Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - The Salt Grows Heavy

Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

73 reviews

keen's review against another edition

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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

A couple times, Khaw's books have floated across my radar. I always feel like I'd like them, based on cover vibes, but then I'd read the blurbs and they all feel too horror-y and I get scared off. (I'm a huge scaredy-cat. Ask me about how many nights I couldn’t sleep after watching The Descent in high school...) Apparently, I was finally feeling big and brave, and decided to give this one a go.

In an apocalyptic(ish) world, a siren-like creature leaves the land she'd been bound to for years, after her daughters devoured the kingdom. As she sets out on a journey, leaving that destroyed place behind her forever, she meets a mysterious plague doctor. Their travels bring them to a dark, wintry forest village populated by children controlled by three Frankenstein-like "surgeons" who have set themselves up as gods. Together, they must use the darker parts of themselves to survive the encounter(s) there.

This is like, take horror and make it poetry. Or take poetry and make it horror. It has all the hallmarks of body horror - gore and bones and medical content (Frankenstein-style, as I mentioned in the blurb) and viscera and blood and cannibalism (eating others flesh at the very least). But it's communicated with writing that is lulling, mesmerizing. It's the lyrical academic exactness in the word choices, precise sentences and descriptions, everything purposeful, with esoteric levels of vocabulary, that creates a language-style reminiscent of This Is How You Lose the Time War. Phenomenal.

Under that phenomenal writing, the story itself is so horrible you can’t relax. But you also cannot look away. I'm not always into the pieced-together-sinister-science/medicine type of horror, but I did enjoy the conglomeration of the darker sides of all mermaid/selkie/siren mythology. And the creativity of bringing that together with plague doctor imagery and ambiance ended up working for me. And there was a dark, but creepily endearing, love story woven in that I wasn't sure about to start, but ended up finding quite compelling, in an unearthly sort of way.

There was a plot, but I thought that was the weakest part. This was mostly writing and vibes. And what a vibe! It was similar to Pan's Labyrinth (which I was super into, in high school), and sort of like the Jack and Jill storyline of McGuire's Wayward Children series (though considerably less whimsical, more disturbing and ominous).

That bonus story at the end, a gruesome re-vision and reclaiming of The Little Mermaid, looking at the sorrow within the fairy tale that is well-known, examining what, as with all fairy tales, is always conveniently left out. I was here for that.

One of the blurbs for this novella says reading Khaw is like “watching a nightmare ballet.” And I honestly can’t think of a better description. It’s gorgeous and terrifying. It's grotesque. In the best way. If that's what you're looking for, then give this short read a go.

“Myths are full of lies. This is not one of them. […] Names have so much power.”

“It is always interesting to see how often women are described as ravenous when it is the men who, without exception, tale without thought of compensation.

“Meat may be mulch, when left for long enough.”

“No myth can remain terrifying when you;ve seen it broken and beaten, rendered as toothless as an old crone.”

“But palatability is prized over accuracy. It is easier to market a nymph than a viperfish.”

“Man mistakes his own experiences as the canvas on which all truths are drawn. He is rarely correct in this respect.”

“That I want to die here, mired in the goal. That I want to race them to Death's carriage, exceeding their pace but only just, never going so far as to be unable to turn and corset their fingers in mine. That eternity is a worthless bauble without their conversation. That I would follow them into the demise of the universe where every heaven and hell is shuttered, and there is nothing of us but motings of wan light, and there is no bodily apparatus with which to express affection, no recourse save to glow weakly in worship until at last, such things are swallowed too by the dark. That I would love them even then. As long as a moiety of conscious thought persists, I will love them. I will love them to the death of days.” (damn what a sentiment!)

“How men fear things that can’t be quieted.”

“We are made of stardust. Or maybe, of primordial elements such as the ocean and the dark and the killing flame and love. Perhaps, my kind are conduits, our shape defined not by parentage but the things to which we'd yoked our beliefs. Perhaps, we are as any myths are: protean, impossible, exactly what we need to be.”

“Wordless, they unfold their arms, stretching them out to me. There is no hesitation. I plunge into their arms. And it is enough, it is more than enough.”

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brynnfai's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

3.0

I liked the ended ending a lot and it was a very fresh book with beautiful prose though addmitedly a bit hard to follow at times. I had to read it out loud to fully understand what I was reading a lot of the time.

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

This was so unique from all my other reads lately, and so much was packed in a lil dark fairy tale novella, woweeee! This follows a serial killer mermaid (but like, idk give her a break okay) and a nonbinary plague doctor in an apocalyptic wasteland.

The prose was lyrical, lush, dreamy, eerie, visceral. I don't really know how to write a review that does this novella justice, but I had a great time. The commentary on what it means to be human, connection, love, and more in a society where those sentiments, concepts, or practices are almost extinct?

I had to look up a lot of words because again, the prose is incredibly flowery and I'm just a mere peasant, but oh wow, the vibes were immaculate!!!!

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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

I'm gonna take the opinion that is partly a retelling of the little mermaid and I'm obsessed with the darkness and gore of this. Especially the last part. I thought the epilogue was also very sweet

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jmtleaf's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Gorgeous, evocative and absolutely gore soaked. The terror and intimacy of consuming the other. Deep world building that trusts the audience.

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kstrammel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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pacifickat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What did I just read?? Also, it was wonderful.

"I recall once, there was an astronomer in my husband's court, who extolled the poetry of the universe, how numinous we were despite the mucus and the blood we shed. 'Stardust,' he'd said, inebriated with his own doctrine. 'We are made of stardust.' Or maybe of primordial elements, such as the ocean, and the dark, and the killing flame, and love."

For one, this is a story about stories.

The narrative takes the shape of a dark mashup of

The Little Mermaid, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies, with a sprinkling of biblical types and symbols

. It took me a minute to get my bearings at the beginning. (Wow, this is gorgeous poetic writing. Huh, that's weird. It sounds like her children are

casually snacking on a human corpse

. Oh no wait, they are. Yikes. What is this story?)

It is also a commentary on how the stories humans tell themselves shape their beliefs and behaviors, sometimes leading to their own suffering and ruin, even as those same stories are defended as sacrosanct. Sometimes horrors in this upside-down world mask themselves in holiness. The true enemies, the charlatans wielding power, want people to believe that evil is found elsewhere, and to fear the outsider rather than questioning the darkness in their own midst, in their own systems of belief.

"Man mistakes his own experiences as the canvas on which all truths are drawn. He is rarely correct in his respect."

"There is a reason The Hunt is central to so many narratives. For all that humanity professes to delighting in its own sophistication, it longs for simplicity, for when the world can be deboned into binaries. Darkness and light. Death and life. Hunter and hunted."

This is also most definitely a horror story.

While the prose is a mesmerizing, undulating, hauntingly beautiful (unless big words bother you) thing, the plot beneath is feral and eviscerating.

People get eaten, tongues cut out, empires burn, characters are vivisected, entrails are spilled.

There is no lack of truly grotesque detail. This is an apocalyptically dark canvas on which to paint a fairy tale.

This is also a haunting love story.

"I wonder sometimes if this consciousness is the same, if I am the same. Or, if I am a mere fabrication strung together by circumstances."
"There is nothing wrong with being a monster."
"You always know the right things to say."

The story reminds me more than a bit of This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: the sumptuous use of language, the poetic cadence of the narrative, the distinct natures and voices of the main characters, and

their uncanny romance which slowly springs from time spent wandering a dangerous world together, sharing pieces of themselves along the way. Their love, once realized, crescendos into an unrelenting force in a dark and dangerous world, defying death, time, and logic.

"[...] Eternity is a worthless bauble without their conversation. [...] I will love them to the death of days."

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the telling of this tale. As one Barnes & Noble reviewer put it, "For someone who simply loves words, this novella was practically a playground [...]."

However, the weirdness of the plot and sheer quantity of strange vocabulary and odd phrasing employed throughout made me wonder if the author may have been aided by AI in their writing process. I saw online that she has utilized AI in the past for visual character studies, but it made me wonder if she also used it to create this written work. It is a weird world we live in where this might even be a question a reader would think to ask -- but there it is, sitting in the back of my mind even as I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

In the absence of further evidence, I am going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and offer up 5 stars. This kind of story is totally my jam.

Content Warnings

tenthousandactualbees's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

jlchabotte's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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