Nothing but Blackened Teeth

Submitted by VibrantViolet t3_ygbl6m in books

Has anyone else read it? I got it thinking it would be a fun, spooky book for Halloween season. It was so bad. I hate being so critical, but it was honestly terrible.

The characters were not relatable or likable at all. A bunch of whiny, entitled 20-something’s who appear to all hate each other even though they’re gathered for a wedding in an expensive old mansion in Japan.

The author tried too hard to use “big words” and my guess is she had the thesaurus open on one browser and her word processor on the other. I understand needing different words as descriptors, but using big words for the sake of using big words annoys me.

The Japanese folklore was cool, but that’s about it. I rated it 1 turd in my book review journal. Anyone else read it and feel the same way?

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Ikariiprince t1_iu8v78q wrote

I’m so sad that such a poor book has such a cool cover

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DarkFluids777 t1_iu7vwmh wrote

No, but unfortunately you got me interested in it. I've been living in Jp for a time and know that blackened teeth were some aesthetic ideal in past times.

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Spare-Cauliflower-92 t1_iu82wmh wrote

I totally agree! With annoying/unlikable characters this is usually not too much of an issue for me because good characters don't have to be good people. That said, they don't develop in the course of the story or generate any sympathy and there seems to be no reason for them to hang out at all so it is quite annoying that most of the book is about them and the horror ends up as the sideshow rather than the main event. Like you though, the main issue I had with the book is with the writing - it's so stilted because the author has obviously tried to use it as an opportunity to show off her vocabulary instead of drive the plot and half of the metaphors just make no sense

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VibrantViolet OP t1_iu9djwj wrote

I don’t get the characters. I know they don’t have to be likable, but why are they at a destination wedding together if they all seem to hate each other? It would have made more sense if they were all great friends at the start, and then as the book progressed they start to hate each other due to what should have been, well, horror.

They should have turned on each other when shit really hit the fan, in my opinion. I wouldn’t go to a destination wedding with people I’m only acquainted with slightly, much less people I dislike. It just doesn’t make sense.

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Spare-Cauliflower-92 t1_iuae8cf wrote

Oh yeah, absolutely - why were they invited, why did they go, and why wasn't anyone else there who the couple might actually like and be friends with? Just a bizarre set-up, the actual horror events had absolutely no impact on their dynamics so what was the point? My least favourite read this year

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Seminolehighlander t1_iu8k1ql wrote

This book was so poorly written. I could not believe how bad it was.

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Tea_4_thee t1_iub2hnl wrote

Same, the whole time I was reading it all I could think was “how the fuck did this get published”

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FoxTofu t1_iu9ds73 wrote

I hated it. The characters just didn't make any sense. Why are these five people who hate each other or barely know each other getting together for a bizarre wedding in an abandoned house in another country? The dialogue doesn't make any sense when you remove the POV character's internal monologue. How did they carry all their stuff - wedding clothing, random human-sacrifice themed jade statues, enough food for a feast and equipment to cook it - to this house in the middle of nowhere? And every two pages there's another reminder that one of the guys is very tall and handsome and strong and the other one is not. I actually love books with dislikable characters, but these ones weren't fun to dislike. They were just nonsensical.

But mostly what bothered me was the way the haunting is so closely tied with the architecture of the house, but the descriptions don't really make much sense for Heian-period Japanese architecture. The premise of the book is that there are years and years of dead women "buried in the walls," but buildings of that time tend to feature thick wooden framing posts and walls of either thin earthen plaster or light, movable fusuma. The walls aren't thick enough to "bury" one dead woman in, let alone centuries of them. And as the character are running through the house they are shocked when doors appear where no doors were before, but again, it would be more common for two or three walls of most rooms to be fusuma panels that are meant to act as doors and be moved or removed as needed. There are a lot of buildings from this period still around here in Japan and I've visited enough of them that I had an image of what the house should look like, but for me none of that matched with the descriptions of what was happening in the novella.

At least it is a novella, though - nice and short. If it were a longer book I probably would have abandoned it, but this was short enough that I could just power through it quickly, albeit with frequent pauses to roll my eyes.

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SeattlePurikura t1_iuaw8ed wrote

Great point about the walls and fusuma panels. I didn't even think about that because I couldn't get past the strange behavior of the five people making the effort to stay in a rural house in Japan. These are the kind of jerkoffs who would watch Lost in Translation and spend all their time in Tokyo at the flashy, Instagram-worthy sites.
It's been awhile, but I recall visiting this village. Love Japanese architecture.

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VibrantViolet OP t1_iua1yw4 wrote

I only finished it because it was short, and I kept saying, “It HAS to get better”. 🫠

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SeattlePurikura t1_iu7wud9 wrote

I've enjoyed some of the author's other works, so I was disappointed in this one. Now the characters WERE supposed to be unlikeable, but they didn't have a single redeeming feature amongst them. That takes away from the horror element if I don't give a flip what happens to them; I actually was rooting for the monster.

I lived in Japan for a few years and have always been interested in the folklore & monster myths, so in theory I'm the target audience. DNR, saving grace was that it was a library book so I didn't pay for it.

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VibrantViolet OP t1_iu9e39l wrote

That’s my thing, too, I was hoping they’d all end up dead, lol. They were so cringy and entitled. I would have at least like to have been sad about a character death, but nah. Also, the end was so rushed. I’m the mother of a son, and if that happened to my kid, I would have been on a warpath unlike the deceased character’s mom. She was basically like, “Oh well,” and moved on.

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ProbablySPTucker t1_iu9yxhj wrote

>I lived in Japan for a few years and have always been interested in the folklore & monster myths, so in theory I'm the target audience. DNR, saving grace was that it was a library book so I didn't pay for it.

If it helps, there's tons of better stories out there about youkai and Japanese folklore. If you haven't read Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan, it's basically the book on that stuff and an incredible read.

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Hainting t1_iu9c16o wrote

I tried listening to it instead of reading it, considering thats the easiest way for me to get into a book when I'm in a non reading rut. It was seriously miserable, they did a good job on narrating but I had to quit, I like to torture myself to finish books but I just couldn't with this one.

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ArtofRoxC t1_iua0ht0 wrote

Yes I did last year around halloween and immediately regretted it. Only good thing is it’s short.

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kitkatsacon t1_iuacckc wrote

Ooooohh see I had this in my hands at B&N the other day but something made me put it back. Usually I have great luck blindly buying books so maybe my intuition was spot on 😂

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LotusLady13 t1_iubpn9v wrote

I finished it recently and i agree with everything you just said.

Good grief.

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kbednarc t1_iu8xaxo wrote

I loved it. I'd compare it to an indie horror game mixed with like a B horror movie and doesn't really adhere to typical expectations. I don't think it was poorly written. I think the author drew on her video game writing background, which shows through more than her other books.

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VibrantViolet OP t1_iu9d1bo wrote

I get that, I’m also a gamer, but the book was just not my cup of tea I guess.

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kbednarc t1_iu9menc wrote

That's fine too! Not every book by an author is going to hit home. I picked up Breakable Things by her. Interested to see how it'll be different than Blackened and A Song for Quiet.

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After-City6242 t1_iuarpi4 wrote

"compare it to an indie horror game"

Elaborate way of saying "terribly written" lol

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Avahna t1_iub0jpb wrote

I am a person that does not care if characters are likable or relatable; they just have to be good (as in written well.) These characters didn't fulfill my requirement, so that is where my dislike for them appeared. I, personally, hated the repetition of Cat describing the characters. "Philip, the perfect one, the valedictorian, the star, etc." I believe this description is said about three times.

Ma'am, this book is only about 120 pages long and could be shorter without the constant reminders. This was said two pages ago. I didn't forget.

I agree that the ending was rushed. I thought something was up with it when it was $5 at B&N. I think if this was a video game, I may have liked it. I imagined it as a game similar to Until Dawn or The Quarry, and that helped me get through it along with the fact that it is so short.

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trishyco t1_iuc77u2 wrote

It’s really dark and disturbing but I kind of dug it. I had an advanced copy so I hadn’t heard anything about it or expected much, to be honest.

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SadderBadderCooler33 t1_iuj5mev wrote

Yes I felt the exact same!! I was so hype to read it given the good reviews and cover but the actual story was just...lame. like none of thr dialogue felt real world, just annoying and catty especially with how the book starts. Also I just hated the way she made the "twist" so obvious like...

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