Khaw is one of the brightest, most brutal voices around right now and this story did not disappoint. It's sharp and dangerous yet also charming and warm. I couldn't put it down, even though I felt awash with dread with every turn of the page. Quite possibly Khaw's best yet.

It’s a good thing I read this book way before the publication date – it’s given me time to sit and think on this book. And let me tell you – my thoughts and opinions have been on a wild ride since then! This is the type of book that makes you feel one way while reading it, something else after you’re finished, and you continue to consider the events for weeks after, questioning your own sanity.

I would absolutely describe this as the “modern day The Haunting of Hill House”. The Haunting of Hill house, written by Shirley Jackson and originally published in 1959, features a women hired to stay in a haunted house and record any paranormal activity. There were many freaky things that happened and, when you’re knee deep in the book, you can’t quite possibly consider that it’s anything BUT paranormal. After finishing it though, it comes into question: was any of it real? Or was it really the descent of a woman plagued with mental illness? It’s been months since I finished that book and I still wonder. Same thing with THIS book!

Our characters travel to Japan to stay at an infamously haunted estate. The estate is the place of Japanese legend, said to be haunted by a bride who was left at the alter and vowed to remain there in spirit until she could finally be wed. It’s also been told that women were sacrificed and buried within the grounds to keep her company…. skin crawling, right? Apparently this group of friends thought it was the perfect place to get married….. not my idea of sweet matrimony but, hey, you do you.

This friend group is an interesting one. The bride and groom and 3 other friends have all been group since their teenage years and have a lot of baggage. They all seemed to have been in a relationship with each other at some point, even swapping a time or two. They also have secrets and a whole lot of anger and resentment towards each other. To make matters worse, the main character experienced a mental “episode” prior to the trip and had been hospitalized. When all was said and done, I was made to wonder the same thing as The Haunting of Hill House – was it all real? Did this really happen or was it an excuse for the anger and rage within this friend group to finally come to a head? I’M SO CONFLICTED!!!!

I will say though – this needed to be longer. I wished that there was more suspense leading up to the haunting events. It was a lot of me trying to figure out who was who and what the backstory was that was being eluded to and then BAM! Haunted figures, women whispering, and people dying….. I just didn’t feel the build up that I wanted to I guess. I also feel like the setting and atmosphere suffered due to the short length. I just wanted more. Had it been longer, there would have been more opportunity to up the ante.

I would say that this was only moderately creepy – but I’m a VERY hard person to scare, so maybe don’t take my advice on this front. That cover is glorious though! Having that image to think about as I was reading the scary scenes really helped set the tone. OMG could you imagine if this book had pictures throughout???? Now THAT would have made this book something really stunning! I will say though – if you’re not into graphic body horror/murder……. stay away. Far away. This does get pretty graphic!!! You’ve been warned.

All in all I really liked this! Not perfect, but still damn good! And the fact that it continues to make me ponder on what was real and what wasn’t speaks to the authors writing! Please let me know what your thoughts are on this one if you read it!!!

QUICK TAKE: THIS BOOK F*CKED ME UP, DO NOT READ AT NIGHT. WHY WOULD PEOPLE GET MARRIED IN A HAUNTED HOUSE. NO THANK YOU.

Fantastic read! The story was gutwrenching and beautiful at the same time. While sometimes the writing bordered on overly-flowery, the author's lyrical prose added an element of delicacy to an otherwise dark an unsettling story stepped in Japanese horror.

Wow Cassandra Khaw has a really brilliant way with words. No tropes or common similes here! An A+ horror story. I normally don't read short stories, but this was excellent. Bonus points for the awesome cover.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I love horror with unlikeable protagonists, and this certainly fit the bill. The prose, the setting, and the brilliant way Khaw unfolded (or withheld) bits of the story were perfectly paced and relentlessly disturbing. Also, hooray for queer horror protags!

First of all, a big thank you to Netgalley for the arc of this book.

Khaw weaves an amazing lyrically creeping story.

Set in Japan we have five friends getting together for a surprise elopement in a haunted mansion.

I did not stay for the characters in this novella. They were shallow and frustratingly annoying. Which was probably the point and at less than 130 pages Khaw obviously didn't have the time to go into them as she would have with a full-length novel. But I still couldn't stand them.

I went in expecting a little more horror than I got due to overhyping on Tiktok.
The story was definitely more creepy than horrifying and the beautiful way that Khaw wrote did try and get the horror aspect some footing but it still fell short in most places. Lots of gore, which I find a lot of horror novels/movies try and scare you with but it's just gross for me. Not creepy or horrifying. Just gross.

I did love the ghost bride and the Yokai. The legend/myth, whatever you want to call it, about the ghost bride was amazingly creepy, a lot more creepy I think than what took place in the house save for a few scenes.

All in all, this was a quick, deliciously creepy read that I would definitely recommend you put no your Halloween TBR.

What this novella lacks in terms of characterization — which, through its protagonist, the wry, pessimistic, bisexual Cat, and its four other main characters, her estranged friends from her hometown of Kuala Lumpur — it makes up in incredible atmosphere.

This is right up my alley in terms of writing style. I wouldn’t mind watching an adaptation of this story on a Netflix/other-adjacent-streaming-platform horror anthology. I’d happy reread this novella again, but if you’re looking for a book that goes deep into its characters psychology, I’d say skip this one.

This short horror novella wins the award for the simultaneously most gorgeous AND horrifying cover. In fact, it is the cover that actually drew me to this book in the first place. As someone who is trying to read more horror books, I couldn't resist!

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is more of an understated book that I would have imagined -- and that's not a bad thing. Khaw's writing is lyrical and although there are plenty of horrifying moments (I won't be able to comfortably look in a mirror for a few weeks), I felt that this book was more about the total breakdown of this group of 'friends'. Tensions are high before the haunting begins, and its just a powder keg waiting to go off. This is the kind of thing I love in horror media (see: my love of The Thing and the incredible tensions between the group), and Khaw did a great job creating that high-tension atmosphere.

This book is tense, creepy, and has excellent horror imagery. It was a great read, and perfect for your Halloween TBR (but maybe keep the lights on).

So the marketing for this book sounds AMAZING!

The writing is so disappointing. Here are some choice phrases in the first 10% of the book that resulted in me DNFing (Did Not Finish-ing) this text:

"Philip [...] palmed the back of his neck, looking sheepish." - Khaw shows us with P's body language how he is feeling, but doesn't trust us to understand emotions, so she tells us the emotion he's feeling immediately after.

"Poster boy perfect: everyone craved him like a vice" -- Just awkward phrasing. It feels like beating a dead horse. Philip is so desirable he's like a vice OR he's so addictive people crave him. Both feels sloppy.

"A door thumped shut and we both jumped, turned like cogs." -- what even is this sentence? Does this mean they turned towards each other with their arms outstretched interlocking awkwardly... like cog work? How does their coggy-ness add to the reader's mental image here? It just makes it really weird if you try and picture people turning like cogs. Not an effective use of language.

"The stutter of a girl's voice, sweet despite its coarseness, like a square of fabric worn RAGGED, like a sound carried on the last RAGGED breath of a failing record player" -- First: the over-writing -- ouch. Second: the sentence below indicates the author has a larger vocabulary than this. Why?!

"Philip's expression *cragged* with the guilt he'd held for years like a *reliquary*" -- "cragged", as in a "crag" as in a rock face? So his face is creased or lumpy or jagged? This doesn't help with description really. And a reliquary is a holy container. He's holding onto his guilt like one would hold onto a holy container. With reverence? With awe? With the fear of god? I can't -- this is the sentence that ended all desire to continue with this text.

I know this is an "uncorrected proof" (and I'm not sharing this to Goodreads, just internally to NetGalley) but in my experience with ARCs they are usually pretty close to their final form by the time they are going out to reviewers. And while I selected some of my most pet peeve sentences, I also flicked ahead through the ARC and can spot these on any page I stop on. This is a writing style I cannot get on with.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is definitely not a book for everyone, but Khaw does a fantastic job creating an entrancing atmosphere and delivering some genuinely haunting moments in this short read. The book throws you into the story immediately and never really gives the reader a chance to get on firm footing, which is great for those who enjoy when horror is more amorphous and ambiguous. However, this does make it difficult to connect with or understand the motivations of the main characters, which ultimately does undermine some of the twisted scenarios Khaw conjures up. In addition, Khaw’s excessive use of metaphors, similes, and flowery adjectives often becomes distracting, rather than adding to the worldbuilding and characterization. While it’s likely Nothing But Blackened Teeth will be a polarizing release, it also further establishes Khaw as a writer to watch, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth is short but it packs a punch.

We follow a group of friends who are celebrating a wedding at a Heian era mansion and things go from tense to downright horrific as the group decides to tell ghost stories.

This book is tense. The relationships are tense and though you don't necessarily get a full explanation on the friends' interlocked past, what you do get makes you ask "how could this night ever go right?" The atmospheric writing left me dreading the inevitable and when the action begins, it does not stop.

Since it's short we don't really get to know the characters all that well, but I found myself enthralled with their dramas. Khaw's writing did take me a minute to get into. There were points where multiple places where the author clearly valued underused synonyms and it was a bit distracting, but I quickly got over it and really fell into the story.

A perfect quick horror read that had me racing towards the end. This is by no means a perfect book, but if you're into horror and can handle some gore, I'd definitely recommend.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth
by Cassandra Khaw
Macmillan-Tor/Forge

First, thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this book. I liked the Japanese folktale.
Second, I am sure some people will really like this book, especially those that don't normally read horror.

This was "friends", some hated each other, going to a Japanese mansion to have a wedding. They argued full time until they tangled with a ghost with teeth that were, you guessed it, black. The ghost was suppose to be there due to a Japanese myth.

This was so predictable, corny, and so laughable at times that I started to believe it was satire. I really started to wonder. None of the characters were well fleshed out, pun intended. Dialogue unrealistic. Nothing even creepy. If you are a true horror fan you will probably be disappointed. The saving grace is it was short.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth, the newest addition to Cassandra Khaw’s (she/they) ever-growing repertoire, is a novella very much centered within the tradition of the ‘haunted house’ narrative. It’s got the labyrinthine, Belasco-style dwelling, the sinister, Jackson-esque shadows that lurk just beyond the point of perception, and a knife-edge tension almost too palpable to bear. But this slim volume is anything but a run-of-the-mill residential horror.

Set in modern-day Japan, the story’s premise follows a group of thrill-seeking young adults who, having travelled together for a destination wedding of a lifetime, find themselves plunged into a Gothic nightmare where they are forced to navigate the horrors of a Heian-era mansion haunted by a living-dead bride seeking human sacrifices. The storyline unfolds to reveal a cast of conflicting characters, each of whom are, in turn, isolated, cornered, and put to the test by the malevolent spirit that wants them dead. Khaw even manages to work in a deeply unsettling portrayal of demonic possession which, in many ways, feeds into a much larger discussion around Western colonialism, and the physical and psychological boundaries that are often compromised in toxic relationships.

Though Khaw’s tale is, at times, warped by the overuse of senseless similes and ill-placed humor that doesn’t quite hit the mark, the Malaysian-born writer still manages to achieve something truly wonderful with their intelligent use of rich, descriptive imagery and a plotline convincingly fused with Japanese legends and folklore. The novel capitalizes on a veritable parade of ghostly apparitions called yōkai. These mischievous and often hostile creatures are given many forms, from the brush-painted, fish-like ningyo who crawl from the mansion’s towering ceilings, to the amphibious kappa murals who ominously sift through the walls of its ancient, abandoned ruins. The faceless figure of the Ohaguro-Betarri also features to harrowing effect. Dressed in a white bridal kimono, this shape-shifting female yōkai (recognizable from the book’s stunning front cover) permeates each page with a poetic musicality. Her presence is articulate, multidimensional, and firmly reflects Khaw’s background in video game development, most specifically their position as senior scriptwriter for Ubisoft, the French video game studio responsible for successful franchises like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Assassin’s Creed. Sentences are gun-fire quick, and across nine highly cinematic and viciously bite-sized chapters, Khaw’s blunted style delivers an unputdownable, fast-paced chiller with survival horror vibes similar to Keiichiro Toyama’s claustrophobic Siren (PlayStation 2, 2003) and Tecmo’s original installment of the Fatal Frame series.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is, to say the least, a delightfully unusual novel. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s addictive, and somehow it manages to linger on, quite threateningly, in the subconscious long after you’ve turned out the lights. A solid five-star read.

A word of thanks to the author, and the team over at Tor Nightfire, for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of this title in exchange for an open and honest review.

When I first saw the cover of this one, I knew I wanted to read it. I was sold on the premise and the setting. I grew up watching Asian horror (which I really shouldn’t have, given my young age). So this sounded right up my alley. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. There were quite a few things that didn’t work for me:

- The writing style wasn’t my cup of tea.

- The group dynamic was awkward. I couldn’t understand why 4 friends who clearly don’t like each other, would go on a destination wedding together.

- A large chunk of the story is spent listening to these characters bicker, which drew my focus away.

What I liked:

-The cultural diversity. Cat is from Malaysia. Nadia is half Bengali & part Telugu. Faiz is half Japanese, and Phillip is White.

- The horror aspects and creepy setting were done well. I just wish this was the main focal point, and not the high school drama.

Overall, there are many who loved this one and would still encourage others to check it out. .

This was a good, quick read. A group of friends, with all sorts of emotional baggage, get together at an abandoned home for a wedding. They decide to stay in the haunted house the night before the wedding and it goes about as well as you think it will...

4.5 Stars
Normally, haunted house stories don't work particularly well for me, but this was a wonderful exception. This story successfully balanced a creepy atmosphere with an exciting climax.

I really loved the incorporation of so much Japanese language and culture in this story. The inclusion of mythological Japanese creatures really added to the story.

In many ways, this was a very simple, traditional horror narrative. This book is filled with horror tropes, yet the diverse setting made the story feel fresh. Personally, I never tire of the breakdown of a group of friends.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novella and would absolutely recommend it to any horror reader.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

To be honest I did not like this book at all. To begin with I had a really hard time giving a crap about any of the characters. Nadia was such a cliche. The "You breathed near my boyfriend one time so now I hate you forever and am going to be a mega bitch to you throughout the story" jealous girl really? Hasn't this been done to death. This whole book I was wondering why these "friends" even bothered to travel together as they seem to hate each other's guts for petty childish reasons. Don't even get me started on Cat. Secondly, I didn't find it scary at all. Finally, it seemed like Khaw really loves Japanese culture so much that she peppered her story with an overabundance of Japanese words that people who don't know anything about Japan or who have never studied Japanese probably wouldn't know. I'm not talking about words like "sushi" and "kimono" that are commonly known. I'm talking about words like "kitsune" and "fusuma" and "yokai". I've studied Japanese and know a lot about Japanese culture, but this really got annoying after a while.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a stylishly creepy exploration of how humans haunt each other, told through the lens of a Japanese ghost story. Great building of suspense and examination of the small things that can break relationships apart. My only complaint was that the story development felt a bit rushed, and if it was fleshed out into a full length novel that most likely would not have been an issue.

How is it possible for a story to be this good? Khaw has made a true masterpiece with Nothing But Blackened Teeth. Every element comes together perfectly to make an undeniable treasure for anyone who loves mythology, horror, thriller, or any story that will keep you questioning, "What could possibly happen next?"