Nothing But Blackened Teeth

i don't like the writing style, like really don't. it sounds really superficial & boring. and i hate books with metaphores in EVERY sentences please it just gets really tedious to read

dnfed at 28%

This was a book with a good premise, but the execution just wasn't there. I don't like to write bad reviews, so go find Bjorn Smars's review of it–everything he says is correct.

Nothing But Horror Tropes & Misplaced Expectations

One of my deepest and longest standing loves has been for the horror genre, ever since I was young enough to read a classic Goosebumps novel or feel the sensation of my skin crawling when reading “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark.” As an adult, horror has still been my longest love, with the classic haunted house storyline being one of my personal favorites told repeatedly over time. It can be told in a thousand different ways and still give you that sense of dread that leaves you glancing around at the pale walls of your own home with weary concern.

From “Haunting of Hill House” to “Hell House” and even “Naomi's Room,” the haunted house plot can never grow trite and cliche, so long as it's done right and the reader is immersed into the atmosphere along with the characters. But that's the catch – with a storyline done so many times before, it absolutely must be done right to be scary.

Sadly, “Nothing But Blackened Teeth” missed the mark on this.

Cassandra Khaw created a story that seemed to be every checkbox of haunted house tropes packaged neatly in this grotesquely covered novella. Four lifelong friends, coupled with some romantic rivalries mixed in, rent out an eerie Heian-era mansion for a night of ghost hunting and wedding ceremony. It's a creative take, and one of the things that appeals to a horror audience is the creepy myths and tales that come from the Eastern end of the world.

I mean, twenty years later, and the Grudge still gives me the creeps and unsettles me. And some of the best horror movies and novels I've discovered came from the other end of the world, from a culture I know nothing about but continue to keep me hooked.

That's the problem with this novella, though. It seems to give the impression that we as an audience are expected to know immediately what we're experiencing and seeing in the context of this story. We're supposed to automatically know what yokai and kappa are, the vocabulary used to describe the interior of the mansion, and the cultural influences that hang over the ambience of it all. And that's not the case with many of the readers, I spent a good portion of the time reading this book highlighting words to search up and help myself create a mental image of what was happening. That, sadly, broke the experience of being immersed in the story, and as an author, that's something you don't want to happen when writing a horror novel.

Though this isn't the only issue I had with the story.

The characters are all extremely unlikeable, and even when we're supposed to root for them, or be sad, we're not given the chance to really get to know them. Even the one casualty that occurs at the end seems to come from nowhere but we're not given the chance to be shocked or experience any kind of emotional investment, despite the author's insistence to describing this characters as everyone's best friend and the perfect person.

And then there is the constant fourth-wall breaks or references to horror movies done throughout that felt more comedic than part of a legitimate story, let alone how true characters should talk. “This is the part where we die” and “I'm rich, you're bisexual, we are always the first to die....” this was not as humorous or entertaining as it felt it was intended to be. If anything, that suspension of disbelief was broadened even more, and made it even more difficult to relate to these characters.

I could go on about the cliche horror tools, such as a library in the next room or suddenly there being a book with the instructions on how to stop the ghosts altogether and get their friend back. It felt like an incredibly lazy wrap-up to the story that had a lot of potential in the beginning, but fell flat a third of the way in.

To summarize my review, the idea, the hook, the story altogether had me in a good hold at the beginning, but the momentum died down quickly before the end of the first half, and from there, it just felt like a need to finish since it was such a short book rather than out of enjoyment. There are plenty of high quality haunted house stories out there, some as short as this, if not more, but this would not be one I could recommend.

It does not live up to the glorious potential of its premise or creeptastic cover, but it wasn't bad. Tons of spooky imagery, very little character development. A nice little slice of horror for a dreary day. 3 ill-advised wedding venues out of 5.

It reads like an essay and it’s a classic horror story. It over describes things as if it’s trying to make a certain word count.

This was not a good book. It had a great idea for a horror story and that’s why I read the book in the first place but after finishing I wished I could take it back. The characters are simply the worst. There are none that you would root for in this book.

Their dialogue makes you hate them, and the book is mostly filled with it. You have to constantly deal with over-worded descriptions that sometimes leave you with no clue as to what the thing being described looks like. Even then there were so many stupid jokes in the book like all the characters are pretentious recent graduates who have to outwit each other.

Lastly, the horror element of this book falls flat as you are too confused to be scared, and I found myself hoping all the characters die.

Found this boring and overwrought throughout, and so many names that just became fodder to me for the end. Wouldn't read again and TBH I only read it to begin with because it was short and I was trying to catch up on my reading goals.

this is a short novella about a group of friends who meet in an abandoned japanese mansion so that two of them can get married.

every character is vague and unlikable. the author tries to give them some unique character traits but they dont stick so its a mess.

if you arent familiar with basic japanese culture or folklore you will not understand half of this story.
if you ARE familiar- however, the only saving grace of this novella is the old school japanese imagery.

also- theres this weird tone where the characters keep referencing horror movie tropes in comparison to what theyre experiencing in real time....but theres not a solid-enough establishment of them being horror fans in the first place for it to seem like natural dialogue...


i DID enjoy a handful of well written horror-ish quotes..i think this author has potential but this story wasnt fleshed out enough. the pacing seems way too fast and yet i was rushing to finish bc i didnt care what happened to the characters.

An underwhelming, annoying book. I love stylised prose with a wide vocabulary; I don't think a book having "windowpane" or "invisible" prose is praise. But this book ain't it. Lines like "the singsong timbre of his voice familiar, the sound of it like a coyote lying about where he’d left the sun" and "jaw sharp as a promise" are twaddle. Somewhere amid all the mixed metaphors is a fun ghost story starring an amusingly messed-up gaggle of exes, but Khaw fails to find it.

Some of this book's sentences are so nonsensical I wasn't sure if they actually contained typos or were just the author trying and failing to be clever. Shouldn't that "every one" be "everyone"? Shouldn't that "poured" be "pored"? Shouldn't "a loci for our celebrations" be "a locus..."? And what the hell is wrong with this first-person protagonist that has her thinking exclusively in tortured metaphors and similes, anyway?

For all the show-offy vocabulary, the author runs out of phrases and mannerisms pretty fast. Everything is sweet, ink, mildew, indigo, froth, rills, and breath. Everyone's mouths and lips are thinning, pinching, slimming, and pinning. Everyone's licking their lips and teeth and running their fingers through their hair. The amygdala, cerebrum, and medulla oblongata are namedropped, just so you know the author's looked at a diagram of the brain and was determined to shoehorn most of it in. The repetitions stick out all the more for how short the book is and how desperately the prose is contrived. A book that consists of around 22,000 words but still manages to make two of them "chiaroscuro" is trying way too hard.

I could forgive the prose's overreaching ambition if it felt earnest, but it's combined with characters who keep ironically lampshading the weakness of the plot. The result just feels like the reader is being held in contempt. If the plot's such a knowing hack job, maybe the author should've spent more time on it, and less consulting the thesaurus? Did they want anything in this story to be meaningful, or to evoke anything approaching real? Is it all supposed to be a big joke, and if so, on whom?

Ugh, whatever. It's short and the cover's cool.

It was just ok. The writing was decent but it didn't pack any kind of punch

Love how it’s written, despise all the characters and the plot is lacking.

I really liked Khaw's prose but I think that the story could've benefited from another hundred pages or so. the ending wasn't what I expected, nor hoped, it would be, and it came far too soon. 

A really chilling read. I found it a bit slow at the start but after that it had me on the edge of my seat to the dramatic ending. Highly recommended. Also great cover art.

This book was alright, I think if it was longer it would work better. Short stories can be really hard and this one didn't exactly hit the right notes. And the time we did have in some ways felt a little bit wasted with unneeded information.

Frankly, it was quite tedious to get through given the very annoying and at times cringe characters. It does benefit you to have some knowledge of Japanese folklore, but even with that aside, the horror and suspense take so long to arise that by the time it shows up, it's extremely underwhelming and done far too quickly. At least it's a quick read.

2.5 stars I think? I don't really know how to feel about this one... it was creepy in places but confusing and annoying in others, and was just overall a lot but also nothing? I feel like this would've been better had it been longer and more fleshed out

This book was not what I was expecting and I loved it. People are focusing a lot on the five human characters but are neglecting the sixth, and arguably most important character, the house itself. This book is about consumption, and the house's attempt to fill an insatiable hunger. The dynamic within the dysfunctional friend group is interesting, but It's not the point of the story. Whether or not you like these characters as people, it's their interactions with one another and the house, that create a wonderful tension. There are also themes of love, shame, obsession, stereotypical horror tropes, and a contemplations on toxic masculinity. While this book is not for everyone, it's worth giving a try.

I liked it. Kind of disappointed that the most (if not only) somewhat likable character gets murked in the end, but it was definitely an interesting read.
None of the characters are especially likable - I felt like I didn't get to know the MC well enough to root for her. I loved the references to Japanese history, folklore, and art. I REALLY could not stand Talia and I almost felt sorry for Faiz (but not really). I appreciated how real the ending was and the kind of dumbness that followed. Overall, it just felt like I was bearing witness to a disaster - but it was an enjoyable one.

Final thoughts from notes:
Rating: 2.5

While the cultural aspects (how the inside of the manor was laid out, inclusion of yokais and other Japanese folklore) were rich and made it compelling, the story fell flat. The ending felt rushed and I didn't really care about the characters. I enjoyed the drama between them but I found myself not really caring and getting tired of it after a while.

The focus of the story around Japanese folklore and environment gives the rating an extra .5 bc I felt those were the best and most compelling parts of the novel.

I also didn't care for the commentary on horror tropes — I felt like it added nothing to the story, especially after the story would still follow some of those tropes. I get that it's supposed to be ironic, but I didn't find it too amusing; it came across as annoying to me.

And the worst part is that they could have left at any point during the story because the doors were unlocked.

Also, the epilogue?? You're telling me Faiz literally guts Phillip and gets away scotch free? I'm all for make believe, but c'mon.

A pretty standard, not particularly interesting horror plot despite the Japanese twist, but filled with many lovely turns of phrase.

i don't like the writing style, like really don't. it sounds really superficial & boring. and i hate books with metaphores in EVERY sentences please it just gets really tedious to read

dnfed at 28%

Everything on paper told me I would love this story. The cover and the synopsis of teens going to a haunted mansion and spooky things happen/ghost bride kills them off one by one, cliche, but really drew me in. I thought I was in store for a fun read but unfortunately this story really missed the mark with me and left me feeling disappointed.

The characters are not relatable and, frankly, just unlikable. They argue nonstop through the story which really kills the mood. I marked the book to notate the chapter when things start to really pick up and it seemed like the story was moving into the meat and potatoes but the flow is interrupted nearly instantly after beginning to set a creepy tone.

We don't get enough back story on these characters to really develop a relationship with them. We get hints to a troubled past with our main character but ultimately what triumphs is the incestuous relationship between the friend group and the drama that spawned from that. Each person has slept with each other and it is the source of all of the bickering. I'm not really sure why these characters are friends to begin with. What I think what causes it to suffer is just how little we know about them. They've all known each other since 16 years old but it doesn't feel like it. It made it hard to care when anything bad happened to any of them.

Khaw's writing style may also just not be for me. I was not a fan of the interrupting of dialouge and how much detail went into describing minor things. The yokai on the walls came up way too often and I wasn't sure if by bringing them up as often as they were meant they're actually doing what is being described or if it was the main characters imagination. It would have been fine if every once in a while it was used to really emphasize a room, or something in the room, but it's nearly every paragraph and I found it disruptive to the point I started skipping these descriptive paragraphs entirely near the end of the book. It wasn't used where it mattered, such as describing the bride.

The drops of Japanese terms also felt odd as they're mentioned but not described as if suggesting you should know those words.

spoilers

The bride really takes a backseat which was a shame. The friend group and their drama is ultimately the focus of the story. The only character death isn't by anything supernatural or scary, but by one of the friend group. There is a touch of atmosphere being built but it's instantly squashed by more drama. While the “book part” felt spooky the “ritual” and needing to do it felt shoehorned in and then rushed over once initiated. The story of the bride never once featured a ritual and being the book was blank I assumed it was the part of the one character's imagination/break down but it ends up working for some reason. I found this so odd as it was never previously established that any rituals happened in the past connected to the bride or her wedding. There is backstory about sacrifice where girls are buried alive, which does happen to a character, but this ritual to save that character just felt so out of place.

I don't know what this is. It's not good enough for three stars because there was so much that bothered me, but I read books I rated two stars that were worse.
The idea/concept of the story is great, however it laked something... What bothered me most was the attempt at a japanese atmosphere that didn't work for me but confused me. Though with a degree in japanese studies I'm probably more critical (especially in the use and presentation of Japanese language and culture) than a common reader without this background.

I believe this might make a good movie IF it would focus even more on the stereotypes of horror movies, but the ending too abrupt...

I really didn't enjoy this one. Very short but could have been done with being much longer to flesh out the plot, atmosphere and characters. I found all characters similar and very unlikeable, to point where it took away from the plot (if there was any plot line to begin with). Spent the entire time waiting for something to happen and was meant to an anticlimax every time. Disappointing.

3.5 Rounded to 4

So this was a fun way to spend my darkened early morning, cup of coffee in hand, blanket tucked around me with my pup Scout nestled in my lap...

This is a short one, but I really enjoyed this novella. Creepy and eerie doesn't explain this adequately LOL
Plus there is so much going on, not with just the haunting scenes while the friends are trying to figure out what is really happening .. but also with the house itself.

At times it was a tad hard to follow as it jumped from the house, to the ghosts, to the horrors being played out but overall this was just the change in genre I needed. Would definitely be a good one for Spooktober.