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ldipkin's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
There were some descriptive passages in this that were genuinely great, but the characterisation of the group did not endear them to me, the solution to the haunted house issue seemed rushed and like it came out of nowhere, and the numerous meta references to horror media didn't really add anything to me. I do thin Khaw has what it takes to be a good horror writer but I really felt disappointed by this one because I didn't find it scary at all, and their characters were so intolerable it made me root for the ghost/house. That being said, the paragraphs focusing on the setting and sense of place were lush and wonderful, and I liked the focus on Japanese yokai and folklore - in that it was a fresh take on monsters/ghosts, one that we don't see much in horror writing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Cursing, Vomit, Self harm, Murder, Gore, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Death
Moderate: Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Body horror
Minor: Sexual content, Alcohol, Infidelity, Drug use, and Excrement
marabdelmageed's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I quite liked this book! So well written, and since it’s so different from what I typically read, it was like a breath of fresh air.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Alcohol, and Toxic relationship
lacee's review
dark
mysterious
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
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Alcohol and Violence
Minor: Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury
sarah984's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This novella had some cool concepts, but it felt like it was setting up a slasher and didn't follow through. Why go out of your way to make the characters so awful and talk about slashers all the time if only one person is going to die?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Ableism, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, and Vomit
Minor: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Suicide
archaicrobin's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I absolutely LOVED this one!! My only complaint is it’s very short and I wish there was more! Khaw’s writing is phenomenal and she uses it well to create this atmosphere of terror and horror that grips you and won’t let go. Even though the book is only a few 100 pages I still felt attached to the characters because they felt so real!
I went into this book knowing nothing except that it’s set in a haunted Heian era mansion in Japan where friends have gathered for a pre-wedding weekend that very quickly turns sour. I’d suggest going in with very little background as well so you can enjoy the twists and the immersion into Japanese lore, ghosts, yokai, and dark history. I can’t wait to read Khaw’s other novels and hope she gives supernatural horror another go in the future because this book is everything!
I went into this book knowing nothing except that it’s set in a haunted Heian era mansion in Japan where friends have gathered for a pre-wedding weekend that very quickly turns sour. I’d suggest going in with very little background as well so you can enjoy the twists and the immersion into Japanese lore, ghosts, yokai, and dark history. I can’t wait to read Khaw’s other novels and hope she gives supernatural horror another go in the future because this book is everything!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
thesaltiestlibrarian's review
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Thanks to NetGalley/Edelweiss for the eARC. The opinions expressed herein are mine alone and may not reflect the views of the author, publisher, or distributor.
At a young age, I fell in love with Japanese culture. My mom exposed us first to the original Iron Chef shows when they came to American television, then my brothers introduced me to manga when I was 7. I already watched Pokemon, but I didn’t know it was Japanese. I was like...6, okay? Then I got the original Pokemon comics for my birthday one year--still in the single digits--and everything tumbled from there. I started learning how to sing the opening songs to anime in Japanese, started reading about samurai and history of the place, and when I got older, I dove into the mythology and horror of everything.
You know how long I’ve waited for straight-up, inevitable-doom, nothing-you-can-do-to-stop-it type of horror to make its way to the world of mainstream publishing over here? Yeah, I’m almost 29. It’s been about a decade.
Five friends from North America (well, “friends.” They’re all kind of terrible except poor Cat) make their to way to Japan to celebrate two of the group getting married to each other, and what do they decide to do? Stay the night in a haunted Japanese mansion from the Heian era. Why is the era important? Oh-ho, let me hit you with some history.
So until about the 8th century CE, Chinese ideas and influence had been flooding into Japan and helping to shape its culture, religion, script, and art. Suddenly in 794CE, Japan decided, ”You know what? We’re totally our own thing now. Peace out.” And their personal identity and culture as a nation began taking serious, hardcore turns toward the unique. You know those often-portrayed kimono that have a bajillion layers, and the women are wearing brass headdresses and jewels and make up? That’s from this period, and the style is junihitoe. So when you think “old school Japan,” this is probably what pops to mind besides samurai (who didn’t really come about until the 11th century or so, when feudalism took hold as the popular thing to do).
This in mind, the friends embark on staying in this crazy haunted place that has a legend behind it. On the day of her wedding, a bride received word that her fiance had died on his way to marry her, and she in her grief decided to go ahead and be buried in the house’s foundation. Human sacrifice was considered a normal practice (called Hitobashira) in this era. With THIS in mind, the least enjoyable character and bride-to-be, Nadia, takes it upon herself to think it’s a good idea to go ahead and play an old game from Japan where you light a hundred candles, tell a hundred ghost stories, and for each story, blow out one candle. Because it invites the spirits in.
Now, this is the important part where I started saying, “NO STOP WHY DO YOU DO.” (Disclaimer: I know it’s a horror novel. Humor me.) Asian spirits, and in particular the Japanese ones, are NOT forgiving. You can’t put down salt and call it good, or burn a little sage and think you’re fine. A vengeful Japanese ghost will follow you until it gets a moment to kill you. There’s one that if you even look at it too closely, you turn into one. Don’t even get me started on Aka Manto, the spirit who lurks in the unused bathrooms of high schools and offers you toilet paper, then proceeds to kill you no matter what type of paper you ask for.
But yeah, let’s INVITE THEM IN.
When it hits the fan, things devolve quickly for the poor souls who decided to dredge up the monsters. The strongest points in Khaw’s novel are the creeping moments of dread that make your ribs clench up. She writes such vivid atmosphere, it’s crazy. Every yokai came to life (ha, get it?) and every breath the house took blew straight off the page.
The biggest problems here were the pacing and the characters. I don’t think enough terrible things happened, if I’m being honest. And I wanted to like more of the characters, get to know them a little better. As it is, Cat was my favorite and everyone else was terrible. I don’t even necessarily have to like them as people, just as characters doing whatever they do. We didn’t get enough of their history to solidly sort out feelings, except for the strain between Cat and Nadia. Everyone else was...meh. Their motives were too vague, and their fractures not reasonable enough.
And the ohaguro bettari--which gives the book its title--needed to show up earlier. So if Khaw had stretched it out just a bit, made us clench our cheeks with tension a few more times, and fleshed out the characters more, this would have been darn near perfect.
Though, I will say, the ending paragraph really made up for some of the mixed feelings I had for the middle. If you’re remotely familiar with how the majority of ghost stories end in Japan, this ending will make perfect sense.
So overall, this is a great novella. Not fantastic, but a solid effort that shows a great potential to write bone-chilling horror.
At a young age, I fell in love with Japanese culture. My mom exposed us first to the original Iron Chef shows when they came to American television, then my brothers introduced me to manga when I was 7. I already watched Pokemon, but I didn’t know it was Japanese. I was like...6, okay? Then I got the original Pokemon comics for my birthday one year--still in the single digits--and everything tumbled from there. I started learning how to sing the opening songs to anime in Japanese, started reading about samurai and history of the place, and when I got older, I dove into the mythology and horror of everything.
You know how long I’ve waited for straight-up, inevitable-doom, nothing-you-can-do-to-stop-it type of horror to make its way to the world of mainstream publishing over here? Yeah, I’m almost 29. It’s been about a decade.
Five friends from North America (well, “friends.” They’re all kind of terrible except poor Cat) make their to way to Japan to celebrate two of the group getting married to each other, and what do they decide to do? Stay the night in a haunted Japanese mansion from the Heian era. Why is the era important? Oh-ho, let me hit you with some history.
So until about the 8th century CE, Chinese ideas and influence had been flooding into Japan and helping to shape its culture, religion, script, and art. Suddenly in 794CE, Japan decided, ”You know what? We’re totally our own thing now. Peace out.” And their personal identity and culture as a nation began taking serious, hardcore turns toward the unique. You know those often-portrayed kimono that have a bajillion layers, and the women are wearing brass headdresses and jewels and make up? That’s from this period, and the style is junihitoe. So when you think “old school Japan,” this is probably what pops to mind besides samurai (who didn’t really come about until the 11th century or so, when feudalism took hold as the popular thing to do).
This in mind, the friends embark on staying in this crazy haunted place that has a legend behind it. On the day of her wedding, a bride received word that her fiance had died on his way to marry her, and she in her grief decided to go ahead and be buried in the house’s foundation. Human sacrifice was considered a normal practice (called Hitobashira) in this era. With THIS in mind, the least enjoyable character and bride-to-be, Nadia, takes it upon herself to think it’s a good idea to go ahead and play an old game from Japan where you light a hundred candles, tell a hundred ghost stories, and for each story, blow out one candle. Because it invites the spirits in.
Now, this is the important part where I started saying, “NO STOP WHY DO YOU DO.” (Disclaimer: I know it’s a horror novel. Humor me.) Asian spirits, and in particular the Japanese ones, are NOT forgiving. You can’t put down salt and call it good, or burn a little sage and think you’re fine. A vengeful Japanese ghost will follow you until it gets a moment to kill you. There’s one that if you even look at it too closely, you turn into one. Don’t even get me started on Aka Manto, the spirit who lurks in the unused bathrooms of high schools and offers you toilet paper, then proceeds to kill you no matter what type of paper you ask for.
But yeah, let’s INVITE THEM IN.
When it hits the fan, things devolve quickly for the poor souls who decided to dredge up the monsters. The strongest points in Khaw’s novel are the creeping moments of dread that make your ribs clench up. She writes such vivid atmosphere, it’s crazy. Every yokai came to life (ha, get it?) and every breath the house took blew straight off the page.
The biggest problems here were the pacing and the characters. I don’t think enough terrible things happened, if I’m being honest. And I wanted to like more of the characters, get to know them a little better. As it is, Cat was my favorite and everyone else was terrible. I don’t even necessarily have to like them as people, just as characters doing whatever they do. We didn’t get enough of their history to solidly sort out feelings, except for the strain between Cat and Nadia. Everyone else was...meh. Their motives were too vague, and their fractures not reasonable enough.
And the ohaguro bettari--which gives the book its title--needed to show up earlier. So if Khaw had stretched it out just a bit, made us clench our cheeks with tension a few more times, and fleshed out the characters more, this would have been darn near perfect.
Though, I will say, the ending paragraph really made up for some of the mixed feelings I had for the middle. If you’re remotely familiar with how the majority of ghost stories end in Japan, this ending will make perfect sense.
So overall, this is a great novella. Not fantastic, but a solid effort that shows a great potential to write bone-chilling horror.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Cursing, Gore, Death, Blood, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Mental illness
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