Scary atmosphere, but ultimately it felt like there were large chunks of the book missing. The pacing was jerky and the characters didn't always make sense. Still a quick read that has some great prose, but the plot itself and the ultimate resolution fell flat for me.

"...apologies didn't exonerate the sinner, only compelled graciousness from its recipient."

Well, this was terrifying! I’m glad that characters in books are braver than I am because this way, I can live vicariously through them while tucked away in the safety of my own home!

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a fairly quick read & I whipped through this novella in just a little over two hours. The atmosphere is like something out of a dark horror film; think The Grudge or The Ring. There’s an abundance of descriptive prose which, at first, I had mixed feelings about. A few times, I felt it distracted a bit from the story but then I’d read a gorgeously penned paragraph & get the most vivid cinematic view in my mind which I freaking loved. The setting is just full-on spine-chilling; the Heian era mansion is itself a character, both eerily atmospheric with a darkly gothic vibe and a host of secrets just waiting to be unveiled.

There is an insidious and eerie feeling that begins from the very first page, not only does it draw you in to the absolute horror of what’s going on but the dynamics of the group are front and center, playing a large role in how this nightmare plays out. I had more than one ‘what the hell’ moment & had to face my own cowardice because I would’ve been gone with a slippery trail to follow.

Frightening, insightful, chilling and terrifyingly disturbing, this is a horror book for those who love the genre and I’d highly recommend it. I fully plan on devouring everything that Ms. Khaw has written.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth has a really interesting premise — a group pf tensely-linked friends plans to spend a few nights in a haunted mansion in Japan before a wedding between two of them. The characters were really, really well fleshed out in only about a hundred pages. The wiring was beautiful and descriptive, but at times I felt like it needed more punch to drive home the horror of it all. I felt like there weren’t enough spooky happenings until the very end. The climax was shocking, and well-done, but overall I feel like something was lacking and I can’t exactly place what. Still, this was a pleasant if vaguely unsettling afternoon read.

A group of friends come together to celebrate the wedding of two friends, except it’s at a haunted house that has ghosts of its own. The story follows Cat, who is recovering from depression, and the very complicated relationships between everyone in this friend group. The friends include Phillip, a golden boy, Faiz the nerdy groom, Nadia the bride, and Lin, Cat’s friend. Everyone has their own strained relationship and this getaway is testing it. The location they have it as does not help, it is said to be a haunted house where girls were walled up in and is haunted by the ghost of a bride waiting for her groom. Throw in alcohol, secrets coming out, and messing with the dead, and what we have is a short and thrilling ghost story. I loved the creepiness and atmosphere it set.The story was told from Cat’s point of view, but my favorite character had to be Lin, cuz boy oh boy did he echo my thoughts about horror movie rules and everyone knows you have to leave as soon as someone starts messing with the ghosts.

*Thanks Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Ohhh my goodness what a trip. It always amazes me how some authors are able to pack so much into such a short tale. The setting was vivid and visceral, the characters felt like people you know, and the ghost story aspect of the tale was delightfully creepy. This one is going to stick with me for sure.

This is a book of astonishing beauty and originality and horror and I loved it. A small group of friends with complicated relationships and secrets and traumas meet for the wedding of two of them in a haunted Japanese mansion, where the images of yokai like tankui and kitsune, painted on panels, follow and cluster and watch what unfolds. And what does unfold is not unexpected, but told in new language: a ghostly bride demands company. Khaw's language is poetic without losing the edge of modernity: the ghost's first words are "like a sound carried on the last ragged breath of a failing record player;" a woman's "lipstick game as sharp as a paper cut;" knee-high ferns are "like vegetal cats." Khaw captures the intersection of the magical and the eerie: "the night stretched chandeliered with fireflies" inside rooms are "ossuaries: the books suppurating flat-bodied beetles." I could go on, but really what I'm saying is: go read this book. Even if you think you are not a fan of horror, or of fantasy, or of the drama of youth, go read. This is a treat for any reader.

Do you want to know a secret? I love being creeped out. I love when a book can make your skin prickle and the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I love the surge of adrenaline you get when you yank open a closet door or rip open your shower curtain because you just read a story that was truly scare-your-pants-off terrifying so now you’re certain there’s a monster lurking in those quiet, dark spaces.

So...a ghost story based around Japanese folklore? Sign me up. This story was fascinating and captivating as hell. At only 100 pages long, it’s technically a novella, but it certainly felt like a full-length novel. The writing is absolutely stunning and the world-building is almost surreptitious - you don’t realize how much you’ve learned about the characters and their back-stories and relationships until the end. I like to highlight passages of books that I find poignant or poetic, and by the time I was done with this book, I felt like I’d highlighted half of it. What a creepy, atmospheric, dark story.

I loved it.

I don't know if I've ever read a book so quickly after being approved for it on Netgalley! I've been eager for this book ever since it was announced (granted, that was fairly recently, but we're talking serious anticipation levels here!) and it did not disappoint! It's pretty short, even for a novella, and yet there's SO much packed into these pages. I found myself purposefully slowing down while reading it (despite being riveted and just wanting to hurry and read the next page) so I could really process everything fully. Every sentence in this novella does double or triple duty. There's so much world-building, atmosphere, nuance, and backstory, much of is implied through glimpses here and there, or pointed conversations referencing past events.

There's an incredible amount of history to the book, in more sense than one. Quite obviously, the story is set in a place with the weight of age: a Heian-era mansion. Let's be clear -- I'm not going to pretend like I knew what that was before looking it up. (I wish I did! But, alas.) For those similarly uninformed, "The Heian period is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185." (Yes, my source is Wikipedia. I'm only a little ashamed.) But beyond the obvious setting, the characters in the group have a weighty history of their own. The mystery of unraveling precisely the nature of their tangled relationships with one another was a big part of the story's fun.

And I've mentioned this already, but it bears mentioning again because it was just done SO well. This book is incredibly atmospheric! With a story this brief, Khaw doesn't have time to describe every little detail of setting. Instead, they give us just enough to kickstart our own imaginations. I've rarely been able to imagine any story in as vivid of detail as NBBT. I think the part I noted with the most description was the feast the characters laid out midway through the novella -- and wow am I glad that was what Khaw put their description space into! I loved the mention of so many Asian dishes I've rarely -- or never -- seen in a book. And their casual banter incorporating their varying backgrounds (the half-Japanese character asking the others what a Japanese phrase meant and them being like DUDE WE'RE CHINESE, shouldn't YOU know?) made me laugh. (I'm Chinese diaspora, and that conversation was just... spot on.)

I do want to add that I've read a few of Khaw's pieces before (short stories and novellas) and it has taken me a bit of time to get accustomed to their style, which I absolutely ADORE now. Mostly, I think they're simply too smart for me. I can't read their books quickly (the way I, admittedly, read many books) as I miss things, because everything they write is so dense with meaning and described in such original, non-cliche terms. It takes my brain longer to process their sentences than it takes for most other books. So I just want to caution anyone new to Khaw's work that this story is one to be savored, not rushed through, even though you'll be desperate to flip through the pages!

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is sharp, raw, vivid, and -- as the name suggests -- full of teeth. Highly recommended.

Huge, huge thank you to Tor Nightfire for providing a free advanced e-copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was, unfortunately, disappointed with what I hoped would be a classic horror story but what ended up as more of an exploration of Japan and the Japanese people and culture. The author was seemingly most interested in waxing poetic about human characteristics and traits, and what inspires them....seemed awfully self-aggrandizing and quickly became boring.

Whoa! What a ride. Loved this short, creepy horror book. My one complaint is that I didn't know all the Japanese lore the author referenced, and had to continually look stuff up - which broke up my reading of the book - so a glossary would have been nice. Scary, creepy, and surprisingly gory!

Super creepy little horror novella, complete with a complicated group of "friends" constantly bickering and fighting staying the night in a totally haunted, old mansion, known for being built on the bones of a bride who took a maiden sacrifice with her for many years. Things get tense, they get weird, they get dark, and the cover is awesomely horrifying. Definitely recommend.

5 friends stay the night in a haunted house to witness their friends get married. Supposedly a woman's fiancee died on the way to their wedding hundreds of year ago and she was buried in the mansion along with other sacrificed girls. I was glad to read this on my Kindle because I kept looking up various Japanese terms such as yokai (supernatural spirits) or ohaguro (blackening one's teeth). It reads like a horror movie, drunk characters telling ghost stories in a creepy mansion but the Japanese setting makes it unique. The imagery was impressive and I could see the strange occurrences in my mind as I read. The only thing I disliked about the book was it's short length, I wanted to know more about the character's backgrounds.

Rating: 9.0/10

Thanks to the publisher and author for a advance reading copy of Nothing But Blackened Teeth for review consideration. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a bloody grin with a twist of the knife. Khaw’s prose is electric throughout and powers the reader through a delightfully disturbing haunted house tale full of terrible people receiving their just due. What a perfectly vile Halloween read.

I’ll be the first to admit: the cover is going to haunt my nightmares for months to come. As soon as I saw it pop up on NetGalley, I just knew it was going to be an auto-read for me. Not having read any of Khaw’s previous works, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I know a few readers who absolutely loved her Persons Non Grata series from Tor.com so why not jump right in.

Khaw’s prose, while intimidating at first glance, is definitely one of the more polished feeling that I’ve come across and played poetically within the confines of such a disturbing story. Every sentence was like a hammer blow to the skull, driving deeper and deeper into your psyche and breathing life into these yōkai. Simply the thought of stepping inside this mansion with the history of it, let alone spending an inebriated evening within its walls… pass, bro.

I feel like the author has started a haunted house sub-genre here that I would love to see more of. This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill haunting; it is a bloody disgusting tale where the ghosts don’t have time for your BS and you better get to the stabby stabby. It is about watching horrible human beings completely crumble under the weight of their choices AND I AM HERE FOR IT.

This is a novella where you will whisper to yourself “No way… NO FREAKING WAY” over and over and over again throughout, and probably more so once you finish. If you want a hauntingly original tale with phenomenal prose, this is a no-brainer.

Wait a minute! Did I read the blurb correctly? Is this book about a wedding celebration at one of the creepiest, most ominous and terrifying place at Heian- era Japanese mansion built by the resting bones of a bride and remains of girls who sacrificed themselves to accompany her?

What a batshit, mind bending plot line!

After reading the blurb and taking a very long look at the impactful, haunted cover that may give you nightmares for the entire month, I simply screamed: I’m all in!

This is quiet brilliant Japanese folklore waltzes with fables full of metaphors and allegories meet mystery/ thriller genres! A realistic approach to mental illness and fractured friendship patterns.

It was hooking but I wish instead of stuck at the creative author’s mind who presents us lots of metaphors with embellished depictions, I’d like to see more action packed, moving story of the characters. The writing style was unique but it was also too complex and wordy at some parts. You want to focus on the mystery and events instead of philosophical approach between similarities of ghosts and real people’s way of handling things.

But I enjoyed the originality and the criticism of broken friendship and tense atmosphere which push me to read till the end at one seat.

I’m cutting some points because of unbalanced pace ( too slow with long metaphorical elaborations but some parts are too fast to absorb! )

Overall: I think the half star I gave because of this stunning cover and I’m giving my 3.5 starts to be rounded up to 4 heart pounding, claustrophobic, gothic, very disturbing, Japanese stars!

Special thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan -Tor/ Forge for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Incredible. A riveting horror novella from author Cassandra Khaw, I inhaled this book in one sitting. Not only is this perfectly paced, but Nothing But Blackened Teeth is clever, imaginative, and terrifying. Khaw perfectly balances & weaves in meta, horror tropes into this & her writing pulls you into this horror home in Japan with clawed hands. I particularly appreciated Khaw's deep knowledge of Japanese folklore, which bleeds so beautifully into the page.

I cannot wait for others to read this one & am in love with the cover too - an image I terrifyingly held with me while I read.

Post incoming on https://www.instagram.com/bookedwithemma - I hope to receive a hard copy from Tor Nightfire so I can continue to rave about this one all year.

Fractured friendships, mental health concerns, how both humans and ghosts fall into old patterns of behavior even as those patterns keep them in very unhealthy places, all spiced with a terrifying dollop of this-can't-be-happening horror.

:chefs kiss:

"We exited the room, the future falling into place behind us. Like a wedding veil, a mourning caul. Like froth on the lips of a bride drowning on soil."

Wow. Where to start? Perhaps I would begin with the most uncanny and supernatural element of all, which is how this was read by anyone - let alone the luminaries in the list of advance praise - past the first page. "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" is a nigh-incomprehensible jumble of protean elements, any of which by themselves would have carried a short story, but combined are no less than tedium defined. Other reviewers have called the story immersive, whereas I found myself consistently ejected from the flow of the story. The main reason was the florid prose. On its. own, the descriptive style might have worked in an experimental text, but to have it chopped up in the middle of almost every paragraph by juvenile dialogue and nonsensical metaphors made for a wretched reading experience. I found myself embarrassed to the point of having to put the book down at the frequent malapropisms, e.g., "ambergris" cited as a color, when, in fact, the substance ambergris is a dull yellowish gray, a scent rather than a color. I'm pretty sure the writer believes it's simply a fancier "amber." The narrator's witticisms ("Media's all about the gospel of the lone wolf, but the truth is we're all just sheep") fell flat and broke the fourth wall, demonstrating that they were merely a function of the writer showing off a cute turn of phrase rather than offering anything that advanced the narrative or gave insight into the main character's mindset. The purple writing, laden with questionable similes, was interspersed with dialogue from a seventh-grade play, or a seventh-grader's interpretation of a horror film. A few well-placed "fucks" have impact; a few in every line of dialogue pulls the rug out from underneath suspension of disbelief. The plot, when I could follow it through the convoluted language and simplistic emotion, ended up a waste of a rich setting. Where it should have been evocative, what I got out of this mercifully short piece was that an author was eager to show off the contents of their thesaurus, their capacity for research into Japanese folklore, and their painfully callow outlook. The frequent winks to horror convention and tropes might have worked had they not been thrown scattershot into awkward dialogue...shall I say "like pin-pulled grenades of somnolent overreach, poised to douse surrounding paragraphs with hackneyed ichor?" No, I didn't write the book, believe it or not. At the end, I didn't care about any of the characters or their fates. I merely found myself, much like the buried brides evoked by the author, praying it would all be over soon.

I hate to say that something is too smart to read, but there are times where I find some text to be too layered, too filled with similes or metaphors, too trapped inside the narrator's head that I have difficulty connecting and staying engaged. This novel borders on that almost too much at times.

Other times I'm sucked into the brutal reality of the characters here. Their friendships hit familiar notes. Secrets that you've always kept. Acceptance of a person for someone else's benefit. Someone's friendship that may have outlived its connection. In these moments this novel truly shines and it's why it kept me going.

Thankfully as the book goes on, we get more of the latter. Early on I felt dragged out of the story too much, but by the middle, I was finally pulled into the tale in glorious fashion.

It's certainly not for the faint of heart, and may benefit from a little internet searching if unfamiliar with some of the ghosts and fables tied into it, but the end result is satisfying in its brutal depictions of horror and life.