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A review by sydthereader
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
dark
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? It's complicated
1.0
TLDR; dumb book. bad writing. unnecessary conflict between characters with no real substance. not scary.
~spoiler free!!~
i think the authors who blurbed this book just straight up lied. this is literally the worst book i’ve ever read.
before i go into completely bashing it, i will say there was a couple of paragraphs that had some great atmospheric writing in it. the author has great potential.
HOWEVER.
it’s not great for a book when you’re only 3 pages in and you notice that it seems like the author just googled “________ synonym” and then chose the most unnecessarily complex and smart sounding word from the list. this wouldn’t be bad if the rest of the writing was actually good and deserved to be paired with more advanced language. but it didn’t. and, you know, i realize that that’s just a little quirk and i can get over that. if it weren’t for everything else.
all of the characters and their relationships with each other is INSUFFERABLE. for multiple reasons.
1.) all 5 of them seem to hate each other for no reason other than for allowing the author to create a conflict, outside the mansion itself, that is cheap and easy to do. who in their right mind would WILLINGLY choose to spend time in a known haunted mansion with 4 other people that you hate and that also hate you.
2.) 3 of the characters got invited along to stay in this mansion bc 2 of the characters are getting married. why did the bride literally invite people she hates to her wedding??????? like the bride and another character she invited literally tell each other to their face that they hate each other in the book??? the non bride character says it’s bc the bride and groom were there for her one time so she owes them??? huh???? couldn’t be me especially if one of them now hates me???????
3.) the main characters has a barely explained past with two other characters who have both somehow wronged her yeah idk why it matters
4.) one of the characters, phillip, just wants to physically fight all the other men in the house. bc why not. like he tries to fight faiz and then later lin makes him super angry over nothing and he’s like “idk what it is about lin he just gets under my skin!!” he literally didn’t do anything are you okay
5.) lin for some reason can’t decide if he’s actually worried or it’s just a “dumb old house,” just inconsistent.
6.) at one point one character actively googles something while the scary thing is supposed to be scaring them?? what is up with that???
my main issue is that the drama between the characters is extremely unneeded. it wouldnt change the story if they were all best friends with no issues. instead, it’s just annoying and adds worthless back-and-forth between all of them. honestly, it would’ve been better if they were all best friends that slowly started hating each other bc the effect the mansion had on them.
finally, the writing simply does not flow well. the author attempts to be dark and atmospheric but then ruins it, usually with dumb dialogue. i know it’s a short book, but it goes from one scene to the next and to the next with very little transition. it’s not immersive at all.
since novellas are so short, there’s not as much time to flesh out ideas and concepts and give complete backgrounds and such, so when a horror novel is written in this way it needs to be done right and this just was completely wrong.
don’t waste your time unless you want to read it out of spite like i did after the first 30 pages.
~spoiler free!!~
i think the authors who blurbed this book just straight up lied. this is literally the worst book i’ve ever read.
before i go into completely bashing it, i will say there was a couple of paragraphs that had some great atmospheric writing in it. the author has great potential.
HOWEVER.
it’s not great for a book when you’re only 3 pages in and you notice that it seems like the author just googled “________ synonym” and then chose the most unnecessarily complex and smart sounding word from the list. this wouldn’t be bad if the rest of the writing was actually good and deserved to be paired with more advanced language. but it didn’t. and, you know, i realize that that’s just a little quirk and i can get over that. if it weren’t for everything else.
all of the characters and their relationships with each other is INSUFFERABLE. for multiple reasons.
1.) all 5 of them seem to hate each other for no reason other than for allowing the author to create a conflict, outside the mansion itself, that is cheap and easy to do. who in their right mind would WILLINGLY choose to spend time in a known haunted mansion with 4 other people that you hate and that also hate you.
2.) 3 of the characters got invited along to stay in this mansion bc 2 of the characters are getting married. why did the bride literally invite people she hates to her wedding??????? like the bride and another character she invited literally tell each other to their face that they hate each other in the book??? the non bride character says it’s bc the bride and groom were there for her one time so she owes them??? huh???? couldn’t be me especially if one of them now hates me???????
3.) the main characters has a barely explained past with two other characters who have both somehow wronged her yeah idk why it matters
4.) one of the characters, phillip, just wants to physically fight all the other men in the house. bc why not. like he tries to fight faiz and then later lin makes him super angry over nothing and he’s like “idk what it is about lin he just gets under my skin!!” he literally didn’t do anything are you okay
5.) lin for some reason can’t decide if he’s actually worried or it’s just a “dumb old house,” just inconsistent.
6.) at one point one character actively googles something while the scary thing is supposed to be scaring them?? what is up with that???
my main issue is that the drama between the characters is extremely unneeded. it wouldnt change the story if they were all best friends with no issues. instead, it’s just annoying and adds worthless back-and-forth between all of them. honestly, it would’ve been better if they were all best friends that slowly started hating each other bc the effect the mansion had on them.
finally, the writing simply does not flow well. the author attempts to be dark and atmospheric but then ruins it, usually with dumb dialogue. i know it’s a short book, but it goes from one scene to the next and to the next with very little transition. it’s not immersive at all.
since novellas are so short, there’s not as much time to flesh out ideas and concepts and give complete backgrounds and such, so when a horror novel is written in this way it needs to be done right and this just was completely wrong.
don’t waste your time unless you want to read it out of spite like i did after the first 30 pages.