After loving Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, I clicked through the library audiobook catalogue for a solid twenty minutes trying to find anything that could hold a candle to MUSHROOM PEOPLE. Happily, Nothing But Blackened Teeth was available and took me on a whole new adventure.

The strain of new adulthood can tear any friend group apart. The friends of Nothing But Blackened Teeth have taken aggravated damage. After a stint in a mental institution, Cat feels ready to have fun with her clique again. Her longtime-bestie-once-ex-boyfriend Faiz is marrying the woman of his dreams, Talia, but Talia may not share that dream. Talia’s jealous because she thinks Cat has lingering romantic feelings for Faiz, which is ironic because Cat actually has a little bisexual crush on her. Adding sides to this love polygon are the jokester Lin (who may have feelings for Cat) and golden boy Philip (whose gaze lingers too long on Talia). In typical rich boy fashion, Phillip has thrown money at the situation. In a gesture of ostentatious wealth, he’s masterminded an all expenses paid wedding for Faiza and Talia, including first class plane tickets to a Heian Period mansion in rural Japan. The group used to love going ghost-hunting in their Malaysian hometown, and the mansion is haunted, so that’s not too intense of a gift, right?

WHEW, I feel like the telenovela narrator after speed-running a season recap. The queer drama is on HIGH in this novella. In fact, the friends are often too wrapped up in their own drama to notice the manor is haunted. The ghost is visibly disappointed. She worked hard on her haunting techniques, okay! I chuckled, though of course the chuckling turned to gasps of shock by the end. Though Cat and the others are delightfully genre-savvy, knowing the genre isn’t enough to avoid a grisly fate. Also doesn’t help that the ghost bride waits until they’re super duper drunk to attack, haha.

Khaw hides some wonderful broodings under the layers of hijinks. The horror genre’s historical racism, homophobia, and ableism simmer. Khaw’s main preoccupation seems to be what does one do when the apologies and atonement aren’t enough—what happens to the leftover rage? Experiencing the bride and her haunted house is not a recommended route for growth, but it does the job. Seeing the characters move on was an incredibly satisfying, well-earned ending.

What keeps Nothing But Blackened Teeth from 5 stars is the sheer weight of similes. Bizarre thing to say, I know. I love poetic language usually. However, especially in the beginning when the new reader’s trying to get their bearings, every other sentence was an extended simile. It was too much. While the similes are beautiful, some darlings need to be killed for the sake of grounding the reader in the world as it is. Not what it’s like.

Overall though: little horror novella, my beloved. Nothing But Blackened Teeth is worth biting into.