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    Cutting Teeth: A Novel
    Cutting Teeth: A Novel
    Cutting Teeth: A Novel
    Ebook467 pages7 hours

    Cutting Teeth: A Novel

    By Julia Fierro

    3.5/5

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    One of the most anticipated debut novels of 2014, Cutting Teeth takes place one late-summer weekend as a group of thirty-something couples gather at a shabby beach house on Long Island, their young children in tow.

    Nicole, the hostess, struggles to keep her OCD behaviors unnoticed. Stay-at-home dad Rip grapples with the reality that his careerist wife will likely deny him a second child, forcing him to disrupt the life he loves. Allie, one half of a two-mom family, can't stop imagining ditching her wife and kids in favor of her art. Tiffany, comfortable with her amazing body but not so comfortable in the upper-middle class world the other characters were born into, flirts dangerously, and spars with her best friend Leigh, a blue blood secretly facing financial ruin and dependent on the magical Tibetan nanny everyone else covets. Throughout the weekend, conflicts intensify and painful truths surface. Friendships and alliances crack, forcing the house party to confront a new order.Cutting Teeth is about the complex dilemmas of early midlife—the vicissitudes of friendship, of romantic and familial love, and of sex. It's about class tension, status hunger, and the unease of being in possession of life's greatest bounty while still wondering, is this as good as it gets? And, perhaps most of all, Julia Fierro's warm and unpretentious debut explores the all-consuming love we feel for those we need most, and the sacrifice and compromise that underpins that love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMay 13, 2014
    ISBN9781466839229
    Cutting Teeth: A Novel

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    Reviews for Cutting Teeth

    3.5/5

    45 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      n Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro, five members of a Brooklyn playgroup, their partners and children, gather in a Long Island beach house for a weekend’s respite, but what they hope will be a relaxing late-summer getaway devolves as the their alliance crumbles under the strain of secrets, resentments and unresolved tensions. Exploring parenthood and the guilt and sacrifices that underpin it, relationships, sex, ambition, career, domesticity and desire, this is an shrewd portrait of modern day, upper class families.There are elements of Cutting Teeth I can relate to as a mother of four – the all day ‘morning’ sickness, the horrors of the witching hour (I had three children under three!), and the free floating anxiety of parenting, but the world of Fierro’s ‘mommies’ is far removed from my own. I’ve never had a nanny, competed for a place in a private preschool, or bought a $300 nightgown for my daughter. I couldn’t afford to solve my brief issues with fertility with IVF (there is a 7 year gap between my first and second child) and I’ve never had a problem telling my children ‘no’, loudly and often. All this to say, I had some empathy for these characters and their vulnerabilities, but it thinned considerably in the face of their privileged whining and helicopter parenting.Few of Fierro’s characters are wholly likeable, but their flaws ensure they are at least interesting. Hostess Nicole is plagued by catastrophic thinking, Leigh has helped herself to her son’s preschool’s treasury account, Tiffany’s smile hides a calculating heart, and stay at home daddy Rip desperately wants his wife to have another baby. It is Susanna I find most sympathetic, heavily pregnant with her third child, she struggles with her wife’s ambivalence towards their twin boys. Tenzin, a Tibetan devotee of the Dalai Lama, and Leigh’s nanny, observes the ‘mommies’ with bewilderment while pining for her own children she hasn’t held in four years.Though the cast is pretentious, Fierro’s writing is not. This is a well crafted story with an incisive narrative. The perspective shifts between that of Nicole, Rip, Tiffany, Allie and Leigh exposing their insecurities, fears, strengths and dreams, proving the wise observation made by Tolstoy that ‘…every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’Cutting Teeth is, at least in part, a satire of a specific cultural demographic, but also an observation of the universal dynamics of parenthood and relationships. I did find this novel entertaining and thought provoking but without the connection to a specific character, it didn’t resonate with me in the way I hoped.
    • 4/5
      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 a parent. The sadness and helplessness woven into this novel resonated with me more strongly than the happy moments, for better or for worse. As I read, however, I was struck by the idea of friendship in the play group, which my favorite passage (below) so eloquently sums up. As I imagine myself as a soon-to-be parent, I sometimes imagine vacations with my friends and their kids, but I haven't yet imagined the friendships I'll form because of and through my child. It's a fascinatingly different dynamic, and the transition from playgroup to vacationing friends is indeed one fraught with opportunities for drama, which Fierro delightfully captures in Cutting Teeth.Favorite passage: "She hadn't chosen these mommies and daddies. They were just the players that came with Wyatt. She had spent hours and hours with them only because they shared the story, which was a comedy, and occasionally, a tragedy. A story about loving little children."The verdict: I loved the rawness and honesty of Cutting Teeth. I laughed and bemoaned as I spent two days with this motley crew of characters, but most importantly, it's a novel that hasn't left my mind since I finished it. Fierro is clearly a talent to watch, and Cutting Teeth is an impressive debut.
    • 3/5
      Very frequently in the press you hear about the "Mommy Wars" where working moms and stay-at-home moms take pot shots at each others' choices. But rarely do you hear about the tension and unpleasantness within each subset. And it's certainly there. I've been a mom now for over 17 years and some of the most fraught and contentious conversations about parenting I ever had happened in the baby and young child years when it seems like every choice will forever after determine your inclusion or exclusion on the good parenting rolls. It's not a time I'd like to revisit ever again and yet that's exactly what I did when I opened the pages of Julia Fierro's new novel, Cutting Teeth. Nicole, who is OCD, invites her entire playgroup out to her parent's beach home to escape for the weekend after she reads about a web bot predicting something terrible in NYC. The playgroup is made up of an eclectic group of moms (and one stay at home dad) who all have children between 3 and 4 years old. There is Rip, the stay at home dad who desperately wants another child in order to stay pertinent and his workaholic wife Grace. There's Susanna, the pregnant lesbian partner to Allie, an artist who has misgivings about being a mom. There's Tiffany, the social climbing sancti-mommy and her fiancé Michael. And there's Leigh, who wanted a second child so badly she was willing to steal PTA funds to finance another round of IVF and whose husband couldn't make it, opening the door for her to bring her Tibetan nanny Tenzin, a calming influence on everyone but especially on Leigh's oldest, Chase. The characters all have little in common besides the age of their children, without whom they undoubtedly would not be friends. It is this very marked difference amongst them that promises thrumming tension and ultimately an explosive weekend, even if it's not the sort of disaster that Nicole is nervously anticipating. Fierro has written as cast of fairly unlikable characters. All of them have their quirks but over all, they are unpleasant, competitive, judgmental, righteous, and self-involved. While each of them suffers from their own insecurities, they also harbor a fairly nasty superior streak. Their interactions with each other are manipulative and insincere and they made me incredibly uncomfortable. The namby-pamby lack of discipline made my skin crawl and I had a seriously visceral reaction when, egged on by bossy Harper, the only girl in the playgroup, the boys crushed to death all of the sea creatures they'd collected. Just a little too Lord of the Flies. The characters themselves seem chosen in order to be representative, hip, and inclusive what with a couple who has fertility problems, a stay at home dad, a lesbian couple, a developmentally delayed child, and a sanctimonious organics only mom. Most of the parents have a chance to narrate the story, giving the reader more insight into what drives them but this insight doesn't serve to make them any more appealing. In fact, as hard as parenting is for everyone (not just these characters), it is depressing that none of them seem to find much joy in their children unless they are getting a self-esteem boost because that child is proving they are good parents. There's no simple pleasure in being a parent, no plain happy moments. More realistic by far than the unicorns and rainbows version of parenting, nevertheless the emotional train wreck of this novel made it hard to read.
    • 4/5
      When I began reading Julia Fierro's debut novel Cutting Teeth, I thought it was going to be a novel about a bunch of whiny, overprotective, rich, Brooklyn parents and their spoiled (yet gifted or challenged) children. I didn't see how I could relate.Then as I read the book, I saw how Fierro brought these characters I probably would not befriend to vivid life in her novel. It begins with something I wish more multi-character novels would have - a chart explaining the who the characters are and how they relate to each other. This is so helpful when you begin a book, and if a book is as well-written as this is, you find you don't need it to keep track of the characters, you are invested enough in them to know who is who.They came together as a playgroup for their four-year-olds. Nicole, who has OCD and is afraid that the world is coming to an end this Labor Day weekend, has invited the four other couples and their children to her parents' Long Island Sound vacation cottage. Nicole's husband is rapidly tiring of Nicole's OCD behavior and her fears, her constant monitoring parenting of message boards, and has trouble relating to their son Wyatt and his behavior issues.Leigh comes from a wealthy family who has lost much of their fortune in the economic downturn. Her husband works for her family's business, so their livelihood is in jeopardy, which causes Leigh to do something that could cost her everything she holds dear. Her son Chase may be somewhere on the autism spectrum, and she has pinned all her mothering hopes on her baby daughter, who was conceived in vitro.Rip is the stay-at-home daddy in the group. He is an earth father, making his family organic homemade foods and loves caring for his son Hank, who is shy and wants to dress like a princess. He wants another baby but his wife refuses to consider it. She has a difficult time relating to Hank and Rip.Rip is attracted to Tiffany, who runs a music class for children and whose daughter Harper, the only girl in the group, is a Queen Bee. Harper orders the boys around and expects them to do as she tells them. Tiffany likes to stir up trouble in the group, and when we get her backstory we see why.Susanne and Allie have twin boys, Levi and Dash, and Susanne is now hugely pregnant with another baby. Allie is an artist, a photographer, and Susanne has started a home business renting strollers and car seats to parents. Their relationship is strained at the moment.Maybe the most interesting person in the novel is Tenzin, a Tibetan political refugee who fled her home country leaving behind her loving husband and three children. Tenzin is nannying for Leigh, and Tiffany is trying to bully Leigh into sharing Tenzin with her. Tenzin loves and understands the children and seeing these people through her eyes in a brief chapter is interesting. I wish we had more chapters narrated by her.There are tensions, sexual and otherwise, among the parents and between various couples, and anyone who has vacationed with a big group may recognize these scenes being played out. The weekend culminates in one big uncomfortable scene where the underlying problems bubble to the surface and explode.Cutting Teeth is a character study of contemporary parenting in an urban setting. The competitiveness of getting your child into the right preschool, maintaining a expensive lifestyle, trying to sustain a marital relationship in the midst of all this, making friends, and the helicopter parenting that has led to children being labeled and over scheduled is all examined in this terrific novel that fans of Tom Perrotta's Little Children will enjoy.
    • 3/5
      This is a good read that has mostly off-putting characters. It held my interest with some very good writing, but WOW were the people in the story irritating. I'm sure that in a strange way, that might actually add some attraction to the novel. The story takes place on the east coast over a weekend where a group of parents and children are sharing a beach house. The author is very good at bringing out the selfish, paranoid, insecure, and even criminal behaviors of these young parents who are "friends" because their children are in a play group together. They are upper middle class Brooklynites who seem overly concerned about making sure that their precious children, and by extension themselves, are given the best advantages. This petty focus may well wind up being the draw to the success of this book. It is similar to watching reality television shows that both repel and attract your attention. I was a bit more sympathetic towards some of the characters, but even most of them wound up with serious issues. Eventually all these personalities clash during the weekend and some of the real feelings between these "friends" come out. One of the most interesting additions to the group at the beach is the Tibetan nanny,Tenzin. She is employed by one of the mothers and has proven to be indispensable. She is an immigrant to the U.S. and is willingly separated from her family in order to support them. Her perspective of the adults and children is so forgiving and makes a stark contrast to the selfish parents. Her life is about service to her family and her employer. As I would expect, she appears to be the happiest and most well-adjusted adult in the book. I think this book will find appeal with younger and middle aged adult readers. It might not go over quite as well with the older ones (of which I am one), but it is a good story. I, for one, will look for future books by Julia Fierro. I would definitely want to read her work again.I thank NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.
    • 5/5
      I received a copy of Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro from Net galley in exchange for an honest review.Cutting Teeth grabbed me at the opening scene and pulled me into the early morning hours when I should have been sleeping.The story is told from alternating voices from the mommies and daddy of the Friday afternoon playgroup.Nicole: mother of Wyatt. Novelist.Suffers from OCD refuses meds that dull her senses. Reads the Urban mama blog and is convinced that something big will happen on the holiday weekend at the end of summer.She gathers her secret end of the world supplies and plans a get away with the other group members.She doesn't want to be in the city when the end of the world happens.Tiffany: mother of Harper. Small town girl from the side of the tracks who learns how to dress, what to say to fit in. Tiffany latches on to urban moms who can pull her along in their world she uses them and them moves on to the next one.Susanna: mother of Dash and Levi and pregnant with her wife's child.Susanna is willing to lose her identity to be a wife and mother because she thinks her wife/former professor's talent at art are better than hers. She longs for the suburban house with room for the kids instead of city life.Susanna is determined to be as sucessful of a mother as her wife is a photographer/artist.Leah: mother to Chase and Charlotte. Chase appears to be a special needs child but has no diagnosis. Leah needs another child to validate she is a good mother and will do whatever it takes to get that child.Leah grew up as a rich girl but a series of bad investments has left her a rich girl in name only. Leah pretnds to still be rich as to not shatter that illusion which is as important to her as proving she is a good mother.Rif:the groups only Daddy.Father to Hank but not his biological father. Rif and his wife used a sperm donor due to Rif's slow sperm mobility. Rif seems to be more of a Mommy than some of the ladies in the group. Rif seems to pretty firm in his beliefs in raising Hank until they are challenged by the thoughts of another male. Rif is also determined to have another child to maintain his status of stay at home Dad but his wife refuses.Tenzin: the Tibetan Mary Poppins loved by all. She helps to care for each of their children and knows all their secrets.When the book opens we met each of the mommies and Rif and got in sight to their childern. At last the weekend arrives.There will be a series of events that will effect each character and will lead to the event that will shatter the group. At the end of the weekend each will learn something about them selves and the others. When the weekend ends they know it will be the end of the play group.Cutting Teeth is a fast paced book that pulls you in and holds you there until you have read the last word. It will entertain ,enlighten you and make you go hum. It will make you think about the story long after you have finished the book.
    • 4/5
      I didn't like the characters in this book. They were pathetic, self absorbed, spoiled parents. I did, however, LOVE the story! It was a glimpse into a world I have never been a part of nor ever wanted to be a part of. Fierro crafted such an amazing story it simply didn't matter that I found no sympathetic character to root for to the end. I was able to detach from them and be that fly on the wall watching as the characters rushed toward their own undoing. I am looking forward to reading more by Julia Fierro!
    • 2/5
      Julia Fierro’s Cutting Teeth is a tale of a group of thirty-something parents in New York City, linked by their children’s playgroup, for endless soap opera high-drama family dysfunction.

      This group of adults (seemed more like spoiled children), are off to spend Labor Day Weekend at a beach house on Long Island. It was all I could do to finish with all the whining and complaining. I was feeling sorry for the kids-a little. In the beginning it was kind of funny and insightful, but then went downhill.

      Can you image these miserable people in a house together? I would not want to be anywhere near this place. So you have five pre-school children, an infant, and a pregnant mother. After you read the below personalities – you cannot even imagine.

      Nichole – parents own the home, a successful author and instructor, paralyzed by her phobias and fears and over protectiveness (completely wacked – in between smoking dope). She is obsessed with everything (especially the fixation on a rumor that a major attack will happen in New York City over the holiday weekend and what she does to prepare)—unbelievable!.

      Rip— About the only one worth liking out of the bunch. The father in the playgroup. He likes to think he is one of them, but most men do not feel all that great in this type of situation (as typically the wife is all controlling). Grace is the breadwinner and refuses to consider having a second child, so Rip can continue being a stay-at-home dad. However, Hank is growing very sensitive and so needy.

      Leigh – Seems together, (not) a former debutante, dealing with serious money problems and a secret that could ruin her. Leigh's son, Chase, is sweet but developmentally challenged, adding to the strain of her marriage. Without her nanny, she would lose it.

      Allie and Susanna- Newlyweds, parents of twin boys. Susanna is pregnant with a third child and resents that she put her art career on hold for motherhood to allow Allie's career to continue to thrive, while Allie isn't sure she's cut out for motherhood or the domesticity of married life. (hello, grow up).

      Tiffany- Mother with the only daughter in the playgroup. Again not a likable character, selfish, manipulative, gossips, plays them against one another, flirts with Rip, and believes in breastfeeding until they go off to school, pushes organics, and totally overbearing. (sounds like a person you want to stay clear of).

      Of course when people get together in one house, drinks are poured, and true feeling come out, secrets are revealed, relationships are testing, and fears exposed, while one is crazy with worry the world is coming to an end. Total madness!

      Not really sure how you would classify the genre, as this is one group of flawed and troubled parents; while people wonder why children behave so badly. I guess this novel may appeal to the younger generation, as possibly these fictional lives would be worse than theirs for a bit of twisted humor; however, I for one could barely make it through the book.

      I would love the author write something different, in order to really see her writing style when it is not buried beneath all the drama, behaviors, and attitude of these annoying characters. Sorry, this debut fell flat for me and not my cup of tea. Cannot recommend.
    • 3/5
      When Nicole invites the “mommies” of her Brooklyn playgroup to her parent’s Long Island beach home for a weekend getaway, she’s too clouded in anxiety over a potential catastrophic world-ending event to see the tension bubbling beneath the group’s surface. Stay-at-home dad Rip is struggling with his infertility and hopes for a second child while attempting to tie down his attraction to the group’s outsider, Tiffany. Outwardly confident, but insecure in the place she struggled to reach, Tiffany cuts the other mommies down in a battle for superiority. Together with a pregnant lesbian couple and a woman attempting to hold on to her family’s once powerful name, the personalities in the playgroup collide throughout the novel’s funny and insightful scenes.

      Each of Cutting Teeth‘s characters is overdrawn in a way that makes it easy to find familiarity in their extreme personalities and, though they feel more like caricatures than real people, at least pieces of their stories will ring true. Fierro’s strength is in more reflective moments, like those seen through the eyes of Tibetan nanny Tenzien as she works her memory recording the idioms the mommies throw around while she tenderly cares for their children. In comparison, the extremity of the playgroup tends to go a little off the rails, particularly toward the end of the novel.

      Still, book clubs will want to pick up Cutting Teeth by the box full. Though it’s unlikely every member will walk away loving the novel, the characters and themes set a perfect stage for the engaging, lively discussion every group hopes to have.

      More at rivercityreading.com
    • 3/5
      Cutting Teeth, Julia Fierro The book is about five members of a playgroup who joined each other for a weekend away at the summer home of one of their members, a member who was so disrespectful that she didn’t even ask her parents for permission to use their home. Unexpectedly, the weekend exposed the group to each other, warts and all, and the idyllic sojourn was not very idyllic. Basically, they seemed like today’s wannabes and yuppies who respected little but their own immediate needs, used texting to communicate and got most of their information from the internet on random websites that caught their interest. Like chameleons, they adapted to each other and their surroundings, without ever truly exposing their real faces or personalities. Instead, they put on acts and airs to be accepted by each other and to gain approval and entry into certain select circles. Each of these characters was in some way jealous of the other or coveted something another one had without even understanding their own obsessions and behavioral needs. Some were emotionally unstable and some were totally neurotic in need of medical care. Even the most normal seemed broken in some way. They lied, stole, manipulated, and used each other and the world about them in order to get what they wanted. They were the most selfish group of dysfunctional human beings ever assembled in one place, I think, and the weekend did not turn out as a bonding experience, but rather the opposite. Many of their problems were being passed down to the children as evidenced by some of their behavior toward each other. As an example, Tiffany made it her business to gather information about the people she interacted with which she then used to influence their behavior. She unnerved them with little hints and comments to get her way. At the same time, her daughter Harper was a little tattle tale, just as ruthless as her mother. Harper dominated the other children, all boys, with her demanding personality. Another example was Rip, the stay at home dad who wanted to be the best “mommy”. This encouraged remarks by some, insinuating that he might be effeminate. He sought the praise and admiration of the other members in the group, sometimes inappropriately. His son Hank was hypersensitive and squeamish, making some wonder about his masculinity, as well.Allie and Susannah were the lesbian couple with the twin boys Dash and Levi. They squabbled about life choices and both seemed a bit on edge and at odds with each other. Their twins exhibited the same kind of tension with each other as they played, but they were sometimes more physical in their expressions of displeasure. As Both Susannah and Allie wanted to escape their present situation, it seemed so did Dash. The discontent was contagious.Actually, after all was said and done, thinking about all of the couples, one could use the term discontented to describe most of the members and spouses in the playgroup with the exception of the honorary member, the Tibetan nanny, Tenzin. She could bring calm to all situations with the children, and her quotes from the Dalai Llama accomplished the same results for the adults.The author seemed to have taken pains to include an example of all types of relationships and backgrounds. There is the implication that there is an interracial couple, an interreligious couple, an unmarried couple, a couple that did not come together because the spouse could not handle this type of weekend, and, of course, the lesbian couple. There is a delegate from every walk of life, as well. If the group wasn’t so disheartening, it might have been more humorous to me. As it was, I found it, instead, to be depressing. If this is a sample of today’s playgroups and parenting, our future is in danger. The parent’s behavior left so much to be desired. While they might not give their children anything but organic food, some thought nothing of popping pills or alcohol into their mouths to cope with their lives. Some parents fed their children anything, coffee included, to prevent a tantrum, while insisting only on organic food. They did not seem to appreciate the life they had. Some forbade TV because of its possible link to brain damage, others used it as a babysitter. They had unreal expectations of their children and demanded immediate gratification like infants, for themselves. They were self-absorbed adults, stuck with their own immature view of the world and they were passing it on to their children. This group of young upwardly mobile adults insulted each other and often jumped to incorrect, impetuous conclusions. They were generally arrogant and self-centered, thinking of no other needs but their own. The competition among them was fierce. The language they used was certainly not high-brow and bordered often on very coarse. Still, even though the behavior of the parents was reprehensible, it can’t be denied that the book had well developed characters. However, it was written with little vignette type chapters that did sometimes leave the reader wondering where the rest of it was. A subject was often dropped before it felt fully explained.When I finished I hoped with all my heart that this was not a true representation of modern parenting or an example of the children who would be making up the future of the world. I couldn’t help thinking that these parents had to give more thought to the choices being made. Sometimes, allowing children to be children all the time, without enough guidance, prevents them from learning the skills to become responsible adults.***As an aside, I was disappointed in the book because once again I was baited into reading a book about one thing only to find out that a large portion of the book was devoted to something else. The inclusion of a lesbian couple with very graphic descriptions of their sex was not something I would have chosen to read about. Alternate lifestyles do not upset me, but just as I don’t buy books with graphic heterosexual sex scenes, I do not intend to buy books that include lesbian or homosexual sex. I find that in most books, when it is sprinkled into the narrative, it doesn’t enhance it but is used, instead, to entice a certain reader. I believe that if a book is written well with a good storyline, it doesn’t need sex scenes to attract readers. Before I began to read this book, I read reviews in which there was nary a mention of lesbians, so although I had a library copy, I also ordered a print copy as well. When I became familiar with the story, I cancelled that order. I had previously made a promise to myself that I would do that from now on if I was caught unawares by reviews that deliberately left out mention of that part of the story in order to attract a more general audience.
    • 4/5
      Parenting today has myriad challenges and the mommies and daddies in Julia Fierro’s CuttingTeeth are dealing with just about all them – along with their own issues.We all know parents who would not be friends except for the fact that their children are friends, or go to the same school, or are in the same playgroup. That seems to be the case in Cutting Teeth, where the mommies – and one daddy – probably wouldn’t hang out together at all if not for the playgroup.When Nicole – who is convinced a catastrophic event is about to happen in New York City (because it’s on the Internet so it has to be true) – invites the playgroup families to her parents’ house at the beach it becomes obvious how dissimilar the families are.Also obvious is a sense of desperation many of them have. Overbearing social climber Tiffany is desperate to prove she is not white trash (which is how she grew up) and will go to any lengths to get what she wants. Stay-at-Home-Daddy Rip is desperate to have another child partly because he believes he will have no purpose after his Hank starts school. Former debutante Leigh is so desperate to have another child through in vitro fertilization (to prove her son’s problems are not her fault) that she turns to crime.The fun part is when all of these things play out during the long weekend, which also has Nicole obsessing over the end of the world, pregnant lesbian mom Susanna wondering about her relationship with wife Allie, and Rip’s wife Grace trying to prove she’s not a bad mother. Add to the mix nanny Tenzin, the “Tibetan Mary Poppins,” who has her own story to tell. And the kids: Harper, a 4-year-old diva and the only girl in the group; Hank, the overly sensitive little boy whose greatest desire is to have a princess dress; and hyperactive Chase who no one but Tenzin and, strangely, Tiffany can connect with or control.One of the tests of a good book for me is whether I think about the characters when I’m not reading. About 100 pages from the end, before I picked it up for the day, I said to myself, “I wonder what Tiffany’s up to today?” And I don’t even like Tiffany!Something Cutting Teeth reminded me of is that I don’t have to like a character to have her be my favorite. At different points in the book I liked and disliked all of them. But, together, they’re a fun and sometimes poignant package that I’m glad I got to know.I received this book from NetGalley.com
    • 5/5
      loved the book. funny,. captivating, disturbingly honest. and to get me to read about entitled Brooklyn parents takes talent.
    • 4/5
      This was such a pleasant surprise of a book. I was expecting a fluffy overly dramatic novel about a bunch of rich couples and their small children, but it ended up being more than that. It was a complicated picture of mothers, fathers, nannies, children, and reputation. I do not live in New York, I do not have children, and I was totally sucked in to the world of "the mommies." My biggest complaint was the lack of truly likable characters (though I did really enjoy Leigh) and the loose ends of some of the side stories. Yet overall it hooked me and I'll look for more from Julia Fierro.

    Book preview

    Cutting Teeth - Julia Fierro

    Part 1

    Friday

    babe in the wood

    Allie

    Allie called the playgroup Mommy Camp. This had made Susanna laugh at first, when they were new mothers juggling the fussy twin boys Susanna had birthed, when their clothes, the urban artist’s uniform of all black, showed every spot of spit-up and streak of snot. But lately, Allie’s jokes sounded, even to Allie, like the jabs of an outsider. Instead of life feeling like us vs. them, it felt like Allie vs. Susanna.

    They had been driving for over an hour, Levi and Dash asleep in the backseat, when the map on Allie’s phone directed them off the main road. Susanna drove onto a causeway flanked by the wind-whipped waves of the Long Island Sound. The narrow road was dotted with trees; their branches stripped white, gnarled by the salt wind.

    You didn’t say the beach house was this far, Allie said, as the sun bounced off the water, assaulting her eyes. She sank into the passenger seat and pulled the hood of her black sweatshirt over her head.

    She had been up most of the night color-correcting a cover photo she’d shot for a Danish magazine. She was behind on the deadline after their three-day trip (with the boys, Susanna had insisted), to Massachusetts, where they’d been married at the Northampton town hall. Then Levi, the more demanding of their boys, had woken at four this morning, shuffling into their room, his thick honey-dusted hair spilling into his eyes. He had begged to join Susanna and Allie in their bed, and Susanna had relented. Not for the first time, Allie had thought about how Susanna coddled the twin who looked most like her. Susanna and Levi looked as if they belonged on a Swiss mountaintop, herding goats. Yodeling. Dash, the more diminutive twin, took after Allie, or at least after Eric, their beloved sperm donor and good friend whose appearance had matched Allie’s brother. Straight brown hair. Skin so pale you could see the green veins that crisscrossed his

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