Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Rating: 9.0/10

Thanks to the publisher and author for a advance reading copy of Nothing But Blackened Teeth for review consideration. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a bloody grin with a twist of the knife. Khaw’s prose is electric throughout and powers the reader through a delightfully disturbing haunted house tale full of terrible people receiving their just due. What a perfectly vile Halloween read.

I’ll be the first to admit: the cover is going to haunt my nightmares for months to come. As soon as I saw it pop up on NetGalley, I just knew it was going to be an auto-read for me. Not having read any of Khaw’s previous works, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I know a few readers who absolutely loved her Persons Non Grata series from Tor.com so why not jump right in.

Khaw’s prose, while intimidating at first glance, is definitely one of the more polished feeling that I’ve come across and played poetically within the confines of such a disturbing story. Every sentence was like a hammer blow to the skull, driving deeper and deeper into your psyche and breathing life into these yōkai. Simply the thought of stepping inside this mansion with the history of it, let alone spending an inebriated evening within its walls… pass, bro.

I feel like the author has started a haunted house sub-genre here that I would love to see more of. This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill haunting; it is a bloody disgusting tale where the ghosts don’t have time for your BS and you better get to the stabby stabby. It is about watching horrible human beings completely crumble under the weight of their choices AND I AM HERE FOR IT.

This is a novella where you will whisper to yourself “No way… NO FREAKING WAY” over and over and over again throughout, and probably more so once you finish. If you want a hauntingly original tale with phenomenal prose, this is a no-brainer.

Incredible. A riveting horror novella from author Cassandra Khaw, I inhaled this book in one sitting. Not only is this perfectly paced, but Nothing But Blackened Teeth is clever, imaginative, and terrifying. Khaw perfectly balances & weaves in meta, horror tropes into this & her writing pulls you into this horror home in Japan with clawed hands. I particularly appreciated Khaw's deep knowledge of Japanese folklore, which bleeds so beautifully into the page.

I cannot wait for others to read this one & am in love with the cover too - an image I terrifyingly held with me while I read. 

Post incoming on https://www.instagram.com/bookedwithemma - I hope to receive a hard copy from Tor Nightfire so I can continue to rave about this one all year.

Fractured friendships, mental health concerns, how both humans and ghosts fall into old patterns of behavior even as those patterns keep them in very unhealthy places, all spiced with a terrifying dollop of this-can't-be-happening horror.

:chefs kiss:

"We exited the room, the future falling into place behind us. Like a wedding veil, a mourning caul. Like froth on the lips of a bride drowning on soil."

Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free e-galley of this book in exchange for feedback.

Since I read this book in e-book form, I didn't realize how short it was until I was well into it.  This was a tiny book that I finished in one sitting, right before bedtime, which is maybe not the best time, but I accept the consequences of my choices.

It was a classic haunted-house story that I can easily imagine as an upsetting movie.  The settings were fantastic, and if I had to google a few Japanese things, that's good, because now I know a lot more.  The web site I found said that ohaguro bettari are upsetting but not dangerous, but that didn't seem to be the case for the one in this book at all.  

The writing was first-rate on a sentence level.  People will read this book because they want an upsetting Japanese horror story, and they will get exactly what they want from it.

With lush and striking language, Khaw has created a novella that feels weightier than its relatively brief page count. When five estranged friends gather for a wedding ceremony in an abandoned Japanese manor rumored to be contain the bones of thousands of women--well, it's hardly a surprise when things take a turn for the worse. Khaw's rich prose is delightful, but the dread grows steadily until the moment it explodes into disgust and horror. Through her protagonists' own discussions, Khaw is aware of the traditions she is writing in, but Nothing but Blackened Teeth finds fresh life in its cultural influences as well as its ability to deliver ongoing surprises, even when you might think you know where its all headed.

Woven through with themes of mental health and relationships stretched past the breaking point, Khaw's characters face terror both fantastic and tangible. It's a book that wonders whether some things are simply inevitable, carrying its characters to the brink even as it brings the reader on a twisting ride through dark, surreal passageways perhaps better left undisturbed. This novella is a gripping achievement and well worth the time of any horror fan.

This book was so fucking scary. What an incredible piece of work. This was a terrifying horror story, truly a work of art in the genre. It twisted common horrors with new concepts that haunt you long after the page.

“I hope the house eats you.”

This is a gorgeously written story.   It’s dark, edgy, and perfectly grotesque.

Our characters are so very wrong.  Our house is so very wrong.  And the things that may dwell within it are so very dangerously wrong.

The writing style is blade sharp.  Each sentence seems to have been very carefully created in order to cut you right to the heart.

And, at its heart, it’s still a horror story.  Ghostly, heartbreaking, and utterly compelling.  It stays with you.

5 stars

*ARC via Net Galley

Ohhh my goodness what a trip. It always amazes me how some authors are able to pack so much into such a short tale. The setting was vivid and visceral, the characters felt like people you know, and the ghost story aspect of the tale was delightfully creepy. This one is going to stick with me for sure.

This is a book of astonishing beauty and originality and horror and I loved it. A small group of friends with complicated relationships and secrets and traumas meet for the wedding of two of them in a haunted Japanese mansion, where the images of yokai like tankui and kitsune, painted on panels, follow and cluster and watch what unfolds. And what does unfold is not unexpected, but told in new language: a ghostly bride demands company. Khaw's language is poetic without losing the edge of modernity: the ghost's first words are "like a sound carried on the last ragged breath of a failing record player;" a woman's "lipstick game as sharp as a paper cut;" knee-high ferns are "like vegetal cats." Khaw captures the intersection of the magical and the eerie: "the night stretched chandeliered with fireflies" inside rooms are "ossuaries: the books suppurating flat-bodied beetles." I could go on, but really what I'm saying is: go read this book. Even if you think you are not a fan of horror, or of fantasy, or of  the drama of youth, go read. This is a treat for any reader.

I don't know if I've ever read a book so quickly after being approved for it on Netgalley! I've been eager for this book ever since it was announced (granted, that was fairly recently, but we're talking serious anticipation levels here!) and it did not disappoint! It's pretty short, even for a novella, and yet there's SO much packed into these pages. I found myself purposefully slowing down while reading it (despite being riveted and just wanting to hurry and read the next page) so I could really process everything fully. Every sentence in this novella does double or triple duty. There's so much world-building, atmosphere, nuance, and backstory, much of is implied through glimpses here and there, or pointed conversations referencing past events.

There's an incredible amount of history to the book, in more sense than one. Quite obviously, the story is set in a place with the weight of age: a Heian-era mansion. Let's be clear -- I'm not going to pretend like I knew what that was before looking it up. (I wish I did! But, alas.) For those similarly uninformed, "The Heian period is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185." (Yes, my source is Wikipedia. I'm only a little ashamed.) But beyond the obvious setting, the characters in the group have a weighty history of their own. The mystery of unraveling precisely the nature of their tangled relationships with one another was a big part of the story's fun.

And I've mentioned this already, but it bears mentioning again because it was just done SO well. This book is incredibly atmospheric! With a story this brief, Khaw doesn't have time to describe every little detail of setting. Instead, they give us just enough to kickstart our own imaginations. I've rarely been able to imagine any story in as vivid of detail as NBBT. I think the part I noted with the most description was the feast the characters laid out midway through the novella -- and wow am I glad that was what Khaw put their description space into! I loved the mention of so many Asian dishes I've rarely -- or never -- seen in a book. And their casual banter incorporating their varying backgrounds (the half-Japanese character asking the others what a Japanese phrase meant and them being like DUDE WE'RE CHINESE, shouldn't YOU know?) made me laugh. (I'm Chinese diaspora, and that conversation was just... spot on.)

I do want to add that I've read a few of Khaw's pieces before (short stories and novellas) and it has taken me a bit of time to get accustomed to their style, which I absolutely ADORE now. Mostly, I think they're simply too smart for me. I can't read their books quickly (the way I, admittedly, read many books) as I miss things, because everything they write is so dense with meaning and described in such original, non-cliche terms. It takes my brain longer to process their sentences than it takes for most other books. So I just want to caution anyone new to Khaw's work that this story is one to be savored, not rushed through, even though you'll be desperate to flip through the pages!

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is sharp, raw, vivid, and -- as the name suggests -- full of teeth. Highly recommended.

Huge, huge thank you to Tor Nightfire for providing a free advanced e-copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.