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A review by ghoulish
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
1.0
sorely disappointed because I had high hopes for this one, but it was... I think "terrible" is the only description. not bad as in "I didn't like this/it wasn't to my taste" but truly a mess, inscrutable and mystifying.
the writing was the most egregious part; I think Khaw has read and knows what good writing is, but completely failed to implement it correctly in her own writing. her imagery is great: vivid images, sharp and distinct, but there are simply too many, so that the basic series of events of the story are lost. in horror especially, less is more. but everything is given such thorough scrutiny it falls apart as you painstakingly piece each scene together. and there's no rhythm, no melody, to the writing. it jerks you around, fills your mouth up with words, too bulky and irregular to easily swallow. "Most days, you couldn't tell he was six feet three, an artist's rendition of the American dream. Broad shoulders, muscled thighs, a ruggedly Neolithic jaw. But now he'd given that up, exchanged his approachability for something more contentious, a predatory stillness that drove a scream through the medulla oblongata." not only is this an unnecessarily long and winded passage, it feels completely at odds with the scene it's in. a collection of sentences like stopped me completely in my tracks while I unraveled them, when I should have been racing through the story, tense and expectant. the chain of events doesn't flow; it feels like a series of scenes stitched together.
the characters and their relationships were also completely incomprehensible. the boundaries of their loyalty and feelings for one another shifted radically throughout the story, and there were times when I didn't even understand why they knew each other at all. The way Faiz and Talia's relationship was initially established didn't seem to warrant the intensity of Faiz's reaction later on in the story, and I never quite understood where Lin stood with the rest of the group. Action and motivation were completely unaligned, and while I don't think sympathy is necessary between reader and character, I felt indifferent to the fate of this group. dialogue was strange, like an attempt at sounding what humans would sound like. I also didn't appreciate the meta commentary: "'Dude, that's just fiction. In real life, people don't just leave around solutions like, like, it's some kind of video game.'" I think Khaw had more stereotype than fully-fleshed out characters, which rendered them flat and bland.
to balance out my criticisms, I did enjoy Khaw's refusal to shy away from the more physical aspects of horror. i loved how gory and brutal it was, and if those moments hadn't been mired in miles of metaphor and simile, they would have landed much harder.
I'm sorry to have to give this book such a low rating, but I'm astonished it was published in the state it's in. I think this might be my worst read of this year, I'm sorry to say.
the writing was the most egregious part; I think Khaw has read and knows what good writing is, but completely failed to implement it correctly in her own writing. her imagery is great: vivid images, sharp and distinct, but there are simply too many, so that the basic series of events of the story are lost. in horror especially, less is more. but everything is given such thorough scrutiny it falls apart as you painstakingly piece each scene together. and there's no rhythm, no melody, to the writing. it jerks you around, fills your mouth up with words, too bulky and irregular to easily swallow. "Most days, you couldn't tell he was six feet three, an artist's rendition of the American dream. Broad shoulders, muscled thighs, a ruggedly Neolithic jaw. But now he'd given that up, exchanged his approachability for something more contentious, a predatory stillness that drove a scream through the medulla oblongata." not only is this an unnecessarily long and winded passage, it feels completely at odds with the scene it's in. a collection of sentences like stopped me completely in my tracks while I unraveled them, when I should have been racing through the story, tense and expectant. the chain of events doesn't flow; it feels like a series of scenes stitched together.
the characters and their relationships were also completely incomprehensible. the boundaries of their loyalty and feelings for one another shifted radically throughout the story, and there were times when I didn't even understand why they knew each other at all. The way Faiz and Talia's relationship was initially established didn't seem to warrant the intensity of Faiz's reaction later on in the story, and I never quite understood where Lin stood with the rest of the group. Action and motivation were completely unaligned, and while I don't think sympathy is necessary between reader and character, I felt indifferent to the fate of this group. dialogue was strange, like an attempt at sounding what humans would sound like. I also didn't appreciate the meta commentary: "'Dude, that's just fiction. In real life, people don't just leave around solutions like, like, it's some kind of video game.'" I think Khaw had more stereotype than fully-fleshed out characters, which rendered them flat and bland.
to balance out my criticisms, I did enjoy Khaw's refusal to shy away from the more physical aspects of horror. i loved how gory and brutal it was, and if those moments hadn't been mired in miles of metaphor and simile, they would have landed much harder.
I'm sorry to have to give this book such a low rating, but I'm astonished it was published in the state it's in. I think this might be my worst read of this year, I'm sorry to say.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Death
Minor: Mental illness