Reviewed by Christy
A group of twenty somethings gathers at an abandoned mansion, purportedly haunted. They're there to celebrate the wedding of two of their friends but tensions between the entire group threaten to spoil the weekend. That is, if the ghosts don't get to them first.
The legend goes that many years ago, a bride was abandoned by her groom and in her grief, asked to be buried alive beneath the house. As the years passed, she got lonely. Each year thereafter, a new girl was buried with her to keep her company. The present day bride is thrilled at the idea of having a make shift wedding in such a spooky location. Everyone else is just kind of along for the ride.
I listened to this as an audio book from READS. The narrator, Suehyla El-Attar, does a fantastic job of bringing Khaw's prose to life. Though a little too flowery here and there, overall I really liked Khaw's vivid writing style. The audio book is short, under three hours, and I'll admit that was a draw for me. Though I favor too short stories over too long ones, I do think this particular book could've benefitted from some filling out. I felt as though I was plopped down in the middle of the story and had to play catch up. The characters clearly had rich histories with one another but we as readers weren't given much time to sit with any of it. Most of them didn't even seem to like each other all that much – to the point where they came across as nasty and unlikeable. Khaw touches on backstories briefly, but I may have felt more sympathy if the book had explored their motivations more.
Nothing But Blackened Teeth did have some genuinely unsettling imagery, and I do think Khaw is a talented writer. However, I was left a little underwhelmed by this particular work.
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