Cutting Teeth

Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro brought me out of my reading comfort zone. I generally like to read books with a very grueling and obvious plot like murder mysteries and crime novels, or books that have a very light and fun unrealistic plot - much like a guilty TV show. Cutting Teeth is a book that has just as interesting a plot, while focusing on the lives of a group of friends in their mid thirties. They all come together for a late summer weekend getaway at a beach house on Long Island.

Cutting Teeth deals with all the complex issues of friendships, romantic relationships, and families. The story switches narrators so that each character speaks from their own point of view. I found that this gave a deeper reality to each character since I was able to spend more time with each of them and get a stronger feel for their perception of the weekend. More than anything else, this book just felt very real. The characters are ones that anyone can connect with, and their lives are ones that will have you laughing, wondering, appreciating, and reflecting all at the same time.

Although I did have trouble connecting the entire group of narrators together at times, I also felt that was part of the enjoyment of the book. There is a group of six or seven people holed up together for a weekend, all of whom know one another, and yet they all still have such separate lives and different things on their plates to worry about and deal with. It was interesting to get the inside look on a group so closely confined that still has such dramatically different things going on in their lives at one time.

As a reader somewhat younger than the characters in the novel, my struggle to relate to them on many of the goings on in their lives did not defer me from connecting with them in other ways. I was still able to appreciate the reality of the stories and read this more as a commentary on today’s society. I think Julia Fierro produced a great debut novel and I hope to see more work from her!