Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a short haunted house story about a group of friends who stay the night in a Japanese mansion to celebrate a wedding. This was a nice, easy book for Halloween, but it did let me down a little bit.

I liked reading about the culture behind the legend of the house. I also think Khaw writes some beautiful prose, and the use of language was pretty good.
However, the book lacked a lot in character and plot for me. The plot was pretty basic, and although the cultural significance did add some to the narrative, it just felt too easy. It wasn't really scary either. I think the scariest part of this book is the cover. I also wasn't a big fan of the characters. I questioned several times how they were all friends because most of them didn't even like each other. A lot of this book was just annoying bickering and drama between characters, and I felt like it didn't really add anything to the story.
Overall, I thought this book was okay. I would still recommend it to thriller/horror fans because I know there are people who enjoyed it more than I did. However, I don't think I'll be picking it up again.

Thank you, NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

No one gets do-overs in life. The one thing Horror teaches us, firmly and finally, is that single adamantine truth...that final, fierce fact that trumps them all.

When privileged and pretty people want to play, they go mad. They have no reason to consider consequences and no desire to moderate their demands on the Universe's supply of goodwill. There's nothing to say that a destination/theme wedding, a haunted-house horror wedding for five, couldn't be just lovely.

Except, of course, common sense.

As the events of the day unfold, as the people whose lives were compressed into a block of being by the exigencies of education and privilege come unstuck, their masks reveal the real cracks in their faces. Then the masks fall off. Then the faces fall off. This is a horror novella about the awfulness of unslakable appetites, and the enduring pain of never, ever having Enough. Being enough. Finding enough.

Author Khaw has used the silences of screaming people to make this dread-soaked, foregone-conclusion-led, story into a fable for our use. You can find anything in it. You're going to try, so don't bother to front. Looking for a climate-change metaphor? The ancient house with the dead people in its walls. Looking for a religious metaphor? The Forces of Evil animating one of the young people to perform uncharacteristic acts. Revenge fantasy? Dude!

Slasher fans: You have a new talent to follow. Author Khaw understands why we love to see the world end in a welter of blood. Go down the dark alley leading up to the ancient haunted mansion with the moldy old books falling apart in its library.

Go on. You know you want to.

Content warning: gore, blood

Cat, Phillip, Faiz, Nadia, and Lin are on a trip to Japan for a destination wedding that sounds idyllic on paper: a getaway to an old mansion. One problem arises, however, when the mansion already has a bride in its walls, plus the bones of other girls buried alive. It’s hungry and it wants more blood.

The thrills and chills in this novella are incredible. While there’s not too much going on as far as plot goes, there is a richness to the attention-to-detail as far the character studies and the atmosphere goes. I can feel every disturbing detail. No stone goes unturned which makes this some of the scariest under-150 pages I’ve ever experienced.

If you want to be delighted and disgusted by a ghost story that doesn’t flinch away from the bloodier and gorier details of how it all falls apart. In addition, there is also a meta-textual level where Lin and the narrator point out how quickly the group falls into horror story tropes. You watch it unfold. You tell them that they’re on the right path. But then you wince as it goes to shit anyway. It goes to show that even if you know “the rules,” the ghost house wants what it wants, and that thing is blood and terror.

I thought I'd like this, but overall it was too wordy. A short story with totally creepy and gory ending though it was too complex and too detailed at times. The complicated relationships went over my head due to all the jumping around, and in the end I really didn't care about any of them. Though how our MC, Cat reacted to it all in the end, I felt was the best part - very passive, without any remorse. I felt the same about the whole book.

If Deadpool (2016) was a romcom then Nothing But Blackened Teeth is an unrequited love story.

If you saw The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and walk past a bookshelf wondering if this cover is worth an investigation (yes) then do yourself a solid and pick this book up.

I don’t think I’ve ever joyfully needed a dictionary/wiki/translation guide as much as I did reading Nothing But Blackened Teeth, the gift that gave libraries within a story. The mythology is beautifully introduced, the writing so eerily descriptive, you can taste the tension as you bite down on your tongue every time someone has a harebrained idea about what to do to show they are a team player. This book could double up as an infomercial highlighting the dangers of being in team ‘doing too much’ - provided there is enough room in the production budget for all of the baggage that accompanies this famous five.

Parts of this book will frustrate you but overall, you will get the chance to swap your tired ol campfire stories with something worthy of Halloween. Cheers to Cassandra Khaw, love and friendship. May we know love, may we keep good friends, may we not be married to our stupid ideas till death do us part, amen.

Ok this is a legit horror story perfect for Halloween weekend. Of course, I'm posting this review after Halloween, but if you're looking for something for next Halloween, consider adding this one to your TBR. It's a novella, so it'll be a super quick, but super spooky read.

The story follows a group of tourists in town for a wedding and they rent out an old haunted house as a wedding gift for the happy couple. Creepy tastes, but we're not here to judge the characters. The story follows Cat, one of the members of the group as she's haunted by the ghost who lives in the house. She sees her from the corner of her eye or within the reflection of the mirror. But once you learn more about the ghost and why she haunts the house, then it starts to get really freaky.

The atmosphere alone will get you. With the decaying walls, dark vibes, even the scene when one of the characters put on the wedding dress of the dead person, so creepy. The darkness in the story, the anticipation of something hanging out in the corners, it really gave that shock value. I was bracing every single time Cat was seeing something she didn't want to see. The action is quick-paced and the ending really surprised me.

I really liked this story, but there were many parts that I didn't like. This story had so much potential. Honestly, I loved the spooky Japanese house and the aloof young people celebrating their marriage there. But the rest didn't make sense and really didn't add anything more to the story. I wasn't really interested in the relationship Cat had with the rest of the people at the house. It almost didn't make sense to include it unless it somehow would play a role in the story further down the line, but I didn't get that either. I wish there was some relation because despite not making sense with the story, it does paint a view of who these people are and how they relate to each other. I wanted to dive into that, maybe have it come up as the hauntings got worse.

I felt like there was so much that needed to be explained or really explored to get the full horror scope. It was so quick-paced making little room for explanation. I'll admit, it was spooky but it wasn't enough for me to just be spooky. I really wanted there to be more.

Overall, this will definitely spook you and make you think you see things from the corner of your eye. Thanks to Netgalley for the gifted copy.

I've been eagerly awaiting this ever since reading "Hammers on Bone," which was a delightful sort of grim-noir fantasy. I like the idea of this, but the excessively purple prose leapt straight over gothic or haunting and straight into ridiculous. Some of the descriptions were so odd I laughed, but not in a good way. Additionally, the ending was extremely abrupt and didn't seem to fit with what we had learned about these characters previously. I'm definitely going to read more of Khaw's work, but this was just too overwrought to be enjoyable.

2.5 stars.

I'm so sad about this one. The premise was golden, the cover is beautiful, it had so much promise. But it just wasn't fleshed out enough to stand solid. The writing is good, though laced with a lot of Asian culture that I was unfamiliar with. I actually liked this because I was able to do some research and learn about the Heian era and honestly found it quite interesting. But the book alone didn't do enough for me.

The characters are all very unlikable. That's fine honestly, as long as I can see reason in it and follow a pathway of a logical plot that explores their personalities and relationships. Nothing But Blackened Teeth scraped the surface on this. The reader is dropped right into an already moving plot without a lot of backstory about the characters or how they relate to one another. This is revealed in snippets along the way, but not in a way that really gives the characters enough body. All that I really gleaned from it is that they seem to generally dislike one another, or at least have a fairly solid apathy toward the whole situation. A majority of the characters are selfish and egocentric in a way that just irritated the crap out of me.

I could have overlooked my issues with the characters and taken them in as a pivotal part of the story, but the book didn't grip me enough to make me care. The atmosphere is there, but not as powerful as I would have liked. There is a lot of telling instead of showing and I think there were a lot of missed opportunities for totally creepy and tense scenes. Instead, they kind of get swept over and, as a result, I just didn't care. I was waiting for the gripping moment. And when it came, thought it was well-written and conceived, it fell flat for me.

I needed this to be longer and more fleshed out. I needed to see more instead of just being fed information. I needed more description, more atmosphere, and more tension. The bones are there, but this felt more like a pitch than a finished tale. Like I got the middle chunk of a rough draft and there was still more work to do. I'm bummed.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a haunted house story dripping in blood and originality. The dark tale takes place inside an ancient abandoned Japanese mansion. Like all good haunted houses, this one has a long guestbook full of dead people. The Heian-era mansion has the bones of human sacrifices folded into its walls. These sacrifices make good company for a dead bride forever awaiting the return of her late husband. A group of friends decide to rent out the mansion to celebrate their friend's marriage. However, the time for celebration abruptly becomes a time of terror and fear when the dead appear to be alive. The story’s originality comes from Khaw’s sharp focus on Japanese folklore and culture.

Khaw is able to do so much with so little in this tale. There are only a handful of characters, and while some are archetypal, they each have their complexities. The five friends, Cat, Phillip, Lin, Faiz, and Nadia, have long histories with each other and more than a little bad blood. More than friends, they are like family. They love each other but don’t like each other too much. I didn’t have a favourite character. In fact, I didn’t find any of the characters very likable. They are too petty and angsty for my taste. They hold on to grudges too tightly, and overall the group has terrible communication skills. What makes up for my dislike of the group is the tension between them. The nasty bickering is paired well with their good intentions. They want to make amends and they want to rekindle their friendships. They just chose the worst place to do it.

Khaw plays with language in a very visual way, and it’s her writing style that makes this story so enjoyable. An excellent example of this is when Khaw writes, “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” (14). Her visual writing is perfect for the horror genre in its grotesqueness and sense of foreboding. She personifies the house until it feels alive and predatory — the setting itself becomes the villain.

With shows like Squid Game and the film Parasite being massive hits, we are starting to see more Asian cultures represented in the horror genre. Khaw drenched this book in Japanese culture, from the drinks to the demons. I was constantly punching Japanese words into Google translate — words like “umami”, which is Japanese for the essence of deliciousness. The cultural aspect of this novel makes the story so vibrant. It feels like some sick and twisted travel literature.

It’s hard to be both a horror fan and a feminist. The history of this haunted mansion had hundreds of women sacrificing themselves in the hopes of one man’s return. How many young girls’ lives needed to be cut short for a guy who couldn’t keep his shit together? Thankfully, Khaws’ ending strays away from that tradition, and she manages to avoid the final girl trope. However, the two female characters in this novel are fighting over one man. That sexist cliché makes it hard for me to deem this story a win for feminists. Despite the lack of a feminist edge, Nothing But Blackened Teeth is still offering something original to readers.

I read a lot of stories about ghosts and haunted houses. Unfortunately, some get lost in the fog and the spiderwebs of my memory. But this story sticks out. Kassandra Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth will be the one that haunts my thoughts later when I am riding the bus, or cutting up vegetables, or making human sacrifices.

This was pretty good. It wasn't necessarily scary, just ominous. Lots of body gore. The only thing is that the plot was predictable.
I just suggest that a trigger warning be added for suicidal thoughts.

The premise is simple enough—five friends travel to Japan to stay in a haunted mansion. Two of them are eloping, one is there to marry them, and the other two will act as witnesses. What could go wrong? As the story unravels, you’re forced to pull apart the strings and examine them. Our main character, Cat, has an entire backstory hinted at but not necessarily explained. It both entices you to look closer and makes you want to hold it out at arm’s length. You feel for her, but you feel for the other characters, too. Each seem to be trying their best to navigate this celebration, and yet each one is painfully and obviously flawed.

And like most haunted houses, the mansion feeds on this. Khaw is a brilliant writer, assaulting all five senses with her descriptions of the house. You can hear it breathing, taste the decay, smell the mold, feel the pain, and see its hungry eyes peering back at you. The book does not last long at just 93 pages, but it sticks to your ribs like a hearty meal. Except you’re the one being consumed.

If you’re a fan of Haunting of Hill House (as I am), I see no reason why you wouldn’t also love this little story. The house is a character in its own right—perhaps the main character—and it deserves to have its story told. It’s a tale of blood and sacrifice, and the house demands payment in kind. It has welcomed these people into its open arms, ready to feast on their anger, their sorrow, their regrets.. I only wish it had been a full-length novel, so we could revel in the danger and decomposition of the house for even longer.

I read Nothing But Blackened Teeth as a spooky read in anticipation for Halloween this weekend and I definitely got some good horror feelings - but not much else. I liked Khaw's writing (though I agree sometimes it seemed a bit over-the-top and flowery at strange times), I liked the ideas/concepts, but the execution and the characters just kind of fell flat for me.

I feel like I need to really get and root for - even if not necessarily like - the characters in horror media. But I just didn't get the characters in this novella. I got vague motivations and personalities, but nothing super concrete. I didn't understand why Cat went from insisting that they leave to insisting that they stay and absolutely cannot split up. I didn't get why Lee was even invited to the wedding when the only one he was close to was Cat - and the two hadn't even spoken in so long. The story shows a lot of the tension between Faiz and Phillip but I'm told how close they are - but it's hard to imagine when they spend the whole novella just moments away from an all-out brawl.

The tension between the characters is palpable but the bonds I'm told they once shared just aren't there. Which led to things feeling kind of...pointless? Like watching a friend group I don't know's drama play out from a distance.

I did like the concepts and some of the eerie moments with the yokai, but I also kind of wanted more from that - more explanation, more exploration of what was going on there.

Maybe this is more of a 2.5 but I rounded up because I did enjoy it on some level and I am more than willing to still try more of Khaw's writing.

Perfect for Halloween reading! I thought this title was just the right amount of suspenseful and scary. Loved the atmosphere and the storytelling was beautifully crafted! Horror fans looking for a quick read should definitely check this title out!

For fans of Japanese-style gothic horror. A short and creepy tale about some friends that decide to have a wedding celebration in a haunted mansion. The descriptions of the haunting are stellar. I got lost a little with the Japanese terms and also in the complex relationships between the characters. That being said, the story left me wanting more!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for my honest review.

A long year spent making acquaintances with the demons inside you, each new day a fresh covenant. It does things to you. More specifically, it undoes things inside you.

Cat and her four friends are staying at a Heian-era mansion in Japan. Nadia wanted to get married in a haunted house and this mansion is rumored to be resting on the bones of a bride who died waiting for her husband-to-be. The story goes, every year a young girl is freshly buried in the walls, or at least until the husband-to-be ghost finally comes home to reunite with his ghost bride. While the house seems to come alive, some of the true horror comes from the twisted relationships inside the friend circle.

Suenomatsuyama nami mo koenamu.

Told in first person pov from Cat, the first half sets the scene with shivering descriptions of the mansion and the emotional strife in the group. Cat is recovering from depression, Phillip seems to think it is because he broke up with her but readers privy to her internal thoughts, know there is more to it. Cat and Faiz used to date and this causes tension between Faiz's fiancee Nadia and Cat, especially since Cat told Faiz to just breakup with Nadia when they were going through a tough spell. Phillip, the rich all-American guy, had a fling with Nadia, that Faiz doesn't know about but senses, and the late-comer Lin, seems to only truly be friends with Cat. The passive-aggressiveness in the group flies fast and furious and I was left wondering why they were all still friends at all.

Even if it was a house with rotting bones and a heart made out of a dead girl’s ghost, I’d give it everything it wanted just for scraps. Some unabridged attention, some love. Even if it was from a corpse with blackened teeth.

At the mid-point, the group settles in to share ghost stories and with our characters and setting laid out, the spooky factor starts to ramp up. There's some House on Haunted Hill-ness with the question of is it the house making/influencing the characters or is it simply the ticking time bomb relationships that pushes them. There's a little more of a definite showing from the supernatural aspects in this story but I still thought the group's relationships played a part in actions.

The ohaguro-bettari began to laugh before any of us could think to scream.

The writing is stylistic, has more of a poetry flow with shorter sentences, and some of the language used and horror descriptions give it almost a guttural contemporary Poe feel. This was a novella and with the less page count, we miss some depth to the characters, especially Lin. Everything kind of flashes by too quickly before you can sink in or absorb characters, relationships, or the horror elements. As the leader, we get more of Cat and I liked the touching on how, in connection with her depression, she feeds off the attention, she perceived, she was getting from the house, even though it was negative; any attention is good attention thinking. I thought the epilogue was more of a puttering out than shoring up the story and gave this more of a small quick slice of life feel. This was perfect for an October night read and if you're looking for a quick, delivers on the spookiness and intriguing setting horror novella, this would be one to pick up.

I did not like this writing style. Even though it's such a short novel, I just couldn't follow the characters. It was like I knew there was a scary movie on, but my eyes were too blurry to watch. 2 out of 5 stars.

The cover art is the reason I requested this book, it looks awesome. I, unfortunately, did not like the book. The author spends too much time embellishing sentences than developing the real storyline. I feel like the characters were not well developed and that I really don't know them at all. It’s hard to get into the book because there are so many gaps in the characters. With little development and even less time with them (the novella is barely over 100 pages), I had little feeling at all towards any of them. None of the characters are very likable either, so that didn’t help. It reads slow but then the climax is rushed so the whole thing left me disappointed and frustrated. And where exactly is the ghost bride in all of this? Shouldn't she have been more prevalent in the storyline???

First of all, I'm intrigued enough that I definitely want to check out more of this author's work in the future.

However, some of this book didn't work for me.
First, there were a lot of similes and metaphors thrown around in the writing. These happened for hair descriptions, leg descriptions, personality descriptions, house descriptions, etc. And I know that I have trouble comprehending the text and the story when this happens. So that took me out of it.

I did like the spookiness of the house. And the fact that you could really feel the haunted atmosphere.

But also, as someone who loves character development and character-driven stories, I don't think the novella length helped here. There were so many relationships and rifts that happened before the story started that I kept hoping for more information. I didn't understand the connections between the characters. And I think that if I had gotten more from that then the ending would have packed more of a punch.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Small but mighty, this book is creepy, atmospheric and it was a thrilling read. I was hooked from the start and even though I am not familiar with Japanese culture, I felt like I understood the references and it didn't take me pout of the story. Well done and a perfect read for a dark, and fright filled night!

My thanks to the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for a review.

Cat comes to the haunted Heian-era mansion for a wedding with her five friends, she's recovered from overwork and suicidal depression, now she faces a choice when the bride Nadia goes missing and her best friend Faiz kills her friend Philip while the ohaguro-battari watched and Lin finds it all too crazy.

A little blood, a little bone, a little cum and a little bit of organ may have ended things, or may not have after all...

(A little weirdly/worryingly before finishing this, I had a dream of chasing a serial killing shape shifter cross country.)