Why You'll Love This
The children are suspects — and the mothers covering for them might be worse.
- Great if you want: sharp social satire wrapped inside a darkly comic thriller
- The experience: brisk and unsettling — the dread sneaks up on you
- The writing: Baker skewers motherhood mythology with precise, acidic wit
- Skip if: you want grounded realism — the premise stays intentionally absurd
About This Book
What would you do if your child were a suspect in a murder investigation—and you weren't entirely sure they were innocent? Chandler Baker's Cutting Teeth plants that question at the center of a sharp, darkly comic thriller about modern motherhood. Three preschool mothers are already struggling to hold onto themselves when a bizarre condition spreads through their children's classroom and a young teacher winds up dead. The novel cannily exploits the particular anxiety of parenting small children who can't fully account for themselves—and the terrifying lengths a mother might go to in order to protect them.
Baker writes with a wicked sense of humor and a clear-eyed understanding of how motherhood can quietly hollow a person out. The satire lands because it's grounded in something real: the resentment, the guilt, the love that coexists with all of it. The story moves quickly, but the sharpest pleasure here is in Baker's voice—arch without being cold, funny without undercutting the genuine unease. It's the kind of book that makes you laugh, then makes you uncomfortable that you laughed.