gabberjaws's reviews
540 reviews

Having only read Kingfisher's horror novels before, I was wary about picking this up because I thought it wouldn't work for me. Boy, was I wrong.

Kingfisher's fantasy writing has all the charm and heart of her horror novels, and was such a treat to read. This is the kind of book you pick up when you still want to read fantasy, but are tired of the dark, bleak, gruesome worlds. This isn't to say that Paladin's Grace is without its fair share of bloodshed, murder, and general Bad Stuff - but Kingfisher's writing gives you the sense that there's always hope.

Fantasy, but chill. 

 The more I think about this, the madder I get.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth follows Cat who, along with a small group of "friends" travels to an old abandoned, supposedly haunted mansion in Japan. Everyone in the group considers themselves to be ghost-chasers - you know, the kinds of people who purposefully visit haunted sites in hopes of seeing something supernatural. Also the bride has wanted to get married in a haunted house since she was 10. As one does.

As you can imagine, shit hits the fan pretty fast. (I mean, what did you expect, getting married in a haunted mansion, ya know?) But as delicious as this set up may seem, this book doesn't really do anything with it.

One of this book's biggest letdowns was Khaw's purple prose-y writing. Do not get me wrong, I can appreciate purple prose when used right - and at the very beginning of the novel, it did seem like it WOULD be used right. In the correct moments, Khaw's flowery narration was beautiful and helped dress the setting really well. But this is a horror novella. You can't be describing someone's death and comparing it to constellations. Or maybe you can, but you should really be reigning yourself in, because if every other sentence in your novella is as ornate and melodramatic then you are ruining your tension and urgency. Khaw did not reign themselves in.

It's a shame. This book went down really easy - I never at any point felt like I was going to DNF, or like it was a chore to read. But it was so disappointing . There were... threads. Little bits of info that could have been used to craft a really meaty, tense, thoughtful horror short about messy people making messy decisions and having to suffer the consequences of it. But ultimately the paranormal aspect went absolutely nowhere, there was a character just annoyingly quipping through most of the climax and ADDING to the lack of urgency/suspense, and we were left with a group of wholly unlikeable, flat, cliched characters who didn't care about each other, who the heroine didn't seem to care about in a way that felt tangible to us, and who made some truly idiotic decisions for no fucking reason we could determine.

The story I was imagining in my head when I read the "Suenomatsuyama nami mo koenamu line was 10000% better than the one I was given. Sad. 

What I loved most about this book was that Lahiri's writing is simple, but somehow rich and poetic at the same time. She has a knack for setting events up gently, and making the follow through feel so impactful and emotional, even though her narration is very simple and straightforward.

I felt privileged to follow along with the Gangulis; to see how they learned and grew and created traditions all their own, to see how the learned to love, accept, respect and understand one another despite their very different individual journeys. The story wavered a little towards the very end, with

Moushumi's affair skewing the pacing a tad

but overall, this was a great read.

The title of this book is a little misleading. This isn't a book about embodying your namesake, or about the power of names. Instead it's a beautiful, emotional documentation of one family's journey in learning what home means to them, and in finding themselves. It's a book about one's relationship with family and culture, the struggles of being known, and of knowing yourself. I'm so glad I read this. 


CONTENT WARNINGS:

Death (chapter 1),  Transphobia (a single instance of a certain outdated term for transgender people, now considered a slur, Chapter 5), Death of a parent (chapter 7), Deadnaming (chapter 9), Infidelity (chapter 10), Adult/Minor relationship (chapter 10)

 This veered off into Cheese Town quite a few times, and I'd have liked for the MCs to actually work through the personal issues that caused a lot of their conflicts. But overall this was a cute, fun and quick read.

If you're not too bothered by too much cheesiness in your romance novels, then give this a go. 

 I'm actually so upset that this wasn't on my radar sooner. This was originally released in 2012. 2012!!!!!!! Why aren't more people talking about this?!?!?

If you've read the original Grimm Brother's tale, all the plot twists in this book won't come as a massive shock to you - but don't let that stop you from picking it up. This retelling is so beautifully crafted, so well told, and full of real-world truths. It feels like an original tale, and really holds its own. There's so much to love about this book, but I think my favorite things about it were Alyrra's character, and her relationship with Falala and her new found family. The world was so easy to get lost into, too.

GAH. I need more people to talk about this book. Please read it.