our main characters were written so well. They are incredibly flawed and messy, yet you find yourself loving them and depsite this. In their author's note, Howell touches upon this, and it was something that really resonated with me since reading it. I really liked getting to see the story unravel and seeing how each of them played their part.

This story is dark and gritty, with paranormal elements sprinkled throughout. I did not see a lot for the twists and turns coming, and I found myself hooked. Full of obsession and revenge, I absolutely recommend reading this one. Just make sure there are no mirrors nearby

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.