Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

83 reviews

readingmushrooms's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Mental illness, Excrement, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity

vivaciousvaleska's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

samanthalw96's review against another edition

tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Alcohol

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Infidelity and Vomit

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

sjxco's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The prose is beautiful, but the story overall didn’t quite unsettle me as much as I thought it would. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, and Blood

spadedigsbutts's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

A book that was fun to read for the visual language and descriptions, but was much weaker elsewhere. 

The main conflict is essentially a dysfunctional friend group's issues being exacerbated by a ghost haunting when they were already at the breaking point. Like in most horror media, the cast is pretty unlikable and are mainly defined by their relations to each other, without much nuance independently. This is a normal convention for this scenario in the horror genre, but I wish characters had more arcs or at least more detailed interpersonal relations than "x slept with x once" as the few details we do get just don't have much payoff in the book.
Most characters feel like they start and end the same, which may partially be the point considering it's a super toxic friend group, but it does leave you up in the air when it just comes to an end without much of a huge conclusion. If you read it hoping for some sort of character resolutions, you won't get it.

If you came for a cool japanese influenced haunted house story where interpersonal relationships come to a tragic head, you unfortunately really don't get that. I wish we'd had more time to develop things in the book as while the writing style is lush and detailed, the actual set elements and characters are flimsy. A good read for a bus ride or waiting at a doctor's office, but not much out. I doubt I'll ever reread it.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Confinement and Misogyny

readsbymoonlight's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Shitty friends who all hate each other act like idiots in a haunted mansion. I enjoyed the writing style, setting, and Japanese folklore but that’s about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Mental illness and Suicidal thoughts

davinmotion's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

This is the first book I’ve read by this author and if it’s a good example of her I think I’ll avoid reading another. It’s barely coherent; I frequently lost track of what was happening and every time I tried to like a character they would somehow become worse than before. Why the author bothered mentioning the main character knew Japanese and then refrained from explaining anything alludes me. I can’t remember if she even said what a yokai was besides peppering the word on almost every page near the end. This book would have at least had style if the incoherentness was intentional in the lead up to the desperation of a climax, but it starts just as bad as it ends. This would have been better if it was shorter, more polished/tighter, and part of a collection of other short stories. There’s a fun idea in here but I personally think this was not finished to its full potential. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

What the absolute fuck of an ending. I think this is worse than saying, “it was a dream,” because it was not only less satisfying but the attempt at giving the characters a little more depth felt like a Hail Mary to make us feel for Phillip, when I think it’s obvious he’s the only one we can feel for since he died in such a brutal and unnecessary way. Skin is an organ you dipshits, just a small sliver of that with your other bullshit ingredients and this could be over! Faiz was all gung-ho about cutting out his heart when he could have cut off his pinky finger and solved x3 offerings at once. No death. Done. I won’t even start with that last offering. I can’t imagine Talia and Faiz staying together after this though. Who would want to stay with someone that murdered their friend to save you?

the_books_music_life's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.75

The premise sounded so good, like a really scary Japanese horror story, but for me, it missed the mark entirely. This book is so short and they is a lot of background with the characters that is important to the story itself, but is glossed over due to how short the book is.

I was confused a lot of the time about many, many different things. I disliked every single character, none had any redeeming qualities.

The whole 'horror/ghost story' aspect of the book wasn't even the main focus. That's right, a horror book where the actual ghost story/horror wasn't the focus. It made no sense!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Violence, Excrement, and Classism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Grief

booitsnathalie's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship