JayBelzebabe's Book Journey

Reading Greenteeth felt like a breath of fresh spring air, sitting by the side of a lake with a cool glass of water.

What a wonderful, folklore and fae heavy story. What a unique, funny POV main character.

If you’re looking for a book full of questing, of magical creatures and adventures and friendship, then this is the book for you. The way the worldbulding was done was so beautiful—I live in England, and getting to see it through the eyes of this book felt especially touching. It’s not often that I come across fantasy books like this, and I’m going to treasure it for a long time.

from the start the narrative voice irked me, and unfortunately it never got any better. there was a lot of telling rather than showing, and together the writing and voice just felt juvenile, as if I was being spoken to like a child half the time. this is only my second cozy fantasy book I've read and I suspect O'Neill was trying to go for a motherly tone here; while I can see why people like it, I just felt patronised by it constantly.

the majority of chapter 2 simply felt like a huge exposition dump from Temperance; I'm probably cynical, but the level of immediate trust and friendship from them off the bat simply felt unrealistic to me and simply convenient for the plot. the plot isn't particularly original either beyond its setting, and the quests dragged where the stakes felt oddly low given the gravity of the overall plot's situation.

like others, I also have major gripes with how the conflict between Jenny and Temperance played out. it so closely resembles real-life conversations and talking points regarding race and racism that it definitely does not seem coincidental, and the message that we're supposed to take away from it is so wrong that I find it rather concerning that this, that "violence bad, especially if it's against oppressors", is the message O'Neill wants the reader to take from it. I don't even know why this was included? perhaps because O'Neill thinks drama/conflict = interest? because there's no character growth or reflection to it, only a piss-poor "be nice to your oppressors" stance in which a refusal to do so is deemed ridiculous by multiple characters. the followup to this in the next quest felt out of place nor did it make this one feel any better, and as a way of conflict resolution I hated it (I also hated their "proper" resolution, in case it needs saying, the non-apology fucking sucked).

the names and references to other folklore I recognised was nice, but that's about as much as I enjoyed, and even then I didn't feel particularly excited when they did come up. I could have forgiven most of what I didn't like and said that this was a passable book until the "be nice to your oppressors" subplot came in and repeatedly hit us over the head with its mallet, and I've straight up knocked an entire star off this rating for it. I kept reading because I wanted to see what would happen with the original plot instead of these side quests, but looking back I should have just DNFed it here. the pacing at the end felt at odds with most of the book in the middle and by the end of it I didn't feel like the characters had gotten any less shallow since the start. any tension during the final fight was quickly resolved, and any plot twist felt predictable. I'm so disappointed, because I thought this would be an interesting take on fairytales, but got nothing of the sort in the end.

sidenote: I had been warned about this before, but why is this, a cozy fantasy, in the botanical horror quest? this is not horror. folklore and monsters do not automatically make a book horror.

I’m not known for writing longer reviews, so please bear with me.

This would have been a solid 3.5, maybe even a 4. We have a folklore setting with a mythical creature (I’m sorry, but just because someone looks frightening to you or doesn’t act like you, that doesn’t make them a monster) named Jenny, who lives in a beautiful lake and enjoys her life until a witch is thrown into it. What could have been a fun, found-family adventure story without romance for once instead became, disappointingly, a story full of prejudice and implicit racism. Honestly, though, it isn’t that implicit.

If you are one of those people who thinks, “It’s just a fantasy story, it’s not that deep,” please spare me. The book is told through Jenny’s POV, which makes the bias even worse: Temperance’s actions and words are framed as acceptable because Jenny herself has been convinced to believe she's in the wrong.

The narrative leans on the civilizing trope, in which a uncivilized person/group of people or in this case non-human character must be humanized and corrected by a supposedly more civilized human counterpart. Yes, technically Temperance is a witch, but she lives among humans as one of them, and her perspective is constantly framed as biased in favor of humans. Temperance is written as the authority on morality, who corrects Jenny’s supposed flaws. I felt deeply uncomfortable.

I’m sorry, but if the author is unable to recognize the connection to racism, then at least one of the editors should have. Temperance acts and is portrayed as superior. I wanted to throw my e-reader across the room several times. She considers Jenny beneath her, yet still wants to use Jenny’s abilities for her own benefit. She repeatedly treats magical beings as lesser than humans and comes across as a condescending hypocrite.

I needed real accountability and genuine acknowledgment from Temperance. Instead, the story implies that the marginalized character should simply submit to her oppressor so everyone can move on as friends. What. the. fuck.

I genuinely don't think the author recognized what she was writing, because the racism feels so internalized. There is no meaningful discussion of it. On the contrary, the story gives the impression that this behavior is righteous. That is what made the book so frustrating for me: not just the prejudice itself, but the narrative’s refusal to question it.

I’m not known for writing longer reviews, so please bear with me.

This would have been a solid 3.5, maybe even a 4. We have a folklore setting with a mythical creature (I’m sorry, but just because someone looks frightening to you or doesn’t act like you, that doesn’t make them a monster) named Jenny, who lives in a beautiful lake and enjoys her life until a witch is thrown into it. What could have been a fun, found-family adventure story without romance for once instead became, disappointingly, a story full of prejudice and implicit racism. Honestly, though, it isn’t that implicit.

If you are one of those people who thinks, “It’s just a fantasy story, it’s not that deep,” please spare me. The book is told through Jenny’s POV, which makes the bias even worse: Temperance’s actions and words are framed as acceptable because Jenny herself has been convinced to believe she's in the wrong.

The narrative leans on the civilizing trope, in which a uncivilized person/group of people or in this case non-human character must be humanized and corrected by a supposedly more civilized human counterpart. Yes, technically Temperance is a witch, but she lives among humans as one of them, and her perspective is constantly framed as biased in favor of humans. Temperance is written as the authority on morality, who corrects Jenny’s supposed flaws. I felt deeply uncomfortable.

I’m sorry, but if the author is unable to recognize the connection to racism, then at least one of the editors should have. Temperance acts and is portrayed as superior. I wanted to throw my e-reader across the room several times. She considers Jenny beneath her, yet still wants to use Jenny’s abilities for her own benefit. She repeatedly treats magical beings as lesser than humans and comes across as a condescending hypocrite.

I needed real accountability and genuine acknowledgment from Temperance. Instead, the story implies that the marginalized character should simply submit to her oppressor so everyone can move on as friends. What. the. fuck.

I genuinely don't think the author recognized what she was writing, because the racism feels so internalized. There is no meaningful discussion of it. On the contrary, the story gives the impression that this behavior is righteous. That is what made the book so frustrating for me: not just the prejudice itself, but the narrative’s refusal to question it.