A review by davinmotion
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

dark sad medium-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

2.0

This is the first book I’ve read by this author and if it’s a good example of her I think I’ll avoid reading another. It’s barely coherent; I frequently lost track of what was happening and every time I tried to like a character they would somehow become worse than before. Why the author bothered mentioning the main character knew Japanese and then refrained from explaining anything alludes me. I can’t remember if she even said what a yokai was besides peppering the word on almost every page near the end. This book would have at least had style if the incoherentness was intentional in the lead up to the desperation of a climax, but it starts just as bad as it ends. This would have been better if it was shorter, more polished/tighter, and part of a collection of other short stories. There’s a fun idea in here but I personally think this was not finished to its full potential. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, and Alcohol

What the absolute fuck of an ending. I think this is worse than saying, “it was a dream,” because it was not only less satisfying but the attempt at giving the characters a little more depth felt like a Hail Mary to make us feel for Phillip, when I think it’s obvious he’s the only one we can feel for since he died in such a brutal and unnecessary way. Skin is an organ you dipshits, just a small sliver of that with your other bullshit ingredients and this could be over! Faiz was all gung-ho about cutting out his heart when he could have cut off his pinky finger and solved x3 offerings at once. No death. Done. I won’t even start with that last offering. I can’t imagine Talia and Faiz staying together after this though. Who would want to stay with someone that murdered their friend to save you?