Title: Nothing But Blackened TeethAuthor: Cassandra Khaw
First Published: October 19, 2021
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Pages: 114
Genre: Horror, Paranormal
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Rating:
Synopsis:
A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company.
It’s the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding.
A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested.
But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.
And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.
Effortlessly turning the classic haunted house story on its head, Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a sharp and devastating exploration of grief, the parasitic nature of relationships, and the consequences of our actions.
Buy the Book: AmazonReview
I knew I had to read this book the second that I laid eyes on it, the cover is nightmare fuel and the prospect of a haunted house in a Heian-era mansion complete with a tragic urban legend was too good to pass up. The Ohaguro-bettari, literally translating to Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a faceless yokai dressed in a wedding kimono that is known for luring in single men. What an incredible subject for a ghastly horror story, there is something inherently creepy about a faceless ghost with only one feature, a mockingly sinister smile.
The story centers on a group of “friends” that travel to Japan for a marriage ceremony, the thrill-seekers rent a mansion in hopes of supernatural spooks over nuptials. To call any of the wedding attendees friends though is a stretch, the relational dynamics between every character oozed toxicity and the thinly veiled loathing between them just screams disaster. The Ohaguro-bettari was truly a terrifying entity, it was every bit a faithful adaptation of the malevolent trickster spirit. The setting is incredibly atmospheric, I blazed through this story in one sitting on the edge of my seat from start to finish.
The story starts off well but it stumbles a few times in the middle of the book. While the petty drama of the group was intense, I also found the addition of humor to be disjointing, and it broke my immersion in the story. I was blown away by the major appearance of the spirit, only to sigh when one of the characters immediately cracks a joke about ghost fucking.
I was thrown off when the story seemed to shift focus away from the yokai, and I had to take time to think about how I wanted to write about this book when I finished. My initial reaction was mixed, but the more I thought about it and made connections between the selection of this particular yokai and the character drama the more I appreciated it. While this story didn’t quite nail it for me, I really admire Khaw’s lush style of writing, it is so uniquely her own and I would love to read more of her work.
Quote
“No artistry to the swoop of his arm but a knife is a knife is a knife is a sharp edge meant to split the seams of the skin, open up the torso and let in the light.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Cassandra Khaw
Zoe Khaw Joo Ee, commonly known as Cassandra Khaw, is a Malaysian horror and science fiction writer. She also creates video games and tabletop games, and formerly wrote about them as a games and tech journalist.
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