Have You Read This Yet? 'Nothing But Blackened Teeth' by Cassandra Khan

I broke my year-long reading drought with this book, which was an excellent decision on my part, because holy shit, this book is amazing.

Why Is It Amazing?

It’s so slim, so unassuming in its mass! There’s only 124 pages in this book, after all . . . and yet you know to assume nothing about this book, because of its cover. the summary goes- a group of four friends (if they really want to call each other that) get together in a Heian-era mansion in Japan, to reminisce and celebrate the upcoming nuptials of two of theirs . . . but the house carries secrets of a ghost bride . . . and she loves company! It seems like you’d know what the book is about from that, but oh! How wrong you’d be! Funny, isn’t it? You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this book’s cover purrs at you, “You wouldn’t be so bold as to presume what lies within me, would you?”

Before I'd ever seen the book, I'd read a few quotes from it, from a page I follow on twitter called gothic fiction bot (also featured in this article), and the beauty of its prose- the mellifluous dread- was captivating . . . near intoxicating. I’d missed reading things like this. Things that delighted in its own dread, cherry picked words from a poisoned well- not that I'm deriding casual lingo in books, far from it! There’s a time and a place for everything, but right now I'm glad to have such tender, dark imagery to hold close in the fall nights. But I digress, here’s the excerpt:

“Two hundred and six bones times a thousand years. More than enough calcium to keep this house standing until the stars ate themselves clean, picked the sinew from their own shining bones.”

What?

That is an insane thing to write. Thank God for you, Cassandra khan.

Without giving too much away here, there is such a great amount of feeling in this book, crammed in tight, and meant to be overwhelming. The four characters are easy enough to grasp but its their bonds . . . they’re, hm, complicated? Twisted? From the get-go the narrator Cat, tells you that these are all her friends and yet it is made quite apparent within the first couple of pages that the definition used here for “friendship” is, ah, generous. Or maybe it isn’t! I don’t have very many friends, and none with history as complicated between us as Cat has with the others, so maybe it is normal for friends to be . . . complicated, like that.

Your narrator is unreliable and you'll have to contend with that throughout the entirety of this book, and the terrible situation her and her friends have found themselves in. At the same time, though, Cat felt almost uncomfortably familiar to me in the way she struggles to trust herself. The way she felt so clearly excluded- and, honestly, going off the book and her friends reactions, she most likely was abandoned- hit a nerve with me, as someone who has always felt like I was the "expendable" friend in any group I found myself in.

All in all, this book is awesome. 10/10 for me in all departments: atmosphere, story, flow, characters, all those boxes get a big fat checkmark from me! You can find this book in most any bookstore, order it, doesn't matter how you get it . . . just get it!

Now. You can finish the article here, and rush off to enjoy this little novel. Or. You can go further and read some spoiler heavy parts that I just HAD to talk about.

Either way: Happy Hauntings!

.

.

.

Warning! Spoiler Filled Rant Here!

Ok, so, just about all these characters are sort of fucked up. Which is perfect! Fucked up people make for amazing haunted mansion participants.

You're never going to know all of Cat's backstory, and honestly who needs to? But it's clear that she has had, and still has, struggles regarding her mental health. And that her struggles have, in some way, shape, or form, impacted her friends. And most of her friends seem to have understood that, even if they (according to what I read and inferred) really dropped the ball in terms of supporting her.

Except for Thalia. Thalia really hates her guts. Like, almost an absurd amount, that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't read and gawked at a bunch of Twitter threads about what people are willing to do over relationships. Whatever Cat did or said to Thalia regarding a rough patch in her and Faiz's relationship, Thalia absolutely won't ever forgive her for. So, already I'm sitting here, loving this drama and we're only 10 pages in, and wondering why Cat even bothered to come when she knows Thalia hates her guts. Plus, she'd already been cautioned by Faiz not to say anything that sounded critical because of how hard he had to fight to get Thalia to agree to let her come to his wedding. Girl, please, pack it up!!

We know Cat isn't really wanted here by the main couple, making it extremely awkward, and she still holds some sadness about how nobody really came to help or support her when she had to drop out of school for mental health issues. Phillip, the golden boy who has the world in the palm of his hand, slept with the bride to be long ago (is still a little bit in love with her) and the groom to be has no earthly clue. Spiritually, though, it's obvious from the jump that this man sort of wishes Phillip wasn't here. A lot of that is just material envy of seeing someone more successful and more handsome than you, but, hey. We're saving that for later. Bad combination so far, can't wait for it to get worse.

And it does! It gets so much worse. They all get drunk, vulnerable, C at and Thalia have a teeny little spat, and then the ghost bride of the manor starts fucking with them. Here is where I lose a little more connection to Cat, because she straight up says she will not be participating in this freak show any longer- because she knows Thalia has just been possessed- and is going to leave! She's going to! Faiz and Phillip start insulting each other, make throwaway statements to Cat, Lin starts instigating and begs Cat to leave . . .

And she falters. Starts feeling guilty because, oh, they were there for her when Lin wasn't. Those are her best friends-

Are they though? Those same friends that were telling you to stop being weird and mentally ill at their party because it's ruining the vibes?

Are they really?

Let's pause the drama rehashing for a moment so I can reiterate just what a fantastic damn writer Khan is, here. The descriptions of the demons- tanuki, tengu, the bride herself watching all this with amusement- is so wonderfully done. Like, the way this situation is clearly messing with everyone, and Cat? How the walls whisper, the bride, the whole house is just trolling these people who have come and disrespected this space and . . . ugh. God. Chef's kiss. Like, okay, here's an excerpt:

The yokai had followed us, a conga line of myths, repeating between themselves hello. Hello. Hello. Like infants or parrots, or maybe something fresh born and wetly glistening, amazed to have larynx and lips, the zygote of vocabulary.

Pure . . . poetry.

The story basically resolves itself how you expect it to. Someone has to die (and I'm glad that my instinct to say Cat was wrong, because it would have sucked for the "spare" friend to be the one they all turned on), but, I just have to say:

That was really fucked up, what they did to Phillip. And I don't mean the slashing part. And I understand that, you know, clearly they are all extremely traumatized by these events, and they're afraid for their lives, I get that. But . . . wow. I don't know, it was clear that Faiz was more sad about the possible consequences of murdering someone than he was about murdering someone he'd called friend for years. What really shocked me was that . . . nobody stayed with him after they'd completed the ritual and recovered Thalia.

They'd just dug into his guts and pulled it out, while he was still alive, and nobody . . . nobody thought to hold his hand? To do anything, in any way, to be there with him as he died? To look him in the eye and say "Bye Phillip" or "See you later Phillip", because clearly an afterlife of some sort exists? Was this, to slip away while his friends' backs were turned, his punishment for valuing money and what it allows him to get away with, over the priceless value of history and respect for the supernatural? Maybe. But, damn, that part hit me really bad. None of them stayed with him. Not even Cat. All to stand at the side of two people who didn't truly want her there. Maybe Phillip didn't either, I don't know . . . but it was sad. God, I love this book.