This was a DNF for me. The narrator is fine, and the cover art is gorgeous, but the story itself was just such a slog. I couldn't get through it, and honestly, maybe someday I'll try again. I just don't personally care for all the excessively colorful writing.

I didn't love the narration on this. I also picked it up as the e-book version, but I felt the same way about the story in audiobook as I did reading it. I've tried coming back to this one multiple times, and I finally finished it, but it wasn't the most enjoyable experience for me. I felt like there was too much exposition describing everything to me, without letting me fill some things in to help capture that eerie feeling that I love about horror titles. It's a quick read and a unique story, but it just left me dragging and took me forever to finish.

Aground of friends stay in a haunted mansion in Japan for a wedding celebration. The friends have a few problems they end up rehashing. Then, the ghost of an ancient abused bride starts manipulating and separating them, so she can devour them.

The cover of this book let me to believe I would be reading a classic horror story. The book itself just didn’t do it for me. If you decide to read this book please make sure you have a dictionary at your side because you’re going to need it.
Full review on YouTube

A set of friends has gone on a trip to Japan. The group loves bizarre events and locations and the group's leader has arranged for them to have access to an old castle in Japan with stories attached to it. Supposedly a dead bride haunts the castle along with the women who were sacrificed to live in death with her. Two of the group are getting married and have decided that this would be the perfect location.

But one plays with the dead at a cost. There is already tension within the group. Many of them have had past relationships with others in the group and that has left scars. The two women, Cat and Talia, despise each other, Talia believing that Cat wants her fiancee for herself. When a Yokai, an otherworldly figure, appears and Talia disappears, the group turns inward on itself and fights about how to get Talia back and defeat the Yokai. It all ends horribly with the group now bound with a secret they must share forever.

This book generated a lot of buzz, being a finalist for awards such as the World Fantasy, the Bram Stoker and the Shirley Jackson horror awards. The author writes with lush and lyrical descriptions which creates an otherworldly feel and readers will be exposed to Japanese horror history and characters. The author is a game designer and writer and that background is obvious in the writing and action. I listened to this novel and the narrator was accurate in evoking the feel of coming horror. This book is recommended for horror readers.

I love horror and I would say I don’t scare easily -- but this cover, my god it will haunt me for weeks and give me waking nightmares. It’s so good. NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH is a gorgeous, creepy haunted house tale set in Japan that really ties in folklore and Japanese culture. I loved all the little details and the sprinkling of Japanese here and there. The story is about a group of five friends who rent a Heian-era mansion to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of a pair of them. They soon find out they have one more party guest - as within the walls of the mansion is the ghost of a bride whose husband died on the way to their wedding. The writing is very vivid and descriptive. I think the cover is a very good depiction of what is to come. You’ve been warned! Happy spooky season, everyone!

I had to sit with this book, and think if I even wanted to rate it .
I finally decided to give it 2 stars and even that was a stretch.
There is just nothing about this book that I liked. Horror? yes
And that is about all.

I couldn't get into this book. I listened to a few chapters then quit. The subject matter just didn't interest me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! I didn't overly love this (I was hoping for more scares and less interpersonal drama), but it was still a solid, quick read.

Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a haunted house story set in Japan with Western characters in preparation for a friends wedding. Good drinks and food are being enjoyed, then creepy ghost bride shows up to halt festivities.

I enjoyed the audiobook. It was atmospheric and I was interested in what would happen next. One criticism of the narrator of the audiobook was her Western/American accent when speaking about the Japanese culture. It really threw out of the story of times.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher/author for providing me with an ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was exactly what I wanted it to be! I loved it. I will make sure to check out other books by this author. When I requested this I was just intrigued by the concept of it and I loved how it turned out. This story had a great plot and if you have read this and enjoyed it, This was so much. It was such a great story. I would say give this one a try. I will continue to follow this author. Way to go to this author for not letting me down.

I highly enjoyed the narrator of the audiobook. Kept me listening.

An Asian-inspired take on the classic tropes of the haunted house and a group of friends isolated in a dangerous place. A group of friends gather for a destination wedding - in a crumbling Japanese mansion notoriously haunted by a tortured bride. This has been the modern bride's lifelong dream and a wealthy college friend has happily footed the travel bill and broken into the closed estate for them. But a haunted house is a terrible place for wounded souls to enter. Our protagonist is recovering from a recent suicide attempt. She holds resentment towards the friend who ignored her during her trauma. She herself is resented by the bride, because years ago she told the groom that he could do better. All too soon, our narrator becomes unreliable as the bubbling personal tensions and her own knowledge of Japanese folklore leads to disturbing visions. But these horrors may not just be in her head. Though mostly psychological horror, there are some delightfully gruesome images throughout. While some reviewers complained about the plot being confusing, I read this as part of the psychological terror. The audiobook narrator effectively evoked the increasing confusion of the characters as the events begin to pick up in speed.

DNF’d at 30% .... really was confused the characters and their relationship dynamics were really flat to me and did not engage me enough in the story .... felt almost like a watt pad situation where i should know the characters beforehand to appreciate it ! if i had gotten any scare in that 30% i did read i would’ve finished but too much build up that i didn’t enjoy and want to deal w to be scared lol sorry if too harsh one day maybe i’ll give it another chance because i really wanted to like it bc the concept is so fun

Five twenty-somethings are staying at an abandoned Heian-style mansion in Japan because the bride-to-be insists on getting married in a haunted house. The bones of a bride rest within the home’s foundations and its walls are filled with the remains of girls sacrificed to keep her company. So after a night of food, drink, and ghost stories, a nightmare begins.

I really wanted to like this book - I’d been looking forward to its release all year so I could use it to kick off my Halloween reads. The story sounded so creepy and I love Japanese folklore! But this fell flat. It’s a novella and it could barely keep my attention during it’s 128 pages (or 2 ½ hours of audio). The ghost story had so much potential, but I was constantly distracted by all of the prose. It felt like the majority of the time it was just the main character thinking about the other characters in the book. I think I heard more about the complicated relationships between the characters than I did about the horror they were facing. I just couldn’t get invested and I didn’t care about what happened to anyone in the book.

I enjoyed this, but due to COVID issues I was unable to write the review while it was an ARC. It was creepy and the voice was fluid and lovely. I felt, though, that the pacing was slow and my mind wandered at times. I recommended it to a friend who enjoys Japanese folklore, and he was really enamored with it. I feel like that might be a good pull for readers. Thank you for the ARC, I'm sorry the review was so late.

This was a good book. It wasn't quite as scary as I thought it would be but it was really creepy. I disliked every single character. Lol. But I felt like that was the point. I think this group of people is unlikeable and that they're toxic together. But that worked really well for the story. Their toxicity together drove the plot further and further into the gaping dark maw of deceit and betrayal and loneliness of the lives of these "friends".

The cultural information I had to look into was really quite interesting. While it takes me longer to get through books when I have to do my own additional reading to understand it makes it even better.

Also, the level of F that in this book starts at this creepy face on the cover (faces with mouths and no eyes, or no faces entirely freak me out), and c0ontinues right through to the wedding in a haunted house.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw: A horror novella, with an interesting premise, but the prose was over-indulgent and there's a lot of petty squabbling amongst the characters. It included some amusing commentary on horror tropes that served as some comic-relief and I would definitely watch the B-horror movie version of this, but didn't like the book as much as I expected to.

Sadly I wasn't able to listen to the book all the way through, I'm a scardy cat and this was giving me those scary vibes. I'm sure people will enjoy it.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth follows a group of estranged friends who have gathered at a haunted Japanese mansion for a themed wedding of two of the friends. The mansion is home to a legend of a bride who was buried in the foundation of the home, along with several sacrifices of young women to keep her company. There are secrets between the group that threaten to tear them apart before the wedding is finished, however there are also spirits in the house who have now been woken by these unsolicited visitors, and one of them has been waiting a long, long time for her wedding.

This is a novella, so at times it does feel rushed or like there could be more to the story and every single one of the characters is annoying, unethical, and makes horrible choices. Seriously, they are all so awful that I was really just rooting for the house to take them all. However, Khaw's writing is, as in everything else I've read, beautiful and haunting. Khaw is capable of creating an atmosphere that made me feel like I was trapped in the mansion as well (even if I was kind of rooting for the spirits because I hated the characters so much). The description of the legend surrounding the house was Junji Ito-levels of fucked up and the actual wedding scene was *chef's kiss*. I also feel like it teaches a pretty good lesson about cultural appropriation and messing with things you have no business messing with. Overall, despite the fact that it is a short story with not one redeemable character, I really enjoyed reading it as a fun and short slasher (or listening to it, rather, since my ARC was in the form of an audiobook).

Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated in any other fashion for the review and the opinions reflected below are entirely my own. Special thanks to the publisher and author for providing the copy.

Fast pace and it was almost a little hard to keep up with at the beginning. You really just get thrown right into the storyline and don't get much time to adjust. The creepy factor however regins strong here.