11 must-read new YA book releases to snuggle up with in February

What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo. Image courtesy Macmillan Publishing Group

What Big Teeth – Rose Szabo

Described as a “pitch dark fairy tale”, Rose Szabo’s What Big Teeth is definitely not your typical YA fantasy, but rather a dark, Gothic horror story about family and fitting in.

It follows Eleanor Zarrin, who is the most normal member of a very odd, very Addams Family-like clan. But when she’s ki ked out of boarding school, she must go home and try to make peace with the monstrous relatives she’s left behind, in all their fanged, frightening glory.

You see, at home, Eleanor is the freak. The one who isn’t a werewolf, who doesn’t spend half in life in a barrel of water, who can’t see the future or shapeshift or cast spells.

But when a tragedy occurs, Eleanor will have to dig into the secrets of who her family is, and exactly where she fits in with them. A creepy surprisingly heartwarming story of identity and belonging.

The official synopsis describes the story in greater detail.

"Eleanor has not seen or spoken with her family in years, not since they sent her away to Saint Brigid’s boarding school. She knows them only as vague memories: her grandfather’s tremendous fanged snout, the barrel full of water her mother always soaked in, and strange hunting trips in a dark wood with her sister and cousins. And she remembers the way they looked at her, like she was the freak. When Eleanor finally finds the courage to confront her family and return to their ancestral home on the rainy coast of Maine, she finds them already gathered in wait, seemingly ready to welcome her back with open arms. “I read this in the cards,” her grandmother tells her. However, Grandma Persephone doesn’t see all, for just as Eleanor is beginning to readjust to the life she always longed for, a strange and sudden death rocks the family, leaving Eleanor to manage this difficult new dynamic without help. In order to keep the family that abandoned her from falling apart, Eleanor calls upon her mysterious other grandmother, Grandmere, from across the sea. Grandmere brings order to the chaotic household, but that order soon turns to tyranny. If any of them are to survive, Eleanor must embrace her strange family and join forces with the ghost of Grandma Persephone to confront the monstrousness lurking deep within her Grandmere-and herself."

What Big Teeth is available on February 2.