While I did quite enjoy this book, it's not one I'd recommend to everybody. The characters were insanely unlikeable which isn't inherently bad but this also is a horror novel, which combined, make it hard to find the right audience for. Horror books really thrive off of characters you love so you get invested in the book, but this novel takes on a different approach. I loved the atmosphere and setting and really enjoyed how creepy and 'wtf did I just read??' it got, but I don't know if I could blanket recommend this to everyone. You love horror and are looking for one that focuses more on the atmosphere than the characters? This is perfect!

This is an incredibly short book, but that made it no less horrifying. I found that I didn't particularly like or care for any of the characters, but I was still rooting for them. The story itself was fairly predictable in some ways, but it then took a much more dramatic turn and was much more horrifying than I expected. I've always enjoyed Japanese folklore, and so this novella was absolutely up my alley.

The most annoying thing about this story was that it's so dang full of metaphors, and instead of feeling poetic, it felt like it was trying too hard. Other than that, this book felt incredibly reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. If you're looking for quick, deep scares - this is it.

There are so many innovative novels that take place outside of English-speaking settings. These works can be smoothly adapted to accommodate the English reader, but often lose their unique voice in the process. Others may take a bit more effort for the reader, but are able to retain attributes of the original culture in which they were written. Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassanda Khaw is a quirky horror novel that strikes a nice balance. Paranormal aficionados, Faiz and Nadia want their wedding to take place in a verified haunted house, and a wealthy friend arranges the use of a Heian mansion for their nuptials. He flies the intimate group to Japan to officiate and explore the eerie house they have reserved. All the invitees are college friends hailing from various backgrounds and ethnicities who all study Japanese language and culture. The narrator is Cat, a young woman who had been recently released from a mental health facility. Through her eyes, the reader is given a knowledgeable, if unreliable, description of the events. The party begins with festivity, but resentments and enmeshed connections emerge that tests their loyalty as a ghost starts taking victims. Khaw supplies the reader with a Japanese folklore primer and a vocabulary that reflects their surroundings. Nothing But Blackened Teeth evinces a true sense of creeping confusion and dread, but with an undercurrent of disarming wit that provides a fleeting reprieve.

Thanks to the author, Tor/Nightfire and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Thank you so much, NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Tor Nighfire, for the chance to read and review this book in exchange of an honest review.

In an Heian-era mansion, abandoned and haunted by a ghost bride, its walls full of the bodies of the girls sacrificed to keep her company, a group of friends decided to seek an adventure.
Nothing by blackened teeth is a brilliant and captivating haunted house tale, full of twists, secrets and lies and I loved every single page. Cassandra Khaw wrote a story impossible not to love and really captivating. I loved the characters, but mostly the ghost bride and it was so thrilling to read! I totally recommend this book, I basically devoured it!

This book horrified me in all the best ways. I got literal goosebumps! And the cover! Like a fever-dream nightmare come to life. I loved it all!

This was a horrifying little novella, and I mean that in the best way possible. Trigger warnings for body horror, but if you enjoy that this book is for you. Steeped in Japanese folklore, I learned a lot reading this. My only criticism is of the first half; it took a little longer to get going than I would have liked. I was ready to get to the ghost story and found myself annoyed with the interpersonal strife of a group of 20-somethings. All in all, a great haunted house story with a smashing ending. I'll definitely be ordering this for the store.

I had a hard time following the story and keeping track of the characters. There aren't many, but there's nothing to distinguish one from another. I didn't find this creepy or spooky at all. The story was confusing. This is a really short book but still didn't hold my interest at all.

This little novella packs a punch. In its 124 pages, it manages to incorporate complex friendships and relationships, an eerie setting with a horrible past, mistakes made, fears realized, and hearts broken. The discomfort and suspense build from the first page and climb to dizzying heights by the end. I had been anticipating this for months, and it did not disappoint. I bought a hard copy and the jacket art is stunning.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a short novella that is creepy and extremely atmospheric, but missed the mark for me on being scary or a true horror novella. The Japanese folklore was weaved excellently throughout. Despite other reviews that mention there wasn’t enough background, I found that context clues and some minor prior knowledge got me through just fine. However, the characters are horrible to read about and I had no interest in seeing any of them survive the night. I was disappointed that most of them did. While the prose could be magical in some places, it was laughable in others. Khaw attempted to be poetic and fluid in her language, but it was almost like she was trying too hard. There were some areas where it pulled me so far out of the reading because I had to really consider if it was worth it to keep reading. I think Khaw should have focused much more on the Japanese folklore and relied more so on the atmospheric tension that she built up, rather than the vapid, horrid characters she created and the overly flowery language she kept trying to use. It wasn’t my favorite read by far, but it was interesting enough around the folklore that I’m not unhappy that I read it.

Khaw's novella is a meticulously-crafted, terrifying story steeped in Japanese folklore. At only 125 pages, it is a quick and captivating read. The plot revolves around a group of horror-loving friends in their 20s who attend a destination wedding in a haunted Heian-era mansion, where the ghost of a bride buried beneath it still stirs. The characters are insufferable in the best way possible, and I was fascinated by the way their relationships unravelled as the story progressed. I highly recommend this book; it's creepy, gory, and full of twists.

I've adored Cassandra Khaw's writing even since running across These Deathless Bones. Fairytales twists are one of my favorite things and my lord, Khaw wrote a piece that was mesmerizing. I will read anything she writes simply because her prose is dark and haunting. The words wrap themselves around you and cocoon you in their lusciousness. I know a lot of people feel that her writing is overdone and almost showboating with big words and descriptions but I adore it.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth held such high hopes for me. Oh, it's gorgeously written and very on style for Khaw. The inclusion of Japanese folk horror was a bonus since it's a culture that I don't know much about. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the lyrical tone of Khaw's words, I didn't really enjoy the storyline. The characters were ridiculously unlikable and most of the characterization was them sniping at each other. For people who are or were supposed to be friends, it certainly felt more like hate writing than anything. Even for a novella, I want to care about the characters and I just couldn't. I hated all of them.

There was redemption at the end. Khaw finally gave me the gore and blood that I craved but it took too long to get there coiled up in all the bickering and immaturity of the characters.

I had a lot of trouble finishing this book, and considering it's pretty much a novella, that was very surprising. Based on when I downloaded the book and today, it took about a month to finish. I think I did not enjoy the author's writing style. It was overly flowery and with too many metaphors. That kind of language lends itself to a more Victorian setting than the modern one the book is set in. I think that is what kept giving me pause. I also found all the characters unlikable and couldn't figure out why they wanted to hang out together, This is especially true of the main character that had an issue with almost all the other "friends." This book left me with an overall feeling of meh.

I went and got this one for myself for my birthday, among others books I’ve been eyeballing, and I read it in a few hours. It was a nice change from my now normal 300+ page reading habit.

The story was poetically eerie. It packed a creep punch like no other novella I’ve ever laid hands on recently. This cute little hardback is one you can read cover to cover in one afternoon.

If you’re looking for a not so normal, urban legendy creep horror novella, this is it.

I saw mixed reviews on this, but as you all know I don’t spoil, so you may have to wait for my blog post on it to get the 4-1-1 on it 🙃

Horror makes me feel so creepy. I have been diving into new horror authors recently, with different backgrounds than mine, as means to get me hooked on unfamiliar culture and heritage. Cassandra Khaw reeled me in hook, line, and sinker. Since I'm a sucker for locked room murder mystery, this hit the spot.

5 friends - frenemies? - spending the night in a haunted mansion as a fun time before two of them were to married, I mean what can go wrong? I'm not familiar with the Heian period of Japanese history (794 and 1185) or the fairy tales and ghost stories that came out of that period, but that did not detract from the reading. Unreliable, flawed narrator, and pent-up grudges lead to an epic showdown.

Short and decidedly un-sweet, this novella was a good one to read under the covers, alone... or was I?

3.7/5 stars

4.5 stars.

Before Nothing But Blackened Teeth, I had read and loved Cassandra Khaw's short story These Deathless Bones, so I had high hopes for this one. I have to say that my hopes were met! Nothing But Blackened Teeth deals with horror tropes and fraught friendship drama amidst a haunted house story in a Heian-era mansion, and it deals with it well. It explored horror tropes while subverting them, and the descriptions were so incredibly vivid. I definitely recommend it, and I look forward to reading more from the author.

Full review here:
https://thefeministbibliothecary.wordpress.com/2021/11/14/book-review-nothing-but-blackened-teeth-by-cassandra-khaw/

There are two types of readers: those who love a poetic turn of a phrase and those who hate them. If you love them, you’ll almost certainly like this book.

If you don’t have any existing knowledge about the characters in this book, do yourself a favor and look them up. Learning about another culture’s take on ghosts was absolutely fascinating.

Although it wasn’t scary, this book did a good job of keeping my attention. The ending was perfect, too.

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.