Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Wow. This was awful. Just... So bad. Where to begin?

The Premise: A group of friends who have grown up together (and have also seemingly all dated and/or fucked each other) meet up at an abandoned (and haunted) Heian manor in Japan... For a wedding. Yeah, you read that right.

The Cast: Narrated by Cat, a wearisome twenty-something who has recently been released from an institution after a suicide attempt; Faiz, the groom and Cat's bestie (who she dated once upon a time); Talia, the beautiful, bitchy, jealous bride; Phillip, the rich white popular guy (who once dated Cat and also secretly slept with Talia); and finally Lin, who shows up late and tries his best to get Cat to leave (he knows his horror stories) but to no avail. We follow show more these unlikeable characters as they make one stupid, implausible decision after another leading them further and further into harm's way.

The Writing: Good fucking grief... This novel was only 128 pages and it only made it to that because Khaw uses six sentences every time one would do. It's like she had a notebook full of analogies/metaphors and a thesaurus and maybe someone was paying her per word? I don't know but it was painful. The idiot characters couldn't even finish a thought without the author popping in some descriptive language mid-sentence. It was downright distracting and cringey as fuck.

The Horror: The scariest thing about this was the aforementioned writing. Khaw hasn't a clue about building suspense and zero talent for the art of surprise. There was a pivotal moment in the story in which something potentially terrifying happens and it played out like a Scooby Doo unmasking... Literally!

This book was about as scary as the Charlie Brown Halloween special. I've given a point for the interesting ideas with regard to Japanese folklore and demons but none of it was fleshed out. The author just name-dropped a shitload of Japanese spirits and left it at that. The cover art is the best part. I only finished it because it was so short.

Just no. show less

Khaw's Nothing but Blackened Teeth celebrates horror's ability to drop readers into a voice and situation, and compel them forward from what seems like reality into something far more dangerous and surreal. And...I loved it.

The style of the novel keeps a fast pace, and if a reader can allow themselves to sink into the voice of the MC and run with her through the experience of the book, Nothing but Blackened Teeth becomes an experience just so much as a story. Highlighted by some gorgeous language, too-real characters and drama, and an immersion in Japanese folklore, the book begs to be read and then re-read. There's an argument to be made that it could have been longer, and there are also moments when 'big word syndrome' gets out of show more hand and obscures Khaw's meaning, but those small flaws are nothing in comparison to the experience of the book.

I'm sure I'll be re-reading it, and I'll absolutely be diving into more of Khaw's work. show less

3.5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A long year spent making acquaintances with the demons inside you, each new day a fresh covenant. It does things to you. More specifically, it undoes things inside you.

Cat and her four friends are staying at a Heian-era mansion in Japan. Nadia wanted to get married in a haunted house and this mansion is rumored to be resting on the bones of a bride who died waiting for her husband-to-be. The story goes, every year a young girl is freshly buried in the walls, or at least until the husband-to-be ghost finally comes home to reunite with his ghost bride. While the house seems to come alive, some show more of the true horror comes from the twisted relationships inside the friend circle.

Suenomatsuyama nami mo koenamu.

Told in first person pov from Cat, the first half sets the scene with shivering descriptions of the mansion and the emotional strife in the group. Cat is recovering from depression, Phillip seems to think it is because he broke up with her but readers privy to her internal thoughts, know there is more to it. Cat and Faiz used to date and this causes tension between Faiz's fiancee Nadia and Cat, especially since Cat told Faiz to just breakup with Nadia when they were going through a tough spell. Phillip, the rich all-American guy, had a fling with Nadia, that Faiz doesn't know about but senses, and the late-comer Lin, seems to only truly be friends with Cat. The passive-aggressiveness in the group flies fast and furious and I was left wondering why they were all still friends at all.

Even if it was a house with rotting bones and a heart made out of a dead girl’s ghost, I’d give it everything it wanted just for scraps. Some unabridged attention, some love. Even if it was from a corpse with blackened teeth.

At the mid-point, the group settles in to share ghost stories and with our characters and setting laid out, the spooky factor starts to ramp up. There's some House on Haunted Hill-ness with the question of is it the house making/influencing the characters or is it simply the ticking time bomb relationships that pushes them. There's a little more of a definite showing from the supernatural aspects in this story but I still thought the group's relationships played a part in actions.

The ohaguro-bettari began to laugh before any of us could think to scream.

The writing is stylistic, has more of a poetry flow with shorter sentences, and some of the language used and horror descriptions give it almost a guttural contemporary Poe feel. This was a novella and with the less page count, we miss some depth to the characters, especially Lin. Everything kind of flashes by too quickly before you can sink in or absorb characters, relationships, or the horror elements. As the leader, we get more of Cat and I liked the touching on how, in connection with her depression, she feeds off the attention, she perceived, she was getting from the house, even though it was negative; any attention is good attention thinking. I thought the epilogue was more of a puttering out than shoring up the story and gave this more of a small quick slice of life feel. This was perfect for an October night read and if you're looking for a quick, delivers on the spookiness and intriguing setting horror novella, this would be one to pick up. show less

This book has the type of hook I like: 5 friends exploring a haunted house, in Japan no less, so lots of opportunities for Japanese folklore to be included. And thankfully, the Japanese folklore was present, not just a throwaway mention here or there. Also, the cover art really hooked me. This novella has an amazing cover. There's no doubt in my mind that Cassandra Khaw knows how to construct a beautiful sentence. The imagery evoked with her writing was very vivid and real. So far, so good. Fun concept, interesting setting, vivid prose, captivating cover...but these characters....I just couldn't relate to them. Well, not even that. I didn't have time to relate to them. I feel like there was a lot of missing information here. Normally I show more wouldn't suggest including more exposition, but I feel like we needed it here. I didn't understand how these characters were friends at all. None of them seemed to like each other. They fit certain archetypes, but didn't have much depth beyond them. I was irritated by them almost immediately, which is good I guess, if they're going to be killed off by a vengeful ghost. Which brings me to my other main criticism of this novella. The ghost doesn't do anything except maybe make the characters lose their minds and fight each other. I was expecting more hauntings, more violence, more creepiness, but it was more young adult drama than horror, at least at the beginning. The latter third was better, because that's when the horrors actually occur. I was a bit disappointed in the story structure, and combined with characters who are irritating, it makes for a disappointing read. show less

When four friends come together in a haunted mansion to celebrate a wedding, things take a very dark turn when a ohaguro bettari starts surrounding them….but it may be the four humans themselves who are the greatest threat to each other.

Khaw’s horror novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, is an unsettling story immersed in Japanese horror. Now, admittedly, I have very little knowledge or experience of the background and origins of a lot the dangerous entities lurking with these pages – so my reading experience might be a bit different than someone who better understands the history and tropes of this specific kind of horror (and I had to do a lot of googling while reading to try and catch myself up!).

I knew walking into this show more novella that it seems to be pretty polarizing. I have seen people who were absolutely swept away by it, and people who absolutely despised it. I knew that it had a not-so-hot sub 3 rating on Goodreads, but the cover and blurb were so enticing I couldn’t help but check it out for myself. And, with this novella in particular, I do recommend checking it out and seeing if its your thing. While this novella definitely won’t be for everyone, and I still had some things I wasn’t super impressed by, on the whole I had a great time reading this novella (and it’s also short).

I think it all comes down to knowing what works for you and what doesn’t as a reader, because Khaw goes hard with what she is doing here and that is either going to really work for you, or it will really turn you off.

The characters in this book are unlikeable, and you kind of just have to be ok with that. If likable characters are something you need in a story, definitely avoid this one. The main cast includes five characters who are petty, arrogant, and insecure. Our main POV character, Cat, is probably the most likable of the bunch, but that’s pretty much only because we see the story through her perspective. These characters are all broken and working through their own emotions and thoughts; anyone who has read Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six will know if these kinds of characters work for you. Cat and co. would very much fit in with the Atlas Six crew. The major difference with the characters here is their shared history and resultant baggage. It seems like every combination of romantic and sexual relationship between the five is in their past, creating one of those toxic and “incestuous” friend groups (what the show All American wonderfully calls “The Vortex”).

The cover of this novella does the book a little bit of a disservice because it mismanaged my expectations. I was expecting something super dark, creepy, and scary (I mean, look at that cover), and what I got instead was some tense and thrilling scenes, but more so an exploration of mental health and the struggles of the quarter life crisis. The main characters in this book are what I would consider “friends by circumstance”; they are not friends because they share interests, but because they grew up together in Malaysia and never really gave up that bond. And now that they are getting older, they have to figure out what is next for them. They have to figure out if they even like each other, and what those relationships might be moving forward. Phillip is still holding onto his “All-American quarterback” popular guy past; Lin is financially successful; and Cat is recovering for a pretty serious depressive episode. And now a wedding within this tangled web of relationships (past and present) are bringing all of their needs and desires to the forefront.

Following the lead of The Haunting at Hill House (both the sublime Shirley Jackon original and the also very worthy Mike Flanagan Netflix series), Khaw uses the haunted house genre to explore her characters. Haunted houses are fantastic settings for this because these grand mansions have a lot of room to explore and maneuver, while simultaneously feeling claustrophobic and suffocating. The houses become a reflection of the characters themselves, and their ugly personalities become enmeshed with the old and slowly degrading house. As the characters slowly unhinge from reality, the house also becomes abstracted from any kind of realism – and this is when the novella truly hits its stride.

Therefore, this novella is really an examination of not-so-good people rather than being truly spine-tingling horror.

While you won’t be jumping out of your seat with fear, Khaw does evoke a aura of foreboding over the entire novella through her vivid writing. Khaw’s prose throughout the novel is absolutely gorgeous and, to be fair, verges a bit on the purple side. Khaw is obviously a big fan of poetic language and her thesaurus, but it contributed to the sense of doom that we all know comes with the haunted house genre. Even when the characters got a bit grating and the story wasn’t as scary as I was anticipating, I was always enthralled by Khaw’s use of language.

Khaw inserts a lot of meta-humor about the horror genre in the novella, where characters often make remarks on “who is going to die first” based on their racial or sexual status. As a reader your mileage may vary whether you find these asides are annoying or funny; I would say the closest barometer would be the Scream franchise – if you like its combination of meta-humor and legit thrills, you’ll probably find the small drops of humor in this book to your liking. It is clear that Khaw is a big fan of all of the horror tropes, and loves using this story to comment on them, use them, but also play around with them. If there was anything I was a tad disappointed in it was that much of the meta-humor was at the expense of the “slasher” genre of horror rather than the possessed/haunted house genre that Khaw was writing in here.

On the whole, once I managed my expectations and appreciated what Khaw was doing vs. what I expected her to do before I read the first page, I really enjoyed this novella. It is not a perfect book by any means, but it was a satisfying entry to the horror genre.

Concluding Thoughts
A haunted house novella dripping with dark and macabre prose, Khaw introduces readers to five unlikable people and challenges their pride, insecurities, and personal foibles in all kinds of thrilling and creepy ways. This book won’t work for everyone because it is not scary in the traditional sense, but if you like dark character studies with a sense of foreboding and some really great writing, you should check this one out. show less

"Superstition was a compass: it steered your attention through thin alleys, led your eyes to crosswalks filthy with makeshift shrines, offerings and appeasements scattered by traffic."

A group of friends reunite for a wedding in a Heian-era mansion that just so happens to be haunted by the ghost of a dead bride, if the stories are to be believed. What starts as a night of celebration, awkward tensions, and social dysfunction/drama between the group quickly turns into a nightmare as they come face-to-face with the ghost.

The story definitely has a spooky vibe -- creepy haunted house, ghostly possession, blood and death, darkness, and some creepy dolls there to watch it all -- which is perfect for Halloween. It's also short, so it can be show more read in an afternoon. It wasn't as scary as I expected it to be, but what do I know, I'm a desensitized millennial.

I will say: the author's writing style definitely takes your full concentration, as the prose is very smart whilst also packing a punch. They have a very distinct writing style that can hit deep.

"Bitch is the kind of word that reads like a gunshot, rings like a punch."

I also really liked the author's inclusion of breaking the fourth wall (several times) to interject about common horror tropes; for example:

"After all, isn't that the foremost commandment in the scripture of horror? They who are queer, deviant, tattooed, tongue-pierced Other must always die first."

"This is the problem with horror movies: Everyone knows what's coming next but actions have momentum, every decision an equal and justified reaction. Just because you know you should, doesn't mean that you can, stop."

All-in-all, I enjoyed this novella...and I will be staying far away from haunted houses with lonely ghost brides that want me to join them, thank you very much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. Quotes are from the eARC and might not reflect the text in the final published version.

3.5 stars, rounded up show less

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

A deliciously atmospheric haunted house story. Having unstable Cat as the narrator is fantastic - are there really mythological Japanese spirits following them around? Are the walls really rearranging? Or is Cat just spiraling out? The uncertainty and awkwardness between friends really sets the scene, and things go bad very fast.