While quite short, this book was difficult to get through because of the annoying characters and clunky writing. The concept of friends gathering for a wedding at a Japanese mansion allegedly haunted by a ghost bride was cool, but it was hard to believe that these people would want to spend any time together. Lines such as, "the thought filled me like ice water" horrified me more than the concept of a bride buried in the walls of a house. The ending fell way short of its intended impact because I just didn't care about any of the characters.

I was sucked into this book from the cover! It was horrifying and I immediately needed to read it. The plot to this story was insane to say the least (but in a good way!). This was a good gothic horror story. I would say that it was pretty slow paced and the metaphorical explanations were often drawn out. This was an incredibly original idea for a book!

I knew from the moment I heard Cassandra Khaw's latest novel announcement that I was going to have to read it. Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a horror novel with paranormal elements and is part of the Nightfire line.

Would you spend the night in a haunted house? Would you do it alone, or with friends? One group of friends has opted to stay at a Heian-era mansion, one that suspiciously has little information available to these guests. They don't know the name, the owners, or anything else.

That should have been their first red flag. It wasn't, and so these friends – who are more frenemies in truth – are going to have one horrifying and memorable night. One that they would probably have preferred to forget.

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

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a dark and twisted read, one that did a fantastic job of subverting expectations and flipping traditional tropes on their heads. For that, I very much appreciated this read.

So, I know that it is relatively common to create unlikable horror characters – it makes it more bearable when the worst happens to them. But I almost feel like Cassandra Khaw did too good of a job with her characters. I didn't really like any of them. More than that, I felt like it would have been healthier for the lot of them to go their own ways.

Especially if they had done so before the events in this book took place. But whatever, it's okay. Who doesn't enjoy the occasional read surrounding frenemies? It took some time to get their relationships established – and then the real horror began.

This is the part where Nothing But Blackened Teeth really began to shine. However, shine might be too bright of a term here. Perhaps gleam would work better in this instance? Either way, it was the horror story that sucked me into the narrative.

I should probably mention that the horror elements go pretty dark and graphic. So don't make the same mistake I did – read this book during daylight hours. Your sleep will thank you for it.

So disappointing. Not near enough character development. I didn’t care if our teens lived or died. The creatures themselves were well described (and the author cannot take credit for them as they are existing Japanese myth/legend/monster) but their actions quite boring overall.

Characters
Sadly Nothing But Blackened Teeth really missed the mark for me. At only 90 pages this is much too short for what was trying to be conveyed. Our characters are not only really irritating but barely archetypes of your typical ditzy blonde, smart one, buff one, etc. I actually thought of the movie Cabin in the Woods and wondered if the writer had stolen Joss Whedon's archetypes! Additionally the characters are sooo annoying. Their complex love triangle, square, whatever it was almost made them interesting but then having no real details about the relationships or why they ended/began I felt like I was supposed to give them attributes and traits from their bad dialogue that I just couldn't justify.

Creatures
The actual plot and narrative aren't bad here. They need some development and thought added but overall this could be a good story. The use of the iconic Japanese monsters is clever; and makes the author appear to be more creative than she actually is if you are not familiar with these creatures of myth and lore. For many long time fantasy/horror fans you've probably encountered creatures like this, or similar over the years. I mean one even has a Pokémon modelled after it! So if you feel like the cover is super terrifying and that's what brought you here then know that Cassandra Khaw did not invent this creature. You can read lots more about it, and it's friends, whilst researching ancient myths of Japan.

Overall
Yes I went in with high expectations; but that was because sooo many people were initially saying how great this short novella sized story was. Then we hit publication day and I feel like the reviews started to really reflect the general public's opinion. While there will be some that swear by this book and are a bit scared reading it; I do believe the vast majority of people will get a lukewarm feeling from these characters, monsters, and plot.
By no means do I want to encourage people to immediately grab this one. Honestly it can be skipped entirely unless you really want to know what's involved. At least at just over 100 pages it's not a huge investment of time!

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

Unfortunately, I could not finish this book. It came down to an excessive use of similes and overly-complicated word choice. What were relatively banal moments were completely muddied by descriptions that just didn't make sense. It felt like the author used a thesaurus to enhance their prose, but did so far too liberally. Trying to literally picture some of these descriptions completely pulled me out of the narrative because this isn't how people act, and that's not what normal behaviors really look like. Sometimes the simple, straightforward word is the best word.

I have very mixed feeling about this book.

Good :
- Everything about the marketing of the book, from the title, to the cover, to the synopsis had me screaming ! It was sooooo well done.
- I think the cultural elements were really really interesting. I liked discovering new things and putting words on different Japanese folklore elements I had seen art of before.
- It got really creepy. I rarely get actually scared by a book, but this one really did scare me. It hit all my right spots.
- In general, I liked the story and the plot but ...


Not so good :
- but I though the way things were written could be very confusing at times and I caught myself rereading parts to understand. I think there should have been a better editing job to clarify some events of the story.
- It was pretty clear the author wanted to flesh out these character as much as possible, giving them strong traits, complete backstories and etc, but I think their descriptions overtook parts of the novel, it being it so small, and I would have preferred to see actually less of them, especially since they were made to be unlikable characters I believe.
- The dialogues were kinda childish and repetitive, I wish there had been less.

Me: Googles how much a first class ticket to Japan is.

I wanted to like this story. Khaw's vocabulary is definitely awe-worthy, the writing is absolutely beautiful. However, the verdant language is all in pursuit of an atmosphere so dense it throttles the plot.

For me there isn't a believable moment in this novella. These characters are not friends. Even for a 20K trip, I wouldn't want to spend time with any of these people.

I think I'd even put that all aside if the book was scary. I just really was left wanting more. More viscera, more blood, more action from our ghost. Please.

I genuinely think this could've been great if it was just flushed out more. This book needs another 50 pages to build some dread, and deliver some brutality. Khaw is clearly very talented, so while this didn't work for me, maybe a lyrical novella that's light on scares is perfect for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and TorNightfire for an ARC of this title.

Thank you to Nightfire for providing me with an e-ARC of Nothing But Blackened Teeth in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 rounded up.

Soooooo, I've been putting off this review for a bit. Nothing But Blackened Teeth was by far my most-anticipated release of 2021. A book that takes on Japanese lore? Thrillseekers in a haunted house? A ghost bride? THAT COVER? Yes, yes, yes. However, unfortunately, I ultimately felt let down after reading it.

Cassandra Khaw's writing is absolutely gorgeous. There's no doubting that whatsoever. & at first, this writing had me really vibing. But after a while, I was so burned out on elegant descriptors and metaphors. It just felt like too much & it ended up taking me out of the story.

As for the story/plot, it was fine. I definitely liked the concept, but there wasn't enough story to make me really care. Perhaps that was simply because this was a novella & there wasn't enough time to truly flesh out what was going on, or because I was too busy guiding myself through the prose that I struggled to focus on what was really happening in the story, therefore, making me miss out on a bit.

If you don't mind tons of purple prose, this novella might just be for you. In fact, I encourage you to pick this up & give it a try. It didn't work for me, but I can definitely see others falling in love with this one.

I feel like I read something very different from what all my friends did somehow, haha. That happens sometimes, to each their own! This one wasn't for me. I know folks always want to know WHY low ratings are what they are, so some of the below may be spoilers, but it'll be honest:

This is a super short book (just over 100 pages) about 5 friends spending a few nights in a haunted Japanese mansion that one of the friends rents as a wedding gift for 2 of the others. Some creepy stuff ensues because a woman was supposedly buried in the mansion waiting for her dead love.

Mostly, the 5 people spend the entire book bitching between each other about extremely high school level drama, and it was so annoying that I started skimming a lot of the conversations until things picked up. I do not care who slept with who, I didn't find any of the relationships believable at all. The only two women in the book spend the whole thing bickering because one of them dated a guy the other one is currently marrying - like, seriously? We spent SO LONG dealing with snide glances and boring dialogue between these women being catty and basic as hell, and I was not here for it. I am SO tired of reading women being jealous and snotty towards one another - honestly felt like this could've been set in high school & that'd have felt more realistic.

I also found the writing really difficult to get invested in; the dialogue was awkward and a lot of it was repetitive, with words being repeated throughout sentences - maybe for emphasis? But it just felt weird and like it could've been edited more. There were also A LOT of similes, like at one point a sentence describing one of the characters was comprised of literally 4 similes strung back-to-back. I know I'm probably in the minority with this, but overusage of similes always stands out to me in a really distracting way.

Despite the issues I had with it, I did like the descriptions of the bride - the creepy moments in this were few and far between, but when they popped up, it was very well done. There's a specific mirror scene I LOVED, and the author's intelligence and vision are clear in their writing. I also enjoy that this is a story focused on a particular part of Japanese history and tradition that I personally haven't seen explored much in horror - I do wish a bit more explanation to the customs of teeth blackening had been given, not to dumb things down for a reader unwilling to do their own research, but because I feel like it could have really fleshed the book out a lot more. There's a lot of rich history barely touched on here, and I almost wish it could've been a bit longer in addition to less focused on these characters I cared nothing about to really do a deeper dive into what I feel could've been something very scary.

Overall, I won't say that I don't recommend this, because pretty much EVERYONE in my friend group who has read it has 5 starred it, lol. It's not a bad book, but the issues I had with it weren't able to outweigh the stuff I enjoyed - and that's okay! Some things work for some folks and not others. Don't come at me with anger 'cause I didn't like it, okay? hahaha.

This novella is absolutely incredible. If anything it was too short. The writing style was a treat to read, it flowed and ebbed like poetry. I also loved how it touched on mental health and friendship so naturally. I loved the setting, that really sold the story to me, the Japanese folklore mixed so naturally that I feel like I learned something while also just relaxing(as much as one can in horror) into the story.

I am torn about what I thought about NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH by Cassandra Khaw. Certain aspects of the novella I thought were really well done while other aspects I either didn’t care much for or were lacking, leaving me wanting more.

NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH to me sort of feels like a modern day reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. The abandoned Heian-era mansion where the story takes place was the star of the show for me. The descriptions of the lavish architecture and the intricately painted yokai combined with the rot and the ruin of the place created an atmosphere that was both inviting yet oppressive. It felt as if the characters were within the belly of a great slumbering beast, a living breathing thing. “The manor seemed to breathe in, drinking her promise. I could tell we all noticed it, all at once, but instead of hightailing it, we bent our heads like this was a baptism.” Having a haunted house story that was not set in an old castle or Victorian home was refreshing and exoitic and new which I appreciated.

The inclusion of Japanese folklore, which is something I know next to nothing about, was something that I also really enjoyed. The history and legend surrounding the mansion itself along with all of the different types of supernatural entities, the yokai, were very interesting. The scenes of the painted yokai creeping stop motion style along the walls ever closer to the characters were some of my favorites.

I didn’t really care for any of the characters here in this one. They all had past relationships with each other, dated, slept with, broken up with, now getting married too, etc. There was a lot of emotional baggage between some of the characters that gets hinted at but never fully explored or explained. To me it felt like the entire plot of the novella revolved around the characters conversing, bickering, and rehashing past events while it just so happened to have a haunted mansion as a backdrop. It seemed at times the characters forgot that over the centuries hundreds of brides to be had been buried alive within the walls and those apparitions may be roaming the halls, but let's not worry about that at the moment and air out our grievances with each other instead.

Lastly I wanted to say that I absolutely love the cover. It gave me vibes of THE RING and THE GRUDGE movies. It is creepy and striking. The cover definitely grabbed my attention, making me want to pick this up and give it a read.

Ultimately NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH by Cassandra Khaw is a story that focuses more on the characters, their inner demons, and relationships and less on plot and the haunting supernatural scares. I really wanted more chilling moments from the bride with blackened teeth but it felt like we only scratched the surface of what could have been a frightening haunted house experience. While the atmosphere had an unnerving sense of dread and Khaw’s prose was at times lyrically beautiful, at the end of the day this one felt a bit disjointed and I was left unsatisfied.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The setup of this story takes up about 80% of the volume, as if it will be a 300-page novel. The actual story ends up feeling like an afterthought.

While this novella was a bit too meta for my tastes (calling out tropes of horror and then fulfilling them), I appreciated the evocative writing style, including all the fun, gory bits. I had mixed feelings about how the author drops the reader into what very much feels like the middle of these characters' stories. You have to pick up a lot on context, but I can tell that's intentional and it does help round the characters out. The Japanese references permeated every aspect of the story, and I found that my knowledge in that area was a bit lacking (lots of googling of terms). I think horror buffs will find this novella really interesting, but it may not be great for horror novices (like me!).

I enjoyed this story. I am usually hesitant to read short stories because they tend to feel incomplete and often don't give me the opportunity to know the characters. This story did describe the characters and their dynamics within the pages given and also managed to mix the characters own issues with themselves and each other with the actual horror in the book. To me the character's willingness to turn on each other stood out more than the ghost story itself. I liked the haunted house setting of the story .

Overall: With a diverse cast, unique setting, and fast pace, Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a haunted house story I would recommend to anyone starting off in the horror genre, or anyone looking for a quick scare! Some pacing issues and what feels like missed opportunities keeps me from giving it a 4, but I sincerely believe it's worth the read.

The plot: A group of long-time friends (plus one new addition to the group, a bride-to-be) visit an old abandoned mansion deep in the forest as a part-ghost-hunt, part-destination-wedding. Things go very wrong very quickly.

Spoilers below:

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What I liked:
A diverse cast! I love the majority-POC cast, and I love the explicit naming of Cat as bisexual (not only that, but seeing her reference her previous girlfriends in a positive way is like a breath of fresh air). I appreciate the entire setting, the incorporation of Japanese folklore, and the lampshading of how weird and exploitative and reckless Main Characters In Horror Stories are. It's a plot point that the guy who rented the mansion did so from some guy who would only take cash and wouldn't let a record of the transaction happen. Like, yeah, I can absolutely imagine a frat bro ignoring every horror-trope-red-flag for a good time. That's really funny. The characters are believable as people to me, and believable as people with a history. The story stays nice and atmospheric the whole way through, and I found myself genuinely horrified by the backstory of this haunted house.

I really loved the main character, Cat. I liked listening to her perspective on her friends. I liked that she is the first to notice how Obviously Wrong things were in the house, and I liked that she's more worried about keeping the peace than bringing the things up and accidentally burning bridges with the group. It feels like an honest look at what a normal person would do when faced with paranormal things. She's not quite a Final Girl because most of the characters survive to the end, but in any other story she definitely would have been. I also really, really liked the relationship she has to the ghost. The ambiguity of if the house was influencing her to see the creatures, and if the ghost is clinging to her because she likes her or because she's an easy target (or both), is great. I'm happy it's her perspective we get.

I also specifically liked how tight the story was. We learn about the setting, the monster, and the characters, and then the plot HAPPENS. The characters go to the mansion looking for a ghost, they find a ghost, and they accept the ghost is real pretty quickly. It's fun to see a story that has genre-savvy characters and it's fun to see genre-savvy characters shrug off the warning signs because they went to the mansion TO encounter a ghost.

What I struggled with:
Unfortunately, the tightness of the plot also made it hard to read sometimes. This book feels like something that was written to be turned into a film. That isn't necessarily a bad thing! I would be shocked and disappointed if this wasn't picked up by a streaming service. I think lots of people would really enjoy it. But, because it feels like it was written to be adapted, some of the problems that are more unique to screenplays are also present in this book. The characters, their interactions, and their history felt very authentic, but it also feels like they've had all of their interesting drama happen already...off-page. It's expected that childhood friends have a history, and it's expected that the history contains some drama, and comes with baggage. But by the time we meet our characters, the interpersonal problems they're having feel like they should be non-issues. For example, the bride-to-be resents the main character for trying to break up her and the groom-to-be, but we're told that what really happened was the main character told the groom-to-be, before their engagement, when they were fighting all the time and unhealthy for each other, that he should consider breaking up with her.

We're not told why the main character is there, despite the bride-to-be hating her, except that the main character is best friends with the groom-to-be. The result is that the bride-to-be is openly rude to the main character, essentially the whole time, and the groom-to-be just...allows it? In a movie, this would be fine; people are used to shallower interpretations of characters for the sake of moving a plot along, and we can watch subtle expressions over shoulders, or unfriendly body language. For a book told from first-person perspective, being shown exclusively the aftermath of a major fallout had me left questioning why Cat would ever agree to spend time with these people, or why (if how she'd acted at her lowest points was really that bad) these people would agree to spend time with her. Again, the interactions feel authentic, I can imagine real people acting this way. It just feels authentic for a context that we're missing and have to fill-in ourselves.

I agree with those saying the setting feels a little wasted. Khaw is amazing at setting a scene, and describing a monster. That monster just happens to be described, the same exact way, over and over. We're told that the house is literally built on the bones of dead women, and we're told the bride-to-be has been dragged away and buried somewhere with them, and we're shown exactly none of that on-page. Instead, we're brought to a library where the main characters do some Wacky Stuff, and then the bride-to-be is back, and then they leave the house. We're told the house changes to suit the ghost's wants, and we're told other spirits and creatures haunt the mansion and are watching the events unfold, but we're never told why and we never get any meaningful interactions with them. Sometimes it's ok that the characters and readers don't get answers, sometimes it's ok that Bad Things Happen Randomly. I'm just not a fan of how this version of that theme is shown.

Scenes also jump around, and characters repeat themselves in strange ways. There's a conversation of "You can go if you want," "Okay, we will," "No, we're staying" at one point. And then the characters start to leave. And then they come back, and it happens again. Twice. There's also a scene jump where we go from someone reading an obviously-unhinged-ritual from a book, people telling him it's obviously-unhinged and they aren't going to let him do it, directly to him doing the obviously-unhinged ritual. Things are disjointed in a way that would be fun to watch on screen, but I found really confusing to read.

The missed opportunities and the confusion I felt while reading is what kept this from a 4-star 'really liked' or 5-star 'relentlessly loved' rating. Even so, it's a really fun book! If someone asked me to recommend a quick horror, or a unique haunted house story, this will probably be on the top of rec list. I do think this would be even better in film-form, and I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for Khaw's future works.

This is an incredibly atmospheric novella about a group of sort of friends who have travelled to Japan for a surprise elopement in a haunted house. It did take me a little while to understand the set up, as the bride to be did not seem to want the protagonist to be there at all, and everyone had shadowy pasts when it comes to love, lust, and dating. If you want a short read that will give you the creeps, this is that.

Nothing But Blacked Teeth follows of group of friends, whose relationships are fraying at the edges, as they hold a wedding and a night of drunken revelry in a secluded, haunted Heian-era mansion.

Nothing But Blacked Teeth has so many of my favourite things in horror:
👻 Ghosts
👹 creepy critters (in this case a variety of yōkai)
💢 Strained dynamics
🧠 Horror trope self awareness
🌈 Queer characters (we love a bisexual lead)
💁‍♀️ People being monsters

I really love a book that focuses on a friend group that is right on the verge of disintegrating and Cassandra Khaw truly delivers in that dynamic - petty grudges hidden under smiles, very specifically targeted jabs, uneasy alliances, unspoken feelings - everything that delivers that very on edge feeling.

There's also a great balance between the human and supernatural elements with the supernatural driving the group to darker and darker extremes. I also loved Khaw's descriptions, especially for any of the gross or otherwise creepy elements.

Khaw creates a self-aware horror novella that draws attention to the fact that horror tropes dictate who dies through racist, sexist, and homophobic lenses, while also providing the types of thrills and gore you'd expect from horror.

I didn't super connect with any of the characters, which took me out of the story at times when their (and in particular Cat's) decisions went entirely against their own logic. But, irrationality is also a staple of horror, so who am I to complain 😅

For a quick horror read, it had great dynamics, interesting mythology, and an ending that I really enjoyed and I can definitely recommend picking it up (as long as you do like spooky reads).

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire for an Advanced copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Deliciously creepy setting with a group of hipster friends. This was a quick and scary read with a great setting and a good mix of characters . My only con for this book is that it was too short.. Maybe a little longer to build the suspense. But otherwise it is one I will return to again for a scary treat!

Five friends who don't seem to like each other much have traveled to Japan. They're staying at a haunted house that doesn't have a name but does have a spooky legend: a wedding missed, a dead groom, the bride asking to be buried alive in the foundation of the house (as one does). They've come to marry two of the five. They've come to kill another, but they don't know that.

As someone who doesn't read classic Japanese fiction, I didn't know half of the words in this book. I'm pretty sure "kitsune" is fox, but whatever a "tengu" is I only know it shouldn't be attending a wedding. "Ohaguro us either ghost or changeling or "total bitch". Prepare to do some research while you're reading, because there's little hand-holding or context clues. The weird thing to me is that even though the main characters are Malaysian, not Japanese, and only one of them speaks the language, nobody is like "hey, what the heck is that over there?" Not even the white football player needs a culture lesson. Meanwhile, I've never been so unable to visualize a setting, even in high fantasy.

Ignoring that, this novella is a terrifying ghost story and worth the read.

A haunted house tale that is delightfully creepy, I can't recommend this book enough. The author did an excellent job of weaving the ghost stories told by the characters in with the haunting happening around them. I just wish that it had been longer because I was hooked.