Cat, our narrator and Faiz's best friend (we are told), is still fresh from a hospital stay (depression), and the nexus for a lot of strong and complex emotions. Phillip, charming do-gooder rich boy, uses his money to facilitate one last legend trip to Japan. Nadia and Faiz are tying the knot, and Nadia's always wanted to get married in a haunted house. They do go to the wedding, although the five protagonists used to ghost-hunt and legend trip (that's when you visit the site of some supernatural or tragic event) together, so the haunting is invited, too. Their past history seethes on or just under the surface scratch any of them, and complicated hurts and loyalties spill out like viscera. The characters in Cassandra Khaw's creepy, gorgeous novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth leave well-lit places and easy access to help. Dysfunctional relationships from the past, expunged or resolved? Very good! Wedding invitations that involve ghost hunting in an abandoned Japanese manor? Ignore, however tempting. Overall, Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a fun creepy story that will keep you entertained for a few nights.Lights on? Good. The supernatural horror is well done, and there are enough twists and turns in its short run to keep readers guessing. But part of the charm of Nothing but Blackened Teeth is that it moves along at a rapid pace, giving it the feel of a TV horror anthology episode. Their backstories are well thought out and interconnected, but it feels like the main threat manifests just as we’re really digging into their conflicts. My one criticism is that I kinda wish the novella spent a little more time with the characters before everything goes to hell. It ends up being very meta, in a Scream-movie sense. Cat is very aware of horror story tropes, and she is constantly pointing out where her companions are making all the wrong choices. It is narrated from the point of view of Cat, one of the guests and a woman with a history of mental illness. Nothing but Blackened Teeth is a very fast-paced story.
That bride does not rest, however, and she is looking for more companions… One of them had heard stories that a jilted bride had been buried in the basement of the house, and that every year a maiden had been sacrificed to keep her company. Those tensions are nothing, however, compared to the threat that awaits them all. Though the day starts pleasant enough, there is history between members of the group, and tensions start to build quickly. The premise will summarize why it caught my attention in the first place: a group of friends arrange to rent out a Heian-era mansion in Japan for the wedding of two of them. That makes it a quick read, and I finished it over the course of two nights. It is a very short book, really a novella, of 124 pages.
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