I really enjoyed this book. It was the perfect spooky read and I couldn't put it down. Thank you netgalley for this early copy. If you're in the mood for something scary and makes you look over your shoulder or sleep with the lights on, then this is it!

Just because I did not enjoy this book, does not mean you might not.
Great plot, interesting but hateful characters, very vivid and descriptive, but for me, the descriptive was distracting and took away from the whole plot in general. I wanted to love it, I could not. The ending though - superb.

This book went by super quick and left me wanting more! It was a very interesting story line and I would have loved it to be longer. It was so good, and so spooky.

a group of five friends reunite in japan for a destination wedding, renting a heian-era mansion where obscenely wealthy golden boy-heir phillip will officiate the sacred union of faiz and talia. it would all be picture-postcard idyllic, except for the fact that the mansion's already got a bride in it—or what's left of one: the bones of a woman whose almost-husband died on the way to their wedding, who had herself buried alive in the foundation to wait for his ghost to come home. and every year after that, another girl was buried alive in the walls, to keep her company.

When the friends arrive and explore the 2 story palace and its many rooms, the voice of an ancient ghost lures them to play a game the ancient samurai played once to see who was the bravest.

I've long said that the novella is a perfect vehicle for a horror story. It's just long enough to introduce the characters and create feelings towards them, while short enough to keep the tension high and the scares well...scary. All of the that is the case here, and more.

“𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝘅 𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗰𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻, 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀.”

Heian mansion. A wedding ceremony. A grisly past burying a bride within the walls of the mansion.

A group of friends fly first class to Japan to attend a wedding ceremony at Heian Mansion. Except, they really aren’t so close anymore….

The writing in this book was beautiful, lyrical. Any book that has a person crab walking makes my skin crawl. That is terrifying. Kudos, Cassandra Khaw.

Also, I love me some science in my books. Especially when it comes to stress and the nervous system.

However, I wish it would have been about 25-50 pages longer. That is my only complaint.

3.5 rounded up to 4

Thank you to NetGalley and Nightfire for this copy!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a short horror novella, and follows a group of semi-estranged friends who rent a (clearly very haunted) house in Japan for a wedding getaway, where terrible things of course ensue. The myth of the house and the impending dread was set up quite thoroughly, to the point of occasional overexplanation, but the characters suffered — by throwing the reader into the story with no background, emotional attachment to the characters was presumed instead of cultivated. I felt no fondness or investment in the narrator or any of her friends, and the only true moment of surprise came with the twist at the very end, with so little time spent on it that it felt like the story ended almost accidentally.
A huge problem, I felt, was the pace: the novella length just didn't give the story enough time to build up proper dread before diving deep in to the gore and action that Khaw, to their credit, is great at. Background was light and establishing character relationships were skipped or given very little space, giving no space for the sense of fear or tension to settle in. Many scenes progressed at such a breakneck pace that I had to read them multiple times to follow basic character movement, which worked well in some of the action scenes but made slower scenes of conversation and exploration feel rushed and odd.
This wasn't helped by the writing, which was beautiful but often suffocating, and lingered on description at the expense of clarity. Khaw's prose shines in their other work, which I'm quite a fan of: the extent that it got in the way of the story in this piece felt like an outlier rather than a true judge of their writing capability. I'm still looking forward to their upcoming book The All-Consuming World and am eager to see them stretch their talents in other genres.

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Hmmm.. I just finished #nothingbutblackenedteeth by @cassandrakhaw . This had an interesting premise utilizing Japanese folklore to make for a quick horror story. Khaw has a very poetic prose and painted an atmospheric setting that gives you chills while the climax looms closer. The background to the story was creepy and reminded me of #thehauntinginconnecticut . The characters were all insufferable and made it difficult to resonate with, however I don’t think that was supposed to happen anyway; this story is a you-get-what-you-deserve with haunted house vibes. The ohaguro-bettari was super creepy, try googling that shit to be real freaked out.
Overall, I was hoping for more, I felt the ending was a bit anticlimactic, but it was still an alright read. Bet it’d be a creepy movie. Thanks #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. #nothingbutblackenedteeth will be out 10/19/21 !
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Rating: 3/5
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So I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this book. I typically shy away from horror stories. Guts, gore, and viscera do not disturb me but I despise the jump scare, something peeking out of a darkened room kind of tale.
This is a ghost story. Five friends enter a crumbling Heian-era mansion intending to spend the night celebrating a wedding. They are drawn in by the shadows, dust, gloom, and malevolent atmosphere. Through the night their animosity, rage, jealousy are fueled and fanned by the ghosts around them and their own memories and perceptions of each other. Khaw keeps the tension high as the atmosphere darkens and draws from Japanese myth and legend to populate the house with a magnitude of terrifying creatures. Highly recommended for any fan of haunted house horror.

I couldn’t finish this book. The characters were interesting and the author did a great job creating tension, but the story just fell flat to me.

Very good and creepy but falls just short of being great. It’s a short novel and a quick read, I actually wish it had been longer and could have expanded on some of the story a bit.

This wasn’t for me so I put it down. I could not get myself to care about the characters or their back story. Half way in there were not many horror elements. Prose was beautiful though.

This book, really better described as a novella, is engrossing. Khaw is a master of horror and truly draws you into the world of the wedding party. A group of young friends decide to spend the night in a haunted temple where a young bride was once buried alive. The legend says that each year another woman was entombed alive to keep her company. This is the perfect place for a sleepover and a wedding, right? Steeped in Japanese folklore and horror this book keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering how it will end. Full of yokai such as ohaguro bettari, tengu, and kitsune, this classic horror tale will leave you with chills. Khaw is also not only a master of horror but a quintessential succinct author. Her prose is so precise, so well crafted its worth admiration as much as her storytelling. Her words fall like jewels from the page. Read it now!

Sorry to say I didn’t enjoy this very much. The atmosphere, the Japanese folklore, all INCREDIBLE. I know now how much I’m missing out on and plan to seek out more in this corner of horror.

But the characters… not one was likeable, interesting, or alluring. It felt like the reader is force-fed quick, drab backstory that doesn’t really contribute to the plot. The horror felt minimal and rushed, but that could be my own problem because I came into reading this assuming it was a full length novel, not a novella.

Best part of this for me was learning so much about Japanese horror folklore. So many new stories to dig into!

*thanks to netgalley for this ARC*

really good. loved the spooky setting and fast-paced feel. The atmosphere was so enticing and these characters were enjoyable to follow. Definitely get creepy and spooky. 4.5 stars!

I always love books that have a creepy horror to them and Nothing But Blackened Teeth did not disappoint. This little novella was everything I wanted and I cant wait to see what the author decided to do next.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

You know that feeling when you read the first pages of a new book and you know that you are going to love it? That was Nothing But Blackened Teeth for me. 


I'll admit that I knew very little about Japanese folklore prior to reading this, and as a result, I found myself researching many of the supernatural entities and spirits mentioned throughout the story, which made it both educational and entertaining. The prose was beautiful, the characters were unlikeable in the best way possible, and there was a great deal of history woven into the story, however, I do wish it had been a little longer.

The author knows how to create an eerie atmosphere, but I didn't feel like there was enough build-up to keep me turning the pages as quickly as I would have liked. Right when I was beginning to get spooked, the action started, and then it was over. It happened so quickly I did not get enough time to really process everything that happened. Additionally, I felt that the friend drama outweighed the creepy aspects to the point where I was more focused on that than on the horror. I think it would have benefitted from digging a little deeper into the characters and some more exposition.

Perhaps I'm just being nitpicky because I really enjoyed it and I wish there was more. I truly could have read Khaw's description of just the setting for pages and pages, and as I sat there after finishing, I wished I could go back in for more.

Brooding and dark, Nothing but Blackened Teeth drew me in and kept me off-balance. Always on the precipice of scary, it never quite tipped over. Instead, it stayed an eerie book, one that has crawled its way into my head. I’ll be thinking about it for a long while, reliving bits and pieces of the creepy story.
Nothing but Blackened Teeth follows a group of friends who decide to rent a Heian-age mansion for an odd sort of wedding celebration. The thing is, they’ve heard it’s haunted. That’s the draw for them: they’re hoping to experience the otherworldly and the disturbing. Well, wish granted.

The story goes that originally a woman’s fiancé died on his way to marry her at the mansion. She decided to be buried alive so that she could wait for her husband like one does, I suppose. Women continued to be sacrificed, one per year, so that the buried bride wouldn’t be lonely. In all honestly, the origin story for the haunting is the part that I found to be the weakest. It just didn’t inspire that anticipatory shiver that I was hoping for.

None of the characters are particularly likable and at first, I found myself viewing them through the slasher-film lens. You know: this one will die first because they sleep around, this one next because they don’t believe in the danger, etc. However, such was not the case. The tropes became jumping-off points for complex, multi-faceted characters, each with their own flaws and fears. Half of the fun of Nothing but Blackened Teeth was watching the complicated relationships fray and slowly dissolve as the characters’ pasts caught up to them.

The story begins with Cat, a woman who is still coming to grips with an unspecified mental illness. It has affected her past and she is still in the midst of learning to cope with it. There’s Phillip, the charismatic and super rich sponsor of the mansion rental. There’s Faiz and Talia, the engaged couple. Cat and Talia have beef, and their issues with each other add to an already tense situation. Last, there’s Lin, who is a master pot-stirrer. It’s these tangled relationships and hidden emotions that really elevate Nothing but Blackened Teeth to the fascinating tale that it is.

Author Cassandra Khaw played with motifs of relationships and mental health in ways that felt a little reminiscent of Shirley Jackson (if Jackson had a penchant for gore). There were times when I wondered what was happening and what- if anything was being imagined by one character or another. Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a riveting book, perfect for fans of creepy tales with a little extra bite.

This book is the perfect mixture of cheesy 80's horror and all those bad reality TV shows where people start out as 'sort of friends'. Only to have relationships and levels of decorum devolve as secrets and betrayals are revealed. Right before the eyes of a drama starved public. Popcorn in hand, judgement and recriminations at the ready.

Only this time...
The house is an abandoned Hein-era mansion. And the audience.
Well...
That's where things get more than a bit creepy.
Try the restless spirit of the woman buried alive as a young bride. Her bones, along with those sacrificed to attend her making up the founding of the house.

The drama begins almost as soon as the book does. With some of the guests playing 'hot potato' with the knowledge of who had had affairs with the bride. And whether the proverbial 'beans should be spilled to the unsuspecting groom. Before the 'death til us part and all."
While our narrator gets acquainted with the spirit in question. And seriously starts to wonder when the 'and then there were none' countdown is scheduled to begin.

Insert plot twist here.
When after a game of ghost storytelling. The bride goes missing and there is a stabbing. All the while tensions continue to heighten. And arguments and jealous squabbles abound.

The ending almost seems a justification for the intrusion of the self absorbed and petty squad that this spirit has found herself hosting.
Along that vein...
This story is a lot less horror. And a lot more spiritually induced comedy of errors.
With the short and not so sweet format of the story serving to drive home the impact of its ending's very ironic punch.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a gorgeously creepy haunted house tale, steeped in Japanese folklore and full of devastating twists. And an absolutely, incredibly terrifying book to read. I had nightmares for a week after I finished it but omg...this book is so beautifully written that no matter how terrifying it becomes you just can't stop reading. The word pictures she paints will stay in your mind for a long time and not just because they are so eerily creepy but because they manage to be both horrific and beautiful at the same time. This book was a scare-filled joy to read. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy for review.

Scary, scary, scary. I googled a lot of the things mentioned throughout the book and found some creepy images that lent to the atmosphere of the story. I enjoyed the short format but wish we could have stayed in this haunted house.. forever!