A review by lilybear3
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I wish the story had lived up to the title and the cover art.  I had a lot of issues with the writing and the characters.  

I felt like the writing was trying too hard to be profound and have those memorable one-liners.  Nothing interesting/scary happens until halfway through the book.  The story up until then had revolved around the friend drama (it doesn't stop there, it's constant to the point of annoying).  For me, lack of communication in a story makes me furious so the lack of realistic dialogue wasn't great.  For example,
Why didn't Cat yell at Faiz, "if you cut your heart out, you will die and you won't get to be with Talia"?  Basic commication avoided.
 

Onto the characters:  they are insufferable.  The only one I sort of cared for was Lin.  The ending was not what I would've liked. 
Killing Phillip to get Talia back was a horrible trade offer, she was not worth saving.  While I'm here, I did like how the yokai hung around the characters, that imagery is very cool
 

None of the characters were connected to this environment, so we had a group of tourists/non-native Japanese go to the house for funsies because she wanted to get married in a haunted house.  It just doesn't make sense, even for a fictional story.

I had no expectations going into this, the cover made it look scary and eerie but there was so much drama between the friends and not enough spooky that I lost interest quickly.
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