And the fact that it wasn't a happily ever after should have pissed me off (as it usually does), but I felt oddly hopeful in the end -- despite how I really shouldn't -- as they were both resigned to their own fates. (Neither MC dies, so you can unclench now.)

This book astonished me, both stylistically through its fluid imagery and its use of the second person narrative, making us feel impossibly close to the main female protagonist while keeping her unknown to us. And her - much like she does her friends and the man she is enraptured by - pushing us a safe distance away. It is that - the impossibly gorgeous language that is hard to define - and the way this book grapples with so many heavy themes, all of them ghosts that trail through her life, still able to graze their phantom hands against the reins of her life. The book is heavy with heartbreak, loneliness, want and desire, but there's plenty of love and positivity too. In this brilliant debut book, hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “a call for sweeping, radical change,” veteran health journalist Mary Otto looks inside America’s mouth, revealing unsettling truths about our unequal society. With activities like this Teeth Brushing Practical Activity, children can have fun with creative and engaging activities that get them thinking. Introducing healthy habits in EYFS oral health, will give children a lifetime of smiles they can be proud of. Supporting Oral Health at HomeFoster regular tooth-brushing. Give them a fluoride toothpaste to use twice per day for two minutes. Building a routine will help make brushing their teeth second nature for children, and just another part of their day. All of this “grittiness” is also wrapped up in some kind of bizarro-world “oh but also she’s CrAzY about a baby girl she may or may not have miscarried kinda maybe” which undermines any kind of “stark reality” her attitudes about motherhood are supposed to convey. And I can't stop crying for anything in the world right then. And I can't let go of him. Nothing could make me let go of that kid. The house could fall into the sea and crush everybody and we could go underwater and I would hold him the whole time. I'm glad I waited, however, because Zadie Smith seems to posses for England that same fresh breath that Lin-Manuel Miranda exhibits with his musical Hamilton. Sometimes, a place is best described by immigrants to that place. Sometimes, the change that happens to a city or nation because of immigrants is hard to measure in the first couple years. Just look at London now. London has elected its first Muslim mayor. This has more to do with some of the huge demographic changes than with a super-multiculturalism in London, but it still isn't nothing. Zadie Smith is what I'd call an Ironist. I don't mean this in the Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Jon Stewart sense. I don't mean that she's a comedian. I mean it in the sense that the territory she stands on--that her narrator in White Teeth stands on--is one whose boundaries are staked out in terms of what she is not. My friend Brandon commented below that Smith shows "blatant contempt for every character except the one who is clearly based on the author." While I understand where he's coming from, I don't think it's contempt per se. On the contrary, I think Smith has deep feelings for most of her characters--even the more despicable ones like Crispin and Millat. I think that what Brandon interprets as contempt is something far more ambiguous: let's call it detached superiority.

Teeth is a heartbreaking novel about a lonely boy and an even lonelier magic fish boy. On an island there is a secret. The fish there are magic and they can keep you alive from even the most serious illness. Rudy moves there with his family for is brother’s sake, but things aren’t as simple as they seem when he meets Teeth. For a great review of White Teeth which eloquently puts the case against, whilst trying not to, see Ben's review hereAnd something small and insignificant inside me shatters, just like every night, and feelings hit too hard for me to stand. I bend at the waist and cling to the windowsill. I won't scream. I won't throw myself against the walls until the supports give and we fall into the ocean. I won't think about swimming as hard as I can. I love great writing and I love when a book surprises me. Teeth did both of these things. Let me put it this way. I kept highlighting passages that stunned me with how emotional and gorgeous they were and at the end, I'd highlighted about 50 different passages. That's just a bit crazy. I can honestly say this was one of the best written books I've read in a while. The long form presentation: Lets boil down the premise and get it out of the way. This book is about nature vs nurture. Don't worry about that theme too much, because this book hates its theme. It can't be bothered to come to a logical or even an irrational conclusion about that theme. It hates its theme nearly as much as it hates you, the reader. Didn't I just say that? Am I being redundant? From the author of the New York Times-bestselling sensation Mostly Dead Things a surprising and moving story of two mothers, one difficult son, and the limitations of marriage, parenthood, and love I'm kind of furious at how well that Flannery epigraph works. It's not even what the epigraph SAYS, it's just that it's Flannery O'Connor and no one but Kristen Arnett has made me feel as squirmy and ambiguous as Flannery makes me feel. Quoting her at the start should have told me everything I needed to know about this book. The only book I've had a harder time parsing my thoughts/feelings for is Wise Blood.

There's the undeniable truth of centuries of conditioned servility, hatred of the power which established the ground rules of the abusive relationship called colonialism, and the unfathomable responsibility of bearing the burden of yesterday. I mean, God, her writing . . . That is the number one reason I want to own and devour every one of her books. The two words I can use to describe her writing are raw and real. Even if this book is about magic fish and a boy who happens to have scales and a tail fin, it still felt so real, as if I were reading a contemporary novel. White Teeth is an expansive, detailed, and beautifully written attempt to encapsulate the social chaos that blossoms at the bridging of generational, national and sexual mindsets. It reminds me very much of the freeflowing histories written by Marquez and Allende, as well as Salman Rushdie's strange little one-off treatise on cultural alienation, Fury. (Samad, in particular, reminds me quite a bit of Fury's Malik Solanka.)Even though there were some plot holes in the story, i didn't really mind them that much, because I was blinded by characters. Oh and also, I find I usually can't connect with a male voice but I adored Rudy. I also adored how strong all the other characters were. Teeth, Diana and Dylan, especially. I think about all the years I have struggled to articulate myself in my own language, pushing my words into my body instead."

Here's where I was supposed to describe the characters, but I changed my mind. Go meet them. Go fall in love with them. Go suffer for them. Go laugh with them. Just go, dammit, just go.] Non so come mai a distanza di quasi vent’anni dall’apparizione di questo esordio letterario ho avvertito il bisogno di affrontarlo: cos’è che mi ha spinto a prenderlo in mano ora mi sfugge. Zadie Smith's prose style here is notably different from her later books. It's like she read all Martin Amis' early novels and to a large extent replicated his distinctive rhythms into her prose. So too is the emphasis on comedy much heavier here than in later books. She's making more effort to charm - which, I suppose, is only natural for a young unpublished author.A super useful book with tooth brushing tutorials and discussion about why brushing is so important. And if you love Moskowitz, it is likely that her ability to make you feel, to illicit a remarkable amount of empathy for her characters, to bare their soul to you – is one of the biggest attractions. That is what you consistently get with Moskowitz – so if you’re up for another beautifully written tale with a fresh bunch of characters waiting to make your heart bleed, then this is for you. If you’re in the mood for something that will make you laugh and feel good, then maybe you’re better off moving along.