Review of Cotton Teeth

[Sarah Schmidt]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Cotton Teeth" by Glenn Rockowitz.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Cotton Teeth is a memoir of Glenn Rockowitz’s life, chronicling his battle with cancer and his time at summer camp as a seven-year-old child. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Glenn isn’t too sure about what to do with the time he has left, much to the frustration of his father, Melvin, who has also received a terminal diagnosis and believes Glenn is spending his time unwisely. To top it off, he and his wife Jen have recently welcomed their first child, Danny, into the world. Glenn attends his chemotherapy sessions with fraying hope, with his doctor and friend, Jay, helping him through it. The story frequently shifts to the year 1977, following Glenn’s stay at a summer camp. Randy and Chuck, the camp counsellor and his assistant, torment the boys, subjecting them to sexual abuse and molestation.

The first thing that hits you as you open the book will be the setting of the scenes and the writing style. The chapters are titled with all lowercase letters, with places and times, and the narration favoured short sentences. The literary devices used and the mode of storytelling didn’t have the almost pretentious quality of flowery words and phrases. The observation of mundane and innocuous things, like his persistent wonder at why a clock at the doctor’s office was caged, imbued this sense of quiet doom, too.

The words set a stage of hopelessness I almost thought too much to wade through. It felt like Murphy’s Law had a stranglehold on his life and refused to let go. Every time I saw the page colour switch to black, I dreaded the following events. This is offset by the playful, easy relationship Glenn shares with his dad, though even this is burdened by the little bit of resentment Glenn feels because of his secret.

Threading the main story in sporadic instalments is Glenn’s traumatizing experience when he was only seven years old. His molestation at the hands of those he was left in the care of was foreshadowed in the beginning few pages. The page colour, as well as the symbolism of the moth that headed off each continuation of the flashbacks, were indicators of the dark bent of his retelling. I found this to be a great storytelling device, which blended so well with the rest of the book.

Glenn has a type of humour that his father frequently, and exasperatedly, would react to with a statement somewhere along the lines of, “There’s something so wrong with you, Stuie.” Stuie, short for Stuart, is a nickname he’d given Glenn. His humour is honestly rather dark. It’s also very understandable. Even he acknowledges that, without his particular brand of humour, staving off the tears would have been an impossible feat.

The four errors I found in this book didn’t mar the quality of writing in the slightest. With that being said, I believe this book has been professionally edited.

Only a few things about this book count as negatives. Nate, his older brother, didn’t make an appearance in the direct retelling. He’s mentioned in flashbacks or reminiscing, as well as in the epilogue, but readers will never see him on-page. His reunion with Corey and Owen also wasn’t included, which I would really have liked to have read about.

I rate this book four out of four stars. Quite frankly, the story contains a lot of heavy material, but morbidly enough, that’s what appealed to me. I think this book would be a great fit for those who enjoy memoirs, particularly where the subject overcomes cancer and sexual molestation. I would also recommend this book to people who enjoy characters with dark but easy humour. The profane content in the book is rated on a high scale, so I believe the target audience should be of a mature sort.

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Cotton Teeth
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[Mildred Echesa]

Sexual molestation is what most women and girls encounter and it ruins some of them. I will definitely be reading this

[Aisha Yakub]

Seems like a loaded read. I like the themes of hope and winning, so I might be checking this out. Thank you for the review

[Manas Ranjan Mishra]

That seems a pretty interesting book. Would love to try it. Thanks a lot.

[Mbenma Esther 080]

I enjoyed reading every bit of this review. This is a work well done by the author. Thanks for the review.