Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for the chance to listen to this audio book! Cassandra Khaw is a new author to me but oh man! Her writing is beautiful! It's poetic, flowery, dream like, intoxicating, just beautiful! The story almost seemed disjointed. This could just be me since I did not listen to it in one sitting, but the characters would be doing one thing then something totally different in another room. Like I said, could've just been me. We don't find out how old the characters are until the end of the story, I would have liked to known that at the beginning.
I really liked her use of the Japanese folklore. That was great. Suehyla El-Attar did such a fantastic job narrating. I give her 5 big, bright shining stars all to herself!
Would I read more by this author? Heck yeah! Without hesitation.

I loved this book. The way it was written and the short stature worked hand-in-hand to give a simple story a more horrible hit. The way the house was described as breathing, inhaling, was great. The added effect of the house "swallowed" them and their wounded relationships the deeper inside they went felt visceral. I also noticed that the prose went from ornate to direct as the characters lives folded in on them.
I got the audiobook from NetGalley and the narrator, Suehyla El-Attar, did a fantastic job. This was a well-written book. Well done.

I was given this book for free for my unbiased review.

This is a very spooky paranormal story that is very rich in Japanese culture. It was very easy to get sucked into the story, and the narrator did an a very good job with setting the ambiance. I was able to easily visualize the setting.

This is a relatively short story and is very fast paced. At times it was hard to keep up with it because there was a lot of previous character background drama that was distracting and felt unnecessary. If one is offended by language, this isn’t for you.

I really did enjoy the story and this will stay with me for a long time. I look forward to seeing and hearing more of Cassandra Khaw’s work in the future.

I would like to thank Cassandra Khaw, Macmillan audio, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars
Nothing but Blackened Teeth manages to be a fully realized story with really effective horror elements while still only being around 130 pages. It's got just the right amount of horror tropes, and better yet, has the main character be completely aware of them. I really liked this cast of characters as well as the way this story progressed, and overall this was a super fun read. I'd definitely recommend it to read in the fall or to anyone who wants to get started in horror.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan audio for the Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Look at that title! You basically know what you’re getting into with a title like that, right? I love a good audacious title.

If you are a horror aficionado, you will be shaking your head in despair right from the start of Nothing But Blackened Teeth. Five friends meet up in Japan, to celebrate the wedding of Faiz and Talia. But get this, the wedding will take place in a haunted house, and the guy who rented it out seemed very hesitant to disclose too many details about it. Sigh. They were essentially asking for this to go horribly wrong, the Scooby Doo-ass amateurs.

Our unreliable narrator is Cat, who is already unwelcome at the wedding, as bride-to-be Talia objects to Cat’s friendship with Faiz. And the fact she tried to break them up. Cat has previously been dealing with some mental health issues, and thinks they are returning when she sees ghostly figures in the haunted house. But no, the house has an incredibly bleak history, related to a ditched bride, among other things. And when Talia goes missing, all hell breaks loose.

I loved this novella for so many reasons. Cassandra Khaw is an immensely enjoyable writer. The amount of Japanese folklore in this book is fascinating; I know absolutely nothing about Japanese folklore, and now I’m obsessed. Parts of this book are absolutely gross, but Khaw writes with real humor.

Suehyla El-Attar does a fantastic job of narration, although more of a performance than a straight read, which can really make the difference in engaging an audience. She is incredibly creepy too; give yourself a spooky treat and listen with earphones on a dark night.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth was one of my most-anticipated releases of the year, and while it didn’t completely blow me away, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

A group of friends host a wedding at a haunted, abandoned mansion. Allegedly beneath the mansion are the buried remains of a bride & within the walls are the remains of girls, packed in to keep the bride company. When weird things start to happen around the group, they quickly realize that the stories of the hauntings may be real after all.

I had high hopes for this one. The summary sucked me in right away & the cover had me excited for a super scary and creepy story. Unfortunately this one did not live up to my expectations.

The premise of the story is very creepy, but the book ended up being more about the dynamics of the friend group. The has a lot of back story (the individuals have overlapping relationships and tensions). To me this took away from the suspense of the story. The parts that were clearly supposed to be scary or suspenseful came across (to me) as overreaching & they fell a bit flat amongst the group’s drama.

This was a super short audiobook, at only two and a half hours. I feel like if it had been longer it would’ve left more time for suspenseful build up or more scary scenes, but to me the length made for a bit of a rushed story. Between the suspenseful/scary scenes and the backstory to the group, it felt like we didn’t get enough of either.

That being said, if this was on your radar the fact that it’s so short should definitely entice you to try it. I may have had unfair or too-high expectations coming into the book, so this reading experience may entirely fall on me. Since it’s such a quick read (or listen) if you wanted to read this I would say go for it!

I want to say that I really enjoyed this book. I think with a bit more to the story, I may have. The characters seemed to have a backstory filled with drama that I just couldn't connect to. The story didn't even really get interesting up until about 70% in and seemed to be over before it really started. The author could have fleshed this story out more by giving us some backstory to connect with the characters a bit and maybe even some minor introduction to Japanese folklore. I myself enjoy stories of this nature but I think if you read this without prior knowledge it's going to be incredibly confusing as there is absolutely no explanation / description of the Yōkaii or what Yōkai even are. This story wasn't bad by any means nor the ideas behind it. I just think it needed a bit more to feel complete.

The narrator did an excellent job switching between voices for characters and adjusting her tone for the story.

Audiobook provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

I was SUPER excited for this one because the synopsis sounded really good. And NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH is good, but I think it failed a bit in the execution. One big hangup I have is that there is so much Japanese folklore/mythology knowledge that is required of readers in order to fully understand what is happening. Some pieces would have made way more sense if I had paused the audiobook to take the time to research aspects of Japanese culture and folklore. Adding a bit of length to the novel to allow for a little big of background would have been great.

In an abandoned Heian-era mansion in a remote area of Japan, the bones of a bride left at the alter due to her groom dying before making it to his wedding lie in wait. People have been sacrificing other girls to keep the bride company in an effort to keep themselves safe from her ghost.

Enter a group of twenty-somethings that have decided this would be the perfect place for a wedding... funded by the trust fund of one friend, they all meet up and try to ignore the issues with their friendships. But after a night of food and drinks, a game of telling ghost stories leads into a living nightmare as secrets are revealed and malevolent beings start appearing. In what should have been an enjoyable weekend away with friends to celebrate a marriage, is looking like a trip where they won't all make it home alive.

Khaw truly has a poet's way with words and imagery. Some of the passages are stunningly gorgeous. I appreciated the dynamic of having an unreliable narrator as the vehicle to tell this ghost story. But it felt like there were too many characters causing the story to be a bit jumbled and confusing.

Suehyla El-Attar does such a great job with the audiobook narration and their performance enhanced the creepy atmosphere. They delivered the morbidly poetic prose flawlessly.

Despite some flaws, this is a good read to help get you into the Halloween mood.

I listened to the audio book for this and really enjoyed it.. The narrorator really knew how to tell the story, and made it even spookier I think than if I would have just read it myself. I felt like I was right there with the characters and was experiencing everything with them..
This book was definitely creepy and spooky.. We arrive at a haunted house in Japan with an engaged couple, and three of their friends.. The one we follow as the main character is Kat.. It seems that our group used to go exploring haunted places all the time.. When they arrive at this one, Kat can tell right away that something isn't right.. She seems to be able to see things that the others can't, and when night falls and they begin to tell some scary stories around candle light... Things in the house go from just creepy to Holy Crap we need to get out of here fast.. The only problem is that one member of the group has gone missing, seemingly taken by the ghost bride they were here to see.. What are they going to do? How are they going to escape?
It works really well as the short story it is, were kind of thrown right into the scary parts with only a little bit of backround.. So were jumping right into all the action, and horror..
I will definitely be checking out more by this author..

This was creepy and the writing was really gorgeous. That said, I was super confused about the dynamic between the characters (each one caught up in petty lust/hate toward each other) and felt that it took away from the actual horror elements of the story. I did enjoy having a bisexual main character tell the story to us, and how her sexuality and view of horror tropes connected to her reality. I thought the narrator did a great job at blending a conversational tone with the creepier moments. This is a good and fast read if you’re looking for something spooky!

Her dream wedding was to be married in a haunted house, naturally it turned into a nightmare. Yes, I realize my opening sentence sounds like a movie tag line, but I just couldn’t resist. But in all seriousness, it’s accurate. Nothing But Blackened Teeth starts with a small group of ‘friends’ (and I put friends in quotes simply because not everyone gets along all that well, definitely some wonderfully serious animosity here) gathering for a destination wedding. A remote/abandoned Japanese mansion with quite the tragically creepy history, just the sort of place the bride has always dreamed of getting married in. (Why? I don’t know, but I was told never to argue with a bride on her wedding day…so just go with it. No, in truth there are references to this group of friends fascination with ghosts.) Not to spoil anything, but as I mentioned at the start it turns into a real nightmare.
This is the first time I’ve experienced one of Cassandra Kwan’s books and all I can say is wow. The woman knows how to turn a phrase, is downright lyrical at times. I will say that I believe it would help to have some knowledge of Japanese folklore before starting otherwise you might find yourself wondering what tengu, kintuse, tanuki, and yokai are, though I am sure a simple google search would be more than enough to enlighten those unfamiliar.
The novella is narrated by Suehyla El Attar and she does an absolutely fantastic job of bringing Kwan’s prose to life.
I’d like to thank Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen and review an advance copy of the audio book version of Nothing But Blackened Teeth.

I don’t normally do horror, and I wouldn’t have picked this book if it would have been labeled horror. Yet, it was a good book, creepy concepts and all, a god book!

So you are getting married and you want a destination wedding you say? Ok, we have the place for you. A mansion where the bride had herself buried in the foundation. Every year after a young bride volunteered to join her…yep totally normal! (NOT!) When you add all your friends staying with you and alcohol, let’s just say it will be a weekend no one will ever forget but wish they could!

Thanks NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the book to review.

Okay, this was creepy, but it also wasn't as creepy and scary as I was hoping it to be. Friend drama taking away the bride ghost spotlight. Not cool, let the lady be her scary self in peace!
We all know that having a wedding in a haunted place is never a good idea!

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was good, giving the right intonation to the different parts and vibes of the story.

I definitely want to read more horror novellas by this author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an AudioARC in exchange for an honest review.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a short horror story soaked in Japanese folklore. It follows five friends staying in a mansion said to be built on a bride who was buried alive after her groom never made it to their wedding. Legend has it that many girls over the centuries have been buried to keep the house fed. What horrors await these five; and who, if anyone, will make it out alive?

I am not someone who is well versed in Japanese folklore. In fact, I had to stop the book multiple times to look up meaning for words used en mass. Without doing so I would have been able to put the picture together but not nearly as cohesively as I did after defining them. This honestly felt more like an outline rather than a completed story. The body of the story would have packed a heavier punch if the world/lore building had been there, but sadly it wasn't. The story was still good, which is why I'm giving it three stars, but there is so much more which could have been expanded upon to make this a 4 or 5 star read. I even re-listened to the last 40% a second time to make sure I just wasn't missing something.

Three stars from me as the story was there, I just think it was compacted into too few pages to really pack the punch I expected. Recommend for readers 14+ as there is gore.

Atmospheric with beautifully morbid prose, however it is missing major chunks of story like holes in Swiss cheese; Nothing But Blackened Teeth reads like excerpts from a really promising novel — the scenes on their own are vividly written, but there's zero connecting tissue holding them together. Being a novella barely exceeding 100 pages, everything happens way too quickly, characters start having petty conflicts without the reader understanding their friendship dynamic. Even though the story takes inspiration from Japanese Yōkai folklore, the supernatural element feels woefully under-developed, especially the disjointed finale that is initiated and resolved in mere pages, coming across strangely Western-minded when everything else up to that point remains faithful to the Asian horror inspiration.

Suehyla El-Attar's narration is excellent, adding the right amount of emotional depth to each character, in some way helps humanizing them when the novella leaps between extreme emotional states in quick succession without obvious justification.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth feels like it was intended to be a full-length novel, but along the way the juice ran dry, so existing fragments were cobbled together, slapped on a rushed ending, and was released as a 'novella'. Which is too bad because Cassandra Khaw can clearly write, and has a knack for inserting black humor with an air of self-awareness (a character here had some funny references about horror film rules, which unfortunately doesn't contribute to the plot in the end). Hopefully someday the scattered potential will resurface as a cohesive, terrifying whole.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced audiobook for review! So, listen: the haters are wrong and I absolutely enjoyed this novella-length dive into multi-layered horror centered in a condemned Japanese manor.

I tried the audiobook and it was the best book of the week! Coincidentally, this is the second Haunted Wedding Venue book I've listened to and loved in as many weeks. Spooky season is thriving.

There is everything here for the recipe of prime WTF horror, it was almost a found footage immersive experience for me. Our narration is that of a woman implied as recently hospitalized for mental treatment, drunk, in a haunted house - really the best combination for frightening, unreliable narration. There is gore, yes, but the true horror is more psychological, preying on the hostility lurking between these frenemies who have gathered for a spur of the moment elopement in the worst destination for a wedding ever. I found the writing excellent, full of clever metaphors and visceral imagery. You can FEEL some of the lines. I guess I might be a pretentious dweeb, but I found the sophisticated writing a joy to listen to, completely immersing me in the horror.

And the SOUND! The audio starts with like an epic score track that instantly had me hyped. The narrator is a little quirky - some frankly hilarious pronunciations of words like marscarpone and Iceland - but really great overall, successfully channeling Philip's dudebro energy, a ghost's mutterings, and our protagonist's frantic inner monologue.

All in all, a fantastic horror novella for me. The brevity itself excuses a lot of things I saw complaints for in other reviews - lack of background or character development, etc. - and I was already really familiar with youkai and several of the Japanese terms herein. A solid spooky listen.

4.5 Stars
Normally, haunted house stories don't work particularly well for me, but this was a wonderful exception. This story successfully balanced a creepy atmosphere with an exciting climax.

I really loved the incorporation of so much Japanese language and culture in this story. The inclusion of mythological Japanese creatures really added to the story.

In many ways, this was a very simple, traditional horror narrative. This book is filled with horror tropes, yet the diverse setting made the story feel fresh. Personally, I never tire of the breakdown of a group of friends.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novella and would absolutely recommend it to any horror reader.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

It’s supposed to be a night of celebrating, drinking and eating too much, celebrating an upcoming wedding in an infamous haunted house. But no one in the wedding party will be having fun when the very real spirit lying in wait in the house awakens to welcome them with open arms. Super creepy Japanese horror story told with eerie precision by El-Attar