2.72 AVERAGE


Khaw is such a good write but I consistently felt like I was missing something the entire time I read this.  

All they did was complain. It was not scary at all unless you are afraid of terrible friends and wasting time.

I was very surprised to see how short this book was, but honestly I think it only being ~120 pages was a good choice, since it didn't feel like it dragged on at all!
Actually, I'd say it was. Faster than fast-paced. I finished this in a little more than an hour. Good grief.
I looooove how all the characters SUCKED <3 it was almost refreshing! But it made it so that I didn't have any attachment to any of the characters. So it didn't really strike me too much when stuff happened to them
It wasn't all I expected it to be, but I still thought it was a nice and quick read.
EDIT: Post review clarity just hit this book wasn't as good as I first talked about smh the descriptions were flowery to the point of like. Borderline incomprehension. I didn't really understand most of what was going on especially at the end. Hm. Kinda disappointing
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Had such potential to be great, but with how punchy and fast the actual horror happened, the set up of relationships in the beginning dragged in comparison. Hell, Khaw could have started at things going wrong and included brief paragraphs about intergroup relations and kept the whole piece fast and raw.

Sorry in advance for the bad review, but I want to explain myself!!! With peace and love, the dialogue was quite cheesy. (The main character said “talk to the hand” in all seriousness in the year of our lord and savior 2021.) The cover was so scary that I have to keep the book face down, but nothing scary happened in the book. I will say, though, that I liked the excerpt of Khaw’s next book a lot better and I think her tone suits that genre more!!!
dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I thought it was a manageable level of horror without going overboard. The whole book takes place in one night and once the ghost is revealed, the tension carries through to the end.

Cassandra Khaw coats her prose in decadence. And, I savored every grotesquely decadent morsel! Khaw twists familiar cliches and metaphors into the unconventional, expectation suddenly one more character haunting both the audience and the narrative. NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH shimmers with the spirits of Gothic horror’s long global, multicultural past. Yet, the novella also basks in its modernization of literary history.

“Like a wedding veil, a mourning caul. Like froth on the lip of a bride drowning on soil” (33).
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated