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A review by deckled_edges
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
dark
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
Giving it half a star because the cover is pretty cool.
This book is the written equivalent of an 84 minute straight to streaming horror movie made by a studio you've never heard of with actors you'll never see in anything else again.
Which could be good! That kind of description is appealing to me! I like B-rated movies with paper thin plots and a cast of unlikable characters that are all going to die in gruesome ways. This book somehow still managed to miss even that mark.
Every single character is insufferable. Each one a rough cut out of their archetype with zero attempt at refining them. They bicker and they're pithy and they all hate each other but for some reason are all together for this event. (Probably because no one else wants to deal with them.) Lin is the worst of the bunch in that his character serves absolutely no purpose. The characterizations and roles they all play somehow get worse once he's introduced? I was kind of hoping he was a ghost that infiltrated the group and that was why none of their interactions, or his constant flip-flopping of characterizations, made any sense. But.. no such luck.
It's not a scary story either. It could be! But it's not. The cover is the scariest part. Any chances there are to establish an atmosphere are completely ruined by some god awful forced simile. Not even a metaphor. A simile. At least one every other page. Generally multiple per page. Long drawn out descriptions that are meant to evoke some sense of unknown, of being unsettled, of the creeping dread, but the author gets so bogged down in trying to find the most esoterically poetic way to describe someone's footsteps that what little hint of dread they managed to eek out of you has just completely dried up. You're bored. You're waiting for something to happen. Even when things are actively happening, you're waiting for something to happen in a way that is at all interesting.
Spoilers for the ending.And only one of them died? Like okay I guess. You start to see the house affect all of them in various ways and you kind of think they're going to turn on each other, kill each other thinking they're seeing something else. Get possessed. Something. And in a way they do turn on one another but the arguments are so dramatic and over the top and don't at all match the tone of what's actually happening? And then when intense things actually ARE happening, someone has time to make a joke. I did see in quite a few other reviews people point out the fact that Faiz could read the surprise book as though that were some sort of plot hole or bad writing. And there's a lot I don't like about this writing style but I will say it's very clear there was nothing in that book. They just clung on to what he'd been convinced he saw because it was better than doing nothing while Phillip died.
Overall a really disappointing read that had the potential to be a lot more.
This book is the written equivalent of an 84 minute straight to streaming horror movie made by a studio you've never heard of with actors you'll never see in anything else again.
Which could be good! That kind of description is appealing to me! I like B-rated movies with paper thin plots and a cast of unlikable characters that are all going to die in gruesome ways. This book somehow still managed to miss even that mark.
Every single character is insufferable. Each one a rough cut out of their archetype with zero attempt at refining them. They bicker and they're pithy and they all hate each other but for some reason are all together for this event. (Probably because no one else wants to deal with them.) Lin is the worst of the bunch in that his character serves absolutely no purpose. The characterizations and roles they all play somehow get worse once he's introduced? I was kind of hoping he was a ghost that infiltrated the group and that was why none of their interactions, or his constant flip-flopping of characterizations, made any sense. But.. no such luck.
It's not a scary story either. It could be! But it's not. The cover is the scariest part. Any chances there are to establish an atmosphere are completely ruined by some god awful forced simile. Not even a metaphor. A simile. At least one every other page. Generally multiple per page. Long drawn out descriptions that are meant to evoke some sense of unknown, of being unsettled, of the creeping dread, but the author gets so bogged down in trying to find the most esoterically poetic way to describe someone's footsteps that what little hint of dread they managed to eek out of you has just completely dried up. You're bored. You're waiting for something to happen. Even when things are actively happening, you're waiting for something to happen in a way that is at all interesting.
Spoilers for the ending.
Overall a really disappointing read that had the potential to be a lot more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Murder
Moderate: Mental illness