5.55k reviews for:

Chlorine

Jade Song

3.82 AVERAGE

emotional sad slow-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
dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was a brutal read, and yet I really wanna know what the author was thinking when she reached down somewhere inside herself & plucked this story out. Jade Song, I have a lil baby crush on you.

‘Why’d you rescue me?’…
‘You know why,’ she whispered.
I scoffed, throwing my head back, bouncing against the headrest, basking in her response — yes. I did know why.
She had chosen rescue, and wasn’t the act of choosing enough?“
Loveable characters: No

Interesting premise but every character is so unlikable and uninteresting
adventurous challenging dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What a surreal, strange, and vicious portrayal of the perils and horrors of girlhood. Chlorine is about a girl that wants to become a mermaid, to transcend humanity, yes. But it’s also about all the aches and pains and awful, simple, everyday trauma of coming of age as a girl. 

A lot of the relationships here are vividly realistic, and the prose is quite gorgeous in places. This was the perfect length as well. A really impressive debut from Jade Song. 
dark mysterious 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
dark reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
dark reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’m honestly not really sure what to make of this one. I went into it not knowing anything about it. It was weird, abstract and gritty, which meant it was one of those books that didn’t really have a story arc and was more of a social commentary type thing. It was well written, but it was weird, and I read it very quickly. I’m honestly just not sure how to feel about it

it felt very heavy handed, not just in the prose, but in its handling of the topics it was trying to address as well. the writing style felt particularly ineffective to me. maybe if the writing style had evolved as the novel progressed it would have been more interesting? 
after a while though, it just felt overdone and kind of annoying to read. the general purple prose-ness felt especially obvious during cathy’s letters as well.
challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes