Milk Teeth

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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.

From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain. An intimate exploration of class, precarity, sex, power and, above all, of the fragility and exuberance of love. If you enjoy a book in which every other sentence is an overwritten flowery, cheesy metaphor or simile, then this is the one for you. You held a flame between your fingers and I wanted to swallow you, but I was afraid of the taste of my own desire, like bleach and petrol, peaches dipped in salt.I am not the kind of person who lets myself curl up softly in the folds of someone else, but you took my mottled shell in your gentle fingers and I slid out, wanting. Andrews acutely honed in on the contradictory ways in which you can think (key part here being “think”) you are in control of your body, life, food etc. so honest and hopeful' Financial TimesA girl grows up in the north-east of England amid scarcity, fearing her own desires and feeling undeserving of love. How appropriate, then, that Jessica Andrews’ second novel, Milk Teeth, (the follow-up to her much-lauded 2019 debut Saltwater) can be described in such a way.

It made me glad to be alive, glad to be here after all we have witnessed and experienced since that January night in 2020. I would've definitely appreciated this when I was younger, but there's still a small part of my soft-grunge early internet self that appreciates works of art like this, style over substance, early Sofia Coppola films that erect emotions out of the mundane. Growing up, her father is abusive towards her mother, money something that is controlled, while her and her friends attempt to fit a constrictive beauty standard that’ll have them fold their sharp, jagged edges into a tiny box. i am beyond grateful to sceptre for sending me an advance copy of her equally as gorgeous, brutally honest and emotional follow-up.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. There are passages of 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. I too have a difficult relationship with my mother, feeling all her pain and trauma, thinking everything is my fault while acknowledging that she also caused me pain.

Not to entirely bash the book, in its late Lana Del Rey tendresse, I think the themes of language, voice, and how trapped they are in the body are compelling. And her - much like she does her friends and the man she is enraptured by - pushing us a safe distance away. Our protagonist observes the other freelancers she works with, sipping coffee, eating expensive pastries, complaining about their treatment in a banal, half hearted manner. It transports you fully to the various locations it is set in, covering the five senses with detailed descriptions until you are immersed in the grimy pubs and packed nightclubs of London, the pokey attic bedrooms of Paris, and, most vividly I feel, the hot streets and tiny tapas bars of Barcelona. I know I am not supposed to put my need in you but it spills from my lips and bursts over your body, soaking you in want.The plot is non-chronological, flipping between our unnamed protagonist’s present and past relationships as she attempts to come to terms with her own wants from life.