After reading the synopsis for Nothing But Blackened Teeth, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That, and the unforgettable cover, too. So despite being the person who screams during horror movies when her dog sneezes, and throws the controller during jump scares in video games, I requested an ARC copy of Nothing but Blackened Teeth. Though I got strong The Ring and The Grudge vibes from the description of the novel and the setting of a haunted Heian mansion, I found that Nothing but Blackened Teeth wasn’t much like either of those films after all. In fact, it strongly put me to mind of the video game Until Dawn, where a group of friends (who are super incestuous and all seem to have dated one another at some point, have lots of secrets from each other, and hold a lot of long grudges), meet up in a reunion and everything goes horrifically wrong.

Much like that aforementioned video game, it doesn’t take long for things to go south quickly in Nothing but Blackened Teeth.  From the very moment narrator Cat sets foot in the haunted house, to fulfill a frenemy’s dream of a wedding in a haunted house, she has a strong feeling that this isn’t going to be like their other forays into haunted houses. It starts with a mysterious, melodious whisper in Japanese that no one else can hear and quickly spirals into possession from there. Before long, Cat isn’t just dealing with the past demons of her friend group, but an undead bride who has been waiting a very long time for company. 

I still really liked the premise of Nothing but Blackened Teeth, but I was shocked at how short the novel actually was. According to Goodreads, it is a mere 128 pages, something I failed to check before getting myself all hyped up for a full-length horror novel. After reading Nothing but Blackened Teeth, I learned that the author, Cassandra Khaw is actually a former screenwriter, so perhaps the shortness of her work, the fast-paced story that hurtles itself to a break-neck conclusion, as well as the lack of a lot of character introduction, is indicative of Ms. Khaw’s former occupation. 

Oddly enough, despite having what feels like a very tight script, the novel is filled with ornate, sometimes bewildering and jarring descriptions. The fact that I spent much of the time I was reading trying to decipher the extremely loquacious purple prose, made it seem like not much was really happening, and consequently made the work feel even shorter. Plus, many of these extreme descriptions were not even of something scary, but they definitely possessed the entire page in a different way. Though I respect and even commend the author for her unabashed use of such purple prose, it is really not a writing style that I personally enjoy reading. 

“My laugh was just bones knocking together, without any meat to cushion their clamor. Hateful, hollow.”

I find that this writing style really distracts me from the overall plot of the novella, but the often dark imagery the author weaves certainly does add to the heavy atmosphere and the unique, especially in the cases when she uses it to describe the yokai and undead bride. I also did not really care for the repeated breaking of the fourth wall in the novel, but other readers may find it refreshing or entertaining. Characters remark on whether they are minorities, virgins, bisexuals, etc., and what those categories mean for their survival chances within classic horror scenarios. While humorous, and undoubtedly there to add some levity to a rather bleak tale, I couldn’t help feeling the jokes were completely out of place with the oppressive imagery and darker themes of cheating spouses, ruined relationships, ended friendships, and the actual haunting of the novel. Plus, it seems like it took up a lot of unnecessary space in such a short work. 

“Cat, this is literally the part where the supporting cast dies horribly. You’re bisexual. I’m the comic relief. It’s going to be one of us.”

Unfortunately, despite the characters’ very real fear and the creepy atmosphere, I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters. I honestly don’t understand why any of them are friends. The narrator, Cat, is a mess, and the others aren’t much better off. Like seriously, why would someone want to get married in a haunted house, let alone one famous for its undead brides of all things? They’re constantly at each other’s throats, usually over vague ancient history,  and I honestly couldn’t help but to root for the creepy undead bride to come and murder all of them so I could finally have some peace. That made it somewhat hard for me to be scared by said undead creature, which one would argue is the entire point of a horror story. 

Despite not being a big fan of what I felt was a strange mix of modernity and recognition of the horror tropes with the dark imagery, I really do think Nothing but Blackened Teeth would make a great horror movie, or even video game. It would certainty need to be a bit more fleshed out for either kinds of those adaptations, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a story and so strongly pictured it as another medium. Perhaps that’s due to the unapologetically purple and descriptive prose. If you are a very big fan of horror or prefer to read short stories, I think you will enjoy this novella. If you enjoy longer tales, with lots of build up, suspense, and character development, Nothing but Blackened Teeth is not the read for you.

This was a very creepy and unique horror novella. While I wasn't outright scared, there was something about the slowly encroaching and escalating horror that had me reading this with my lights on.

The book cover art for Canadian writer Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth is compelling, if not garish, to say the least. If you look to the left of this paragraph, you’ll see the frightening image conjured up for this horror novella that will probably give you bad dreams for days, if not weeks. Well, just like Malcolm Brooks’ recently reviewed Cloudmaker, the cover art sells what is a bit of a crummy book. That’s not to say that there are things to like or admire with Nothing but Blackened Teeth. However, the parts don’t add up to much of a whole. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about it is that the time investment in reading this work is negligible. You can easily read it in one sitting. In fact, it can be read in the space of about an hour.

The story is about five young American college-aged adults who travel to a haunted mansion in Japan as a bit of a dare before two of the five get married. The mansion, it turns out, is home to a ghost (a bride) who was buried alive on her wedding day when it turned out that the groom had gotten killed before the wedding. While the bride waits for her groom to return in spiritual form, she has other female bodies buried with her to keep her company. Meanwhile, it turns out that the five friends are, in truth, not too friendly with each other, and some of them have actually slept around with each other before coupling with their current significant other. In any event, this being a horror novel, bad things start to happen, and you can expect people to start getting killed off.

While I did say that the best thing about this book is that it’s short, I must say that I’m impressed with the level of language in Nothing but Blackened Teeth, which is filled with all sorts of $50 words and Japanese terms. However, this is also a liability in so much as it is an asset. It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on with all of the flowery language. It winds up detracting from the plot — especially since there’s a bit of a cultural disconnect with certain characters. (The only reason some of the characters think and speak these words is because they have Japanese heritage, it seems. But some don’t. This only adds to the confusion.) Meanwhile, I found the dialogue used in the book to be conversely pedestrian. It’s the sort of thing you’ll find in manga or anime. Some of it is laughably juvenile, which is probably not the thing you’ll want to convey in a book that’s supposed to be scary.

And that’s the thing: Nothing but Blackened Teeth isn’t too scary at all. At best, it’s kind of creepy. It is filled with all sorts of imagery of decay and disuse. But that’s about as far as the book goes in terms of psyching the reader out. The book isn’t scary at all because the characters are all so unlikeable in many ways. Since everyone is at each other’s throats for the entirety of the novella, it’s hard to get invested in their plight. Thus, when bad things start to happen to them, you’ll wind up finding yourself not caring about what happens to them or even not caring when some of them seemingly wind up dead. You may find yourself applauding their deaths.

It seems that all that this book accomplishes in the positive realm is exuding a sense of atmosphere. However, the author could have gone much further in mining a particular mood. The novella could have been a bonafide novel with perhaps more of a backstory about the ghosts and more of an explanation for some of the Japanese terminology used in telling the story. I’m not sure what having this at a novella’s length accomplishes, other than thinking that the author does seem to be rather young — a quick check reveals her to be in her 30s — and writing a novel might be biting off more than can be chewed at this point in her career. That said, there’s a great story waiting to break out of this book, and a longer length might have achieved the goal of giving us more of a sense of who these characters are and why they might like and dislike each other all at the same time.

Even though Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a bit of a failure as a novella, it’s clearly apparent that Cassandra Khaw has talent and is a name to watch. She does succeed at some aspects of writing horror fiction and did think that as much as I generally disliked the elevated language, it gave a shot in the arm to a maligned genre of fiction. Horror novels get shafted even more than science-fiction in the literary community it seems (unless your name as a horror author was Shirley Jackson), so it’s good to see someone trying to rise above convention and do something rich and rewarding. That it doesn’t quite pan out in the way that might have been expected here shouldn’t detract curious readers from checking out future works by Khaw.

Indeed, Cassandra Khaw certainly has a promising future in front of her. It’s just too bad that Nothing but Blackened Teeth doesn’t quite excel. There’s a terrific premise here in setting the haunted house genre in Japan, so having more detail spent on creating quality dialogue and amplifying the atmosphere so that everyone can understand it would have gone a long way in helping the author achieve the goal of worldly success in the horror genre. In the end, it will also make Khaw worthy of that damn scary cover art that her publisher is investing in her work.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC. The opinions expressed herein are mine alone and may not reflect the views of the author, publisher, or distributor.

At a young age, I fell in love with Japanese culture. My mom exposed us first to the original Iron Chef shows when they came to American television, then my brothers introduced me to manga when I was 7. I already watched Pokemon, but I didn’t know it was Japanese. I was like...6, okay? Then I got the original Pokemon comics for my birthday one year--still in the single digits--and everything tumbled from there. I started learning how to sing the opening songs to anime in Japanese, started reading about samurai and history of the place, and when I got older, I dove into the mythology and horror of everything.

You know how long I’ve waited for straight-up, inevitable-doom, nothing-you-can-do-to-stop-it type of horror to make its way to the world of mainstream publishing over here? Yeah, I’m almost 29. It’s been about a decade.

Five friends from North America (well, “friends.” They’re all kind of terrible except poor Cat) make their to way to Japan to celebrate two of the group getting married to each other, and what do they decide to do? Stay the night in a haunted Japanese mansion from the Heian era. Why is the era important? Oh-ho, let me hit you with some history.

So until about the 8th century CE, Chinese ideas and influence had been flooding into Japan and helping to shape its culture, religion, script, and art. Suddenly in 794CE, Japan decided, ”You know what? We’re totally our own thing now. Peace out.” And their personal identity and culture as a nation began taking serious, hardcore turns toward the unique. You know those often-portrayed kimono that have a bajillion layers, and the women are wearing brass headdresses and jewels and make up? That’s from this period, and the style is junihitoe. So when you think “old school Japan,” this is probably what pops to mind besides samurai (who didn’t really come about until the 11th century or so, when feudalism took hold as the popular thing to do).

This in mind, the friends embark on staying in this crazy haunted place that has a legend behind it. On the day of her wedding, a bride received word that her fiance had died on his way to marry her, and she in her grief decided to go ahead and be buried in the house’s foundation. Human sacrifice was considered a normal practice (called Hitobashira) in this era. With THIS in mind, the least enjoyable character and bride-to-be, Nadia, takes it upon herself to think it’s a good idea to go ahead and play an old game from Japan where you light a hundred candles, tell a hundred ghost stories, and for each story, blow out one candle. Because it invites the spirits in.

Now, this is the important part where I started saying, “NO STOP WHY DO YOU DO.” (Disclaimer: I know it’s a horror novel. Humor me.) Asian spirits, and in particular the Japanese ones, are NOT forgiving. You can’t put down salt and call it good, or burn a little sage and think you’re fine. A vengeful Japanese ghost will follow you until it gets a moment to kill you. There’s one that if you even look at it too closely, you turn into one. Don’t even get me started on Aka Manto, the spirit who lurks in the unused bathrooms of high schools and offers you toilet paper, then proceeds to kill you no matter what type of paper you ask for.

But yeah, let’s INVITE THEM IN.

When it hits the fan, things devolve quickly for the poor souls who decided to dredge up the monsters. The strongest points in Khaw’s novel are the creeping moments of dread that make your ribs clench up. She writes such vivid atmosphere, it’s crazy. Every yokai came to life (ha, get it?) and every breath the house took blew straight off the page.

The biggest problems here were the pacing and the characters. I don’t think enough terrible things happened, if I’m being honest. And I wanted to like more of the characters, get to know them a little better. As it is, Cat was my favorite and everyone else was terrible. I don’t even necessarily have to like them as people, just as characters doing whatever they do. We didn’t get enough of their history to solidly sort out feelings, except for the strain between Cat and Nadia. Everyone else was...meh. Their motives were too vague, and their fractures not reasonable enough.

And the ohaguro bettari--which gives the book its title--needed to show up earlier. So if Khaw had stretched it out just a bit, made us clench our cheeks with tension a few more times, and fleshed out the characters more, this would have been darn near perfect.

Though, I will say, the ending paragraph really made up for some of the mixed feelings I had for the middle. If you’re remotely familiar with how the majority of ghost stories end in Japan, this ending will make perfect sense.

So overall, this is a great novella. Not fantastic, but a solid effort that shows a great potential to write bone-chilling horror.

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a horror novella that combines haunted houses, Japanese folklore, and the break down of old friendships. I received an early review copy from the publisher through NetGalley. When a group of five friends rent an old Heian era mansion in Japan that is supposed to be haunted for two of them to get married in old conflicts between the friends cause tensions to rise and things end up not going to plan. The premise of the book pulled me in but it was the cover that convinced me that I needed to read this book.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>The story is told from Cat's perspective and she is their with Phillip, the only white guy in the group, fiancées Nadia and Faiz, and best friend, Lin. Its clear from the start that Cat had some short of metal health episode prior to the story that has greatly impacted her relationships with her friends and Nadia only invited her because others wanted her there. Phillip the riches of all of them helped rent this location because Nadia always wanted to be married in a haunted house and Faiz agreed to do it before their main wedding. The ghost story associated with the mansion is that a wedding was supposed to take place their but the groom died before arriving so the bride told the wedding guest to bury her alive in the foundation of the house. The bride would keep the house standing until her grooms ghost come home and every year after they would bury a new girl in the walls so the ghost won't get lonely. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Everything seems to be going fine just drinking and partying until Nadia suggests that they play Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai which is translated as A Gathering of One Hundred Ghost Stories. Where everyone in a room would tell a ghost story and then extinguishing a candle and who ever could survive without flinching won the game. Cat ends up being the one to tell the last story which she tell their story of the night and mentions that the house knows that they are there and she saw a girl earlier. They go searching for the ghost and Nadia ends up disappearing and a ohaguro-bettari (a female yokai dressed as a bride) pretending to be her. They have awakened the spirits of the house. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>As a group they end up finding a book that tells them how to get Nadia back but Faiz and Phillip end up arguing and Faiz stabs Philip. With Phillip dead Cat suggest that they make his death count for something and complete ritual to save Nadia. They burn down the mansion to cover it up and stop anyone else making the same mistakes. The book ends with everyone having gone their seprate ways and not really being friends anymore.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>In many ways this is a story about how friendship fall apart told through a horror story and ghost. I loved this story but did wish I knew a little more about the groups past as I didn't completely understand how they got to this point at the start of the book. Great for horror fans or anyone intrigued by the cover. Currently, Nothing But Blackened Teeth is scheduled to be released in October 2021.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Warning: I'm about to quote an ARC, which you're not supposed to do, unless the writing is so darn perfect that any change to the final would be unforgivable:

"You know how poets say sometimes that it feels like the whole world is listening?
It was just like that.
Except with a house instead of an auditorium of academics, collars starched, textbooks like scriptures, each chapter color-coded by importance. The manor inhaled. It felt like church. Like the architecture had dulled its heartbeat so it could hear me better, the wood warping, curling around the room like it was a womb, and I was a new beginning. Dust sighed from the ceiling. Spiderwebs fell in umbilical cords, a drape of silver."

I am that house, and I am listening to the poetry of this prose. This is just one of so many paragraphs in this novella that blew me away. How did she just do that? i asked myself more than once.

The comparisons to Shirley Jackson in this novella are deserved. The main character has some of the same neurosis and fears, that feeling of being an outsider, not fully understood or content, references to pasts traumas and crisis the reader is invited to extrapolate on their own as we ride through the story insider her internal dialogue. This is a literary go-cam inside her spirit and mind as we visit this haunted house. Brilliantly haunted. It's own kind of Hell House history that would make Matheson shudder.

This story has a serious tone but with a dark humorous mix at times, self reflects on horror more than once, aware of itself. Aware that it's standing on the shoulders of giants, but about to make its own creation. It doesn't have contempt for other haunted houses, but it does dismiss them in a sense as nothing compared to 'this.. because this is real. More severe and serious and sinister and ancient. Every relationship connection is filled with ghosts. None of them is safe. Nobody is full okay with who they are and who they love, everyone concerned over past ties and connections, hurt people hurting people. Ghosts are everywhere and follow everyone, and we are all of them. Your partner is haunted, and so are you.

I loved hearing the short snippets, of non-english language which added to its mythos. It forces you to mouth words and speak a different tongue, as if the reader is performing their own incantations.


I hope this book eats you, because it ate me, and I enjoyed each crunch from its blackened teeth.

First of all, this cover art is AMAZING. Absolutely perfect for this creepy short story. I’m obsessed with everything dark and scary, so when I saw this cover and then read this description, I was hooked. And Cassandra Khaw did not disappoint! Short and straightforward while still managing to be flowery in her language, an interesting and under utilized setting, and a complex cast of characters that were very well fleshed out for the amount of pages. Absolutely loved it and will buy this when it comes out!

Disclaimer: This review is going to be a mumbo-jumbo of whatever is coming to my mind at the moment because I haven't written one in... a long time and I finished this book five seconds ago.

In all honesty, the premise of this story is ridiculous to me. Maybe it's my cowardice or my experience with the paranormal or the numerous warnings of my parents and grandparents concerning the paranormal speaking, but why would anyone want to get married in a haunted mansion? Why would anyone even want to enter one? At this point, sweetheart, you are literally courting death and I am not the one who's gonna feel sorry for you when it happens.

And that is how I started this story rooting for none of the characters. And then as it progressed, I admit, I grew mildly invested in two of them; I really wanted to know what had transpired between them because it seemed there was a lot to unpack there and I wished they would be saved from the horror ending somehow.

Speaking of 'the horror', it was very well written with just the right descriptions and comparisons to set the creepiness in the atmosphere, in the very walls of the house, making it seem like the house was an entity by itself. And that really came through because my mind decided to give me images and sensations the narrator was experiencing as I lay in bed reading this. I was so terrified of my own room I had to stop reading and distract myself with funny videos until 2 am.

Creepiness aside, the mansion came across as gorgeous and I intend to go ahead and look up the Heian period to get a clearer idea of what things looked like before I reread this book. And also because it sounds like a very interesting period, of course.

The ending, I have to say, was not what I had expected but at the same time, truly, more horrifying than ghosts and such, is what people are capable of doing to other people. That is the most jarring part of horror stories in my opinion because, on one hand, you have this... force, that is obviously more powerful than you, and on the other hand, you have people who you think are just like you, but who could cause just as much harm, be it through utter stupidity or by sheer want of it.

Interesting book. I don't usually read horror, but the premise sounded interesting so I gave it a go. I like the author and the story was well done.

Loved the visceral descriptions peppered throughout this seductively disturbing novella. Great sense of character depth, with bits and pieces of cultural relevance. Honestly, not one to miss!

My kind of weird. It was great! The writing and the story both have something quite unique and I enjoy that a lot. Strong debut novel for Cassandra Khaw. I'm very curious to see what will come next!

TL;DR: Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a fast-paced, riveting haunted house story that I read straight through in one sitting. Five friends head into a Heian-era manor to celebrate the wedding of two of their number because of the bride's wish to be married in a haunted house. It's perfect for spooky evenings and hits bookstores October 2021.

-
I received a copy of Nothing But Blackened Teeth from NetGalley/Tor Nightfire in exchange for an honest review.
I picked up this book about thirty minutes to midnight, alone in bed with the lights off. I figured I'd read a few pages before bed and pick back up the next day.

Instead, I was up until about 1 a.m. inhaling this story.

The premise of this story is a delicious one: five friends -- or, "friends", perhaps -- head to a Heian-era manor to celebrate the wedding of two of their number. The bride had always dreamed of getting married in a haunted house and this one's a doozie: a woman was buried alive in the house at her request after her groom's death with the promise to wait for him. She also wanted another young woman to be sacrificed each year thereafter to keep her company.

Obviously, things go wrong. Like, really, super, very wrong.

I love so much about this book: the setting, the mythology, the brokenness of five friends who have long since outgrown each other but cling to one another because that's all they know. While I saw some reviews note that the prose is "purple" to a distracting extent, I have to disagree; the language felt natural for a young woman trying to (re-)find her place in the world. There's an air of almost obsessive observation about her: “Phillip excelled at inciting want, particularly the kind that tottered on the border of worship. Small wonder he was so inept at compassion sometimes. Every religion is a one-way relationship.” These snippets of the world around our narrator make me feel like I can see it through her eyes, which makes it all the more real.

My one wish for this story is that it had taken more room to breathe. Caveat here: I'm very much a fan of slow-burn horror/ghost stories - the kind that leave some people bored (I loved the pacing in The Haunting of Bly Manor, for example). I was riveted to the page because the book moves fast and putting it down felt unthinkable - it was like I couldn't get off the ride. But: that also meant I wasn't able to truly curl up in our narrator's head (their relationships to the others are sketched out and clearly run deep, but I would have loved to dwell on them a little more). Nor did it feel I could immerse myself fully in all the scenes before the next one came along. I loved the story enough that I was sad I had to leave it so soon.

I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a haunted house story, and especially those who want to dive headfirst into spooky season. Recommended setup: curled up in bed near midnight, with just the light of some candles (maybe a hundred?) to light your way.

This was a simple but creepy tale of a haunted mansion. Thrill seeking friends decide a haunted Heian-era mansion in Japan is the perfect place for a wedding. I had a hard time with all the Japanese language which slowed my reading down. I feel this story would make a perfect movie rather than a book because of its predictable scares and plot.

This one is not for the faint of heart! I had a bit of difficulty getting through this one-not because it was slow, which is the typical reason, but because it was so scary it gave me the after dark chills!
This book was full of interesting detail and can be summed up in just two words-delightfully nasty.
To say much more would be to say too much, so I’ll just say this—worth the read. 4 stars! ⭐️

I really wanted to like this. Malaysians, exploring a haunted Japanese mansion? Sounds freakily cool! Unfortunately, the execution fell a bit short for me. Firstly, the prose is great, and I think Khaw has an amazing grasp of evoking macabre imagery through her words. But over time, it felt like every other sentence was devoted to describing the feel of the setting, and while that's important in a horror story, it left very little room for plot — or characterization.

And the latter in particular is a huge shame, because there was potential there! I loved that the group weren't the best of friends, but people with dysfunctional relationships to each other, trying to keep up a facade of civility and friendliness. That was something that needed more exploration, and between the overuse of prose, and Nothing But Blackened Teeth being a novella, it left very little room to build on the premise of the story.

I also want to nitpick a little at some choices I found odd. Like Cassandra Khaw, I am Malaysian. But some decisions she made feel a little... odd. For example, there is a character named Faiz. This is fine, it's not an uncommon name amongst people of Malay ethnicity. But Faiz has no Malay ancestry, as evidenced by this quote:

“I guess it is cultural,” said Faiz, full of knowing. His mother was Japanese, small-framed and smileless. “Makes sense.”

And this:

“What the fuck is it saying?” Faiz whispered hoarsely.

“Dude, seriously. We’re both Chinese. Don’t know what Phillip is.” Lin jerked a thumb at the other man, voice thinned by hysteria. “But you’re the only one with a Japanese parent.”

So we've established that Faiz is Malaysian Chinese, and also half-Japanese from his mother's side. This leaves the question: How did Faiz get named Faiz? The Malaysian Chinese naming convention tends to be something like [Surname] [Chinese name]. I'll use the author's name for this purpose: Khaw Joo Ee, with Khaw being the surname, and Joo Ee her Chinese name. For younger people, there's also an increasing tendency to use Western first names in front of the surname. In Khaw's case, this would be Zoe, so Zoe Khaw Joo Ee. That's a pretty standard Malaysian Chinese name.

But Faiz is not a Malaysian Chinese name — it is a Malaysian Malay name. So this doesn't really make sense, given that we are told Faiz's ancestry. It is of course, possible that Faiz's Chinese side of the family converted to Islam and thus, took on more suitable names, but it feels like a huge stretch, and if that were the case I feel they'd be more likely to identify as Malay, given the often complicated relationship between Malay ethnicity and being Muslim in Malaysia (suffice to say it would take a drinking session to explain).

Also, the two quotes reveal a certain lack of continuity; we're told that Faiz has a Japanese parent, but later on, it is the protagonist who is explicitly stated to be the only one with a Japanese parent. Is this simply an editing mistake that was overlooked? I'm not sure, but as it stands, this is a weird contradiction that doesn't hold up in any way. Plus, I feel that there was no need to make anyone there of Japanese heritage; the story would have been fine (better, even) if it'd depicted them all as ignorant foreigners traipsing into a historical, haunted location without any real understanding.

Honestly, what frustrates me the most is that this has clear potential. Khaw is good with prose and imagery, and the character dynamics were tantalizing. But none of it really came together in a really satisfying way, and the length of the novella didn't help matters. This feels like a first draft, and I think it really does need a rework, because it could be so much more if done right.

An old, abandoned Heian-era mansion becomes the site of a wedding venue when some old friends get together. Khaw writes in very flowery prose and there were many times throughout that I wished she had toned it down a bit. Although, I was intrigued by the Japanese lore and the creepy atmosphere, I felt a disconnect with the characters themselves. Still, this was a creepy read.

Who doesn’t want to have a destination wedding at a mysterious haunted mansion? I, for one, can’t see how that could go wrong at all… *said with extreme sarcasm*

We see this short story, through the eyes of Cat who is battling demons of her own and who, like me, isn’t sure this is the best place to hold a wedding.

As we meet the characters through Cat’s POV it’s hard to like any of them, as they all have a messy and complicated history with each other. Like all friend groups, there seem to be certain friendships that are stronger than others, some “friendships” that only exist for the sake of other friendships, and plenty of secrets among them.

Through the first half of the story, I felt like it was really easy to read and understand, I was fully able to immerse myself in the story like I was a sixth friend along for the ride. Once we started getting to the spookier portion though, I found myself a bit disconnected. The writing went from easy to read, to throw in a lot of big words whose meanings I had to assume since I was trying to stay engaged and didn’t want to whip out a dictionary for every other word. The wording seemed quite poetic and gruesome but didn’t feel like it fit with the earlier writing.

Due to the writing in the latter half, I feel like I wasn’t as scared as I could have been, had the writing been a little simpler. Was I creeped out? For sure! I just would have loved to have been completely immersed in the story as it fully unfolded. There was so much detail thrown in in such a small amount of time and described with unfamiliar words, that had me struggling to fully grasp the entirety of the situation they were facing.

For me, I have to start a movie from the beginning or I’m unable to connect with it fully. That’s kind of what the second half of this story felt like…like I’d walked into the room halfway through a movie…it looked great and I kept watching but I don’t feel like I fully understood what was going on.

All that being said…I still enjoyed the overall idea and concept of this story and will reread it to see if I pick up more than I did the first read-through.



***Spoiler like thoughts***

Now that I’m thinking about it, when the writing did, seemingly drastically, change it was at a point in the story when all the other characters were showing signs of being off, laughing maniacally, self-harm, saying things that didn’t make sense. Was the writing so vastly different because the spirits were affecting Cat in a way that was different from her friends? Was in fact the change in the writing, the cue to tell us that the spirits were also messing with Cat’s mind? If so this adds an entire other level of depth that I hadn’t considered and am now intrigued by.

This is good for horror fans that like to be dropped into the middle of the action without much explanation or world building. I liked the story more once the ghost appeared, but up until then I wasn't interested in the friend group that the story was centered around. The writing is very flowery, bordering on pretentious. Having said that, I did enjoy the supernatural aspect of the story and will recommend it to people looking for a quick scary read.

3.5 stars rounded up

This cover blew me away. I could not wait to get my hands on this one after I saw it making the rounds on Twitter, so I was thrilled when I saw this approved in my queue.

When a group of friends reunites to celebrate a wedding, old scars are rehashed, and the backdrop of a haunted Heian-era mansion becomes very much alive with their presence.

Phew, what a ride.

This book is like a fever dream. At just over 1100 kindle pages, it was a quick read with big bite. The story is energetic and powerful. No spoilers, but if you love thematic storytelling, haunted houses, ghosts with horrifying histories, and visceral imagery, you'll want to pick this up asap.

Overarching themes also worked really well within the story. I loved the different friendship dynamics and how they played out in the stress. I could've read more about the labyrinthine house and how they handle the unknown, and Khaw did a wonderful job piecing together authentic voices with complex personalities. The meta nature of their discussions was hilarious, so even though there were some frightening things happening, rarely did I go a few pages without laughing at some horror movie reference or trope.

There were a few things that kept this from being a five star for me. The language was overly flowery--something I don't necessarily mind; give me all the metaphors and similes--but it could have been pared down. Some unique comparisons and imagery were repetitive, and instead of adding to the character's depth, I got caught up on how often I'd seen them doing one particular action. This might've stood out more because of the length of the prose, but I thought the comparisons would've been more powerful if they'd been a tad more selective.

Don't get me wrong: the descriptions were beautiful, but I would've loved to see more exploration of the house/mystery before jumping into the climax and conclusion.

Overall, Nothing But Blackened Teeth was a quick, lyrical, haunting bite of horror. I'd recommend to fans of horror based on Japanese lore, flash fiction with an edge, or anyone looking for a quick, but impactful read.

Big thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

This book is described as a 'grotesquely creepy haunted house tale' and honestly that is the perfect description for this book. As you read you follow Cat and a group of friends into a house that doesn't just have skeletons in the closet, but in the walls as well.

Right off the bat you can tell you're not being told everything, that as the tale goes on you're going to have to peel away the untruths to find the secrets hidden away beneath the surface and untangle the threads that weave this group of characters together. Another character in this book is the house itself, it is a breathing and watching spector, that holds its secrets close and watches with bulging eyes.

While this is a much more lyrically and metaphorically described book than I'm used to, it really helped immerse you into the story. I definitely had to go back read a few sentences over to really understand what was going on. And, as has been suggested by other reviewers, this is definitely not a book to rush through. It's a book that will make you flinch from its teeth, but still have you coming back for more.

3.5🌟