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2.72 AVERAGE
2.72 AVERAGE
“Nothing but Blackened Teeth” is a shining example of a short but detailed shamble into the realm of horror through the lense of a fanatic.
While this review may be short, so what the time it took to read this novella. A total of 116 pages, though some were blanks between chapters, this novella managed to take maybe 2 hrs maximum with breaks. I’ve held onto this for a while, and am sad it was so short and so lacking in gore or “extreme horror” esc elements.
With her background in game production with Ubisoft Montreal, I could see this being an excellent story for a 4 hr horror game set in an Until Dawn style format - make mistakes or miss details and more of the cast perishes. Sadly this isn’t a long enough book to make any of the darker messaging and undertones impactful rather than included for the sake of run time. Keep in mind the epilogue also pads this out to the total 116 pages, and adds almost nothing to the prose.
The characters have no character growth, and this story as a whole is nearly forgettable. If I had known I’d feel as blasé I may not have bought it and would have opted to rent it from the library.
It’s well enough written but has no substance worth revisiting.
3/5.
TheLibraryFromScratch
While this review may be short, so what the time it took to read this novella. A total of 116 pages, though some were blanks between chapters, this novella managed to take maybe 2 hrs maximum with breaks. I’ve held onto this for a while, and am sad it was so short and so lacking in gore or “extreme horror” esc elements.
With her background in game production with Ubisoft Montreal, I could see this being an excellent story for a 4 hr horror game set in an Until Dawn style format - make mistakes or miss details and more of the cast perishes. Sadly this isn’t a long enough book to make any of the darker messaging and undertones impactful rather than included for the sake of run time. Keep in mind the epilogue also pads this out to the total 116 pages, and adds almost nothing to the prose.
The characters have no character growth, and this story as a whole is nearly forgettable. If I had known I’d feel as blasé I may not have bought it and would have opted to rent it from the library.
It’s well enough written but has no substance worth revisiting.
3/5.
TheLibraryFromScratch
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Pretty good quick read.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you want a quick read or listen or want a place to jump start your interest in the horror genre this is a good place to start.
The story about a group of friends who are staying the night in a haunted Japanese home was just the right amount of scary and messed up. There are tense moments, images of dead brides, gore, and a little humor mixed in.
I enjoyed that the characters felt like real people and reacted in ways that felt not cliche. Start to finish this was a good time and it wrapped up nicely with the epilogue.
The story about a group of friends who are staying the night in a haunted Japanese home was just the right amount of scary and messed up. There are tense moments, images of dead brides, gore, and a little humor mixed in.
I enjoyed that the characters felt like real people and reacted in ways that felt not cliche. Start to finish this was a good time and it wrapped up nicely with the epilogue.
mysterious
fast-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Probably I'm not the key audience for it. If I'd read it on paper it would have been a disaster. With Kindle I could at least have Wikipedia explain all of the Japanese terms on which the horror hinges, but it still required Google to discover the meaning of the phrase that gives the story its title. For non-Japanese speakers, it really throws you out of the story having to look up so much. And you will need to, because the author doesn't explain a thing in the text. I went in thinking the teeth were blackened by fire and were it not for Google, none of it would have made sense at all.
At the same time, the author seems to want to prove she's beyond fluent in English, stringing together long sentences comprised of florid words that almost fit, but not quite. My favorite example being "...the bell curve of her orbit", which sounds nice but is completely meaningless. Maybe it's just me, but I can't focus a story, no matter how intense and scary it is, when I'm distracted by the author either not knowing what a bell curve is, or not caring that words have meaning. (If they don't have fixed meanings, what's the point of even trying to tell a story?)
Google tells me that Khaw is primarily a scriptwriter and that makes sense. Blackened Teeth would have made a much better movie. A little dialogue would have explained the blackened teeth, and seeing the mythic gods and monsters come to life would spare us having to Google to find out what was going on.
All that aside, it was a fun spooky idea, executed in a fashion that's probably fine for readers who aren't prickly language purists. Knowledge of Japanese culture and mythology a plus.
At the same time, the author seems to want to prove she's beyond fluent in English, stringing together long sentences comprised of florid words that almost fit, but not quite. My favorite example being "...the bell curve of her orbit", which sounds nice but is completely meaningless. Maybe it's just me, but I can't focus a story, no matter how intense and scary it is, when I'm distracted by the author either not knowing what a bell curve is, or not caring that words have meaning. (If they don't have fixed meanings, what's the point of even trying to tell a story?)
Google tells me that Khaw is primarily a scriptwriter and that makes sense. Blackened Teeth would have made a much better movie. A little dialogue would have explained the blackened teeth, and seeing the mythic gods and monsters come to life would spare us having to Google to find out what was going on.
All that aside, it was a fun spooky idea, executed in a fashion that's probably fine for readers who aren't prickly language purists. Knowledge of Japanese culture and mythology a plus.
dark
tense
fast-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:
Yes