A Review of Cassandra Khaw's Nothing but Blackened Teeth (Tor.com, 2021),
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I remember having Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth (Tor.com, 2021) proudly displayed during Halloween, reminding me that the cover was something appropriate for the holiday. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to reading it until well into 2022. In any case, let’s let the official marketing description do some work for us: “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.”
I was disappointed that we don’t get the character names, so I’m providing them for you. Cat, our narrator-protagonist, is a plucky horror final-girl, while she arrives to the mansion with four friends. Faiz and Talia are married; Talia is somewhat of a rival. There’s the handsome Phillip, and then there’s Lin, who arrives a little bit later, and who has a bit of a history with Cat. Of the five, four—I believe—are of Asian descent, which is a welcome difference in terms of the American horror genre that I was raised on. In any case, Khaw plays quite well with the standard haunted house trope now infused with Japanese folkloric dynamics, involving yokai and associated figures. Over time, it becomes apparent that the legends about the house aren’t just fictitious. Indeed, a key climax point—and I’m giving you the spoiler warning here, so you can turn away if you need to—involves Talia becoming possessed in some form by the ghost-bride. The title is a nod to the narrator-protagonist’s obsession with the place where the mouth on the ghost-bride is supposed to be: there are just “blackened teeth,” seemingly ready to consume. While there’s a lot of mayhem and gore, to be sure, the novel is somewhat uneven, which I attribute primarily to the use of the first person, which doesn’t work as well for a horror fiction because we’re tethered to the perspective of a single person. Nevertheless, fans of the horror genre will feel fulfilled!
Buy the Book Here
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ccape
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Corinna Cape
I remember having Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing but Blackened Teeth (Tor.com, 2021) proudly displayed during Halloween, reminding me that the cover was something appropriate for the holiday. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to reading it until well into 2022. In any case, let’s let the official marketing description do some work for us: “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.”
I was disappointed that we don’t get the character names, so I’m providing them for you. Cat, our narrator-protagonist, is a plucky horror final-girl, while she arrives to the mansion with four friends. Faiz and Talia are married; Talia is somewhat of a rival. There’s the handsome Phillip, and then there’s Lin, who arrives a little bit later, and who has a bit of a history with Cat. Of the five, four—I believe—are of Asian descent, which is a welcome difference in terms of the American horror genre that I was raised on. In any case, Khaw plays quite well with the standard haunted house trope now infused with Japanese folkloric dynamics, involving yokai and associated figures. Over time, it becomes apparent that the legends about the house aren’t just fictitious. Indeed, a key climax point—and I’m giving you the spoiler warning here, so you can turn away if you need to—involves Talia becoming possessed in some form by the ghost-bride. The title is a nod to the narrator-protagonist’s obsession with the place where the mouth on the ghost-bride is supposed to be: there are just “blackened teeth,” seemingly ready to consume. While there’s a lot of mayhem and gore, to be sure, the novel is somewhat uneven, which I attribute primarily to the use of the first person, which doesn’t work as well for a horror fiction because we’re tethered to the perspective of a single person. Nevertheless, fans of the horror genre will feel fulfilled!
Buy the Book Here
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