Boys with Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell Review: A Dark Academia Debut with Style to Spare

Published by Roaring Brook Press on April 8, 2025, Boys with Sharp Teeth centers on a girl who, desperate to avenge her murdered cousin, assumes a false identity and infiltrates the elite boarding school he attended in order to uncover the truth about his death. The novel is framed explicitly as a warped reimagining of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, threading that source material's preoccupations — beauty, corruption, and the cost of desire — through a contemporary YA dark academia setting. The book's title-page illustration is credited to Frances Wren, lending the package a visual identity distinct from the prose itself. Macmillan positions it as a book where dark revenge and twisted desire collide with the sinister secrets lurking behind the walls of a privileged institution.

Macmillan's own marketing compares the novel to We Were Liars and The Raven Boys, situating it at the intersection of literary thriller and atmospheric coming-of-age mystery — a shelf that is crowded but perennially hungry for new entries. The Dorian Gray reimagining angle sets it apart from straightforward boarding-school mysteries; it promises not just a whodunit but a meditation on obsession and moral decay. That the book debuted as a New York Times bestseller confirms it landed with an audience, not merely with a marketing campaign. Author Rachel Moore called it "dark academia at its finest," describing it as "a chilling dissection of what it means to be alive."

The blurbs assembled around Boys with Sharp Teeth are notably specific in what they praise. Jesse Q. Sutanto, the USA Today bestselling author of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, highlights "atmospheric tension and a twisted mystery," while CG Drews, the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Don't Let The Forest In, describes it as "a taut and darkly lyrical tale of obsession and grief" in which "each savage twist compelling you to turn the page long after the lights have gone out." Amy Goldsmith, author of Those We Drown, echoes the emphasis on grief, calling it a book that "holds a shadowy mirror up to the lengths we might go to for revenge." Across these endorsements, the consistent notes are: lyricism, propulsive plotting, and emotional stakes rooted in loss — not merely genre mechanics. As one passage from the book reads, "I am playing a character, being this girl, and it's unfortunate for everyone."

critical coverage, whose verdict is available from their own coverage, characterizes the novel as "an intensely dark debut that's focused on style over substance." That is a considered critique, not a dismissal — it acknowledges real artistic ambition while identifying a meaningful imbalance. For readers who come to dark academia for its literary density, the rich atmosphere and twist-driven plotting that fuel the book's commercial appeal may feel like they crowd out sustained engagement with character or theme. Whether that trade-off is acceptable will depend entirely on what a given reader is after.

Boys with Sharp Teeth is designed for readers aged 14 to 18 and is particularly well-suited to fans of Mackenzi Lee's and Maggie Stiefvater's brand of gothic, aesthetically charged YA — readers who want atmosphere thick enough to taste and a mystery that refuses to stay still. Those who found We Were Liars and The Raven Boys irresistible should find the novel's combination of false-identity thriller and literary-riff structuring immediately appealing. Readers who need their dark academia to carry philosophical weight comparable to the Wilde source material may want to calibrate expectations accordingly, but for the audience the book courts, it arrives with significant momentum and a premise that delivers on the genre's core pleasures.