book review: Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro
The basics: Set over one weekend in late summer, Cutting Teeth is the story of a Long Island beach house vacation for a Brooklyn playgroup of four-year-olds and their parents. My thoughts: Despite having a large cast of characters, I never struggled with keeping the characters straight. Alternating narration from most of the parents certainly helped, as the reader gets to know both the personalities of each character as well as their interior monologues. In this sense, the narrative style greatly contributed to the tension of the weekend, which predictably builds as the novel goes on. Cutting Teeth is both funny and serious. Fierro, herself a mother of two young children who lives in Brooklyn, frequently pokes fun at the stereotypes and caricatures of Brooklyn parents and children. But while the commentary veered into satire at times, I was also struck by an underlying sadness at its heart. I think of parenting a little differently now as I'm a few months from becoming...