Number 27 - Nothing But Blackened Teeth - Cassandra Khaw

 

I picked this up because of that gorgeous cover, and word of mouth on social media.  That plus quotes on the back from several of the brightest stars in modern horror which claim it to be the absolute cat's whiskers and best new thing since Hill House...

I went in therefore with expectations set at very high...

That might have been a mistake. Although I can see the quality of the writing and it did move me in the final chapters, I was a little underwhelmed.  I don't think it completely lives up to hype. 

It tells the story of a group of friends who pitch up at a haunted mansion in the depths of rural China for the marriage of a pair of them.  The bride has always wanted to get married in a haunted house (as you do) and this place certainly fits the bill.

A lot of time is spent detailing the past love lives and interactions between the friends. The bride is so opposed to the narrator, it's hard to believe that she would have agreed to allow her to come along since there are so few in the group.  A wedding party of 20 or 30, maybe, but only 6? It's not like she's a plus one to a fully welcome guest. In fact, for a close knit bunch of friends willing to travel to a remote (500 miles from the nearest hospital we're told at one point) part of China for a wedding, there seem to be a lot of underlying resentments. That might be the ghosts dragging their worst feelings out though. 

The atmosphere is built nicely. the legend of the house is suitably nasty and the style of writing is mostly very good. Despite the short length of the book (a shade over 100 pages) this is a slow burn until the terror kicks in.

There's some meta style commentary going on too.  "This is the part of the story where this happens" sort of dialogue.  That was a weak point in the writing for me I will admit. If it was meant as comic relief, it wasn't.  It it was meant to heighten tension, it lessened it.  IMHO.

I think I probably need to set aside a couple of hours uninterrupted reading to properly appreciate this.  Over the last few days I've only managed to catch a few pages here and there, which isn't ideal for this style of horror.

Overall, it's mostly fairly well written and atmospheric, but I wasn't 100% won over, and I'm not sure why. There are some stylistic tricks she overuses which become very noticeable and dragged me out of the story. That's one reason. But it wasn't so much that it's unforgivable. 

One for a reread... This is the sort of book I usually love.  I'm disappointed I didn't like it more.