Review: Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

A long year spent making acquaintances with the demons inside you, each new day a fresh covenant. It does things to you. More specifically, it undoes things inside you. 

Cat and her four friends are staying at a Heian-era mansion in Japan. Nadia wanted to get married in a haunted house and this mansion is rumored to be resting on the bones of a bride who died waiting for her husband-to-be. The story goes, every year a young girl is freshly buried in the walls, or at least until the husband-to-be ghost finally comes home to reunite with his ghost bride. While the house seems to come alive, some of the true horror comes from the twisted relationships inside the friend circle. 

Suenomatsuyama nami mo koenamu. 

Told in first person pov from Cat, the first half sets the scene with shivering descriptions of the mansion and the emotional strife in the group. Cat is recovering from depression, Phillip seems to think it is because he broke up with her but readers privy to her internal thoughts, know there is more to it. Cat and Faiz used to date and this causes tension between Faiz's fiancee Nadia and Cat, especially since Cat told Faiz to just breakup with Nadia when they were going through a tough spell. Phillip, the rich all-American guy, had a fling with Nadia, that Faiz doesn't know about but senses, and the late-comer Lin, seems to only truly be friends with Cat. The passive-aggressiveness in the group flies fast and furious and I was left wondering why they were all still friends at all. 

Even if it was a house with rotting bones and a heart made out of a dead girl’s ghost, I’d give it everything it wanted just for scraps. Some unabridged attention, some love. Even if it was from a corpse with blackened teeth. 

At the mid-point, the group settles in to share ghost stories and with our characters and setting laid out, the spooky factor starts to ramp up. There's some House on Haunted Hill-ness with the question of is it the house making/influencing the characters or is it simply the ticking time bomb relationships that pushes them. There's a little more of a definite showing from the supernatural aspects in this story but I still thought the group's relationships played a part in actions. 

The ohaguro-bettari began to laugh before any of us could think to scream. 

The writing is stylistic, has more of a poetry flow with shorter sentences, and some of the language used and horror descriptions give it almost a guttural contemporary Poe feel. This was a novella and with the less page count, we miss some depth to the characters, especially Lin. Everything kind of flashes by too quickly before you can sink in or absorb characters, relationships, or the horror elements. As the leader, we get more of Cat and I liked the touching on how, in connection with her depression, she feeds off the attention, she perceived, she was getting from the house, even though it was negative; any attention is good attention thinking. I thought the epilogue was more of a puttering out than shoring up the story and gave this more of a small quick slice of life feel. This was perfect for an October night read and if you're looking for a quick, delivers on the spookiness and intriguing setting horror novella, this would be one to pick up.

View all my reviews