"Nothing But Blackened Teeth" and Raven Questions the Patterns She Sees

Perhaps it's time for another biting review. In one day I finished reading "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" by Cassandra Khaw and if it had taken me longer to read it would have been a DNF. I had hopes that this one would be at least chilling. However, I found it to be lukewarm at best. I saw the potential, and I tried to stick it out. But this was a complete and total miss for me. I keep having this happen where I read something that ends up being a 4 or 5 star read, the following read tends to be a total miss for me. It isn't something I'm trying to do, nor do I think its a comparison issue for me. It's just a pattern.

It's not a ghost story, barely even a story with a ghost in it.

Our story takes place in a haunted house in Japan where our five main characters are gathered to "celebrate" a wedding. I hesitate to say any celebrating is occuring as all five of our characters seem to hate every single aspect of exisiting in this location and with these people. this group of "friends" wanted to "celebrate" by doing something as adventorous as staying in a terrfiying house haunted by a ghostly bride. A simple enough and classic concept that would be great if not for, well, most of the book as it is.

I certainly know every wedding I've been too I have always harbored deep hatred for everyone in attendance. Happy couple included.

When I started reading it I was thrown for a loop on page one. Meaning I had to reread page one. When I say I struggled to read this, I mean it literally. The prose style is jarring. Word choices are constantly standing out in a bad way. We get lines of rough and crude dialogue while in a first-person pov a very verbose vocabulary. There definitely could be something interesting done with that. But here it comes off as annoying, like being repeatedly shaken for no real reason.

Beyond how it is written the story isn't very compelling as no one in this story is worth caring about. They hate each other, but offer very little aside from surace level substance, our narrator included. All information learned about them and their deep interpersonal dramas are easily glanced over as they all continue to just lash out at one another. The impact of the ghost and all other fantasical elements is muted at best.

I am not someone who scares easily so I don't count it against a horror novel if I am not scared by it. My favorite read of this year so far was "Tender is the Flesh" and I wouldn't say at any point I was scared while reading it. Uncomfortable? Yeah for sure, but not scared. One of my least favorites this year was "We Need To Do Something" and that one did scare me at times. But I ended up not liking it. This book was not scary and lacke the entertainment needed to keep me engaged as a horror novel. I can deal with horror not being scary if its though provoking or has something interesting going on, be it narratively or aestehtically. This story just ended up feeling empty much like this haunted house.

I wish I had more to say about the characters and the plot, but the characters don't hold their own. This couple has their 3 "friends" gather for a wedding celebration at a haunted house. They play games to provoke the ghost and the ghost swaps places with the bride. They have to perform a ritual to get the bride back. The ritual kills one of them. They go about their lives without ever speaking of the horrors again. Simple plot with unremarkable characters. The fact that the story took place in Japan at least added some uniquness to the plot as it mixed in Japanese folklore at times like mentioning (basically just mentioning) yokai. However, most of it didn't feel plot-relevant. At times things from Japanese culture are referenced with no explanation which is fine if that was your intended audience, but with how jarring the writing style was it made those moments just feel frustrating as if the reading was being dragged out further.

I have seen plenty of praise for this book as well as plenty of arguments about it. I'm willing to just say it wasn't satisfying for these reasons I've explained above and leaving it at that. I think the author has some poetential and I am willing to try her works again, but for now I have to be honest of my rating.

Final Rating 1/5 Stars. I was shocked by how much good I had heard about this book that this was what I was in for. Maybe I am missing something, in which case I would redo my rating. But truly and honestly I do not see anything that I can say I understand what made people love this book so much. Maybe anohter work from Khaw will be exciting to me, but for now I have to leave my rating where it is.

-Sincerely, Raven