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beeminor's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Is this book perfect? No.
Are there parts I wish were drawn out and more in depth? Yes.
Were there moments when all the built up tension was broken? Yes.
Am I obsessed with this book? Absolutely!
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this one and for that I’m willing to overlook what I would typically consider flaws.
I found this book to be incredibly readable. I found myself immersed in it. It also has some beautiful usage of language too. It’s one of those ones you either love or hate.
But I think one of my favorite things about this book was the unpredictability of it. I love that Lai didn’t give us everything and didn’t spell it all out. It just left me thinking and pondering and wondering “hmm.” And I think that’s what some readers don’t like about it. In a lot of ways Lai has expertly set this story up so that the reader’s imagine can flourish and fill in the blanks.
Highly recommend if you’re into queer dystopian magical-realism creation mythology lol. It felt like having an epic dream that turns nightmarish at points. It also reminds me of a Studio Ghibli film. Like Spirited Away meets Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.
qpy's review against another edition
4.0
honestly I need to reread this but am dealing with a ton of nonrenewable interlibrary loans right now. it was brilliant, strange, bizarre, illustrious. the weirdness had me hooked. i really enjoyed it. so many smells, so many descriptions of pain.
am1na's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
5.0
taylor_hohulin's review against another edition
3.0
I've read some truly weird books in 2019, but this might be the weirdest yet. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it.
Salt Fish Girl is beautifully written and exquisitely descriptive of its just-a-bit-odd settings. It's a blend of magical realism and cyberpunk, written as literary fiction with a dream-like quality where one scene morphs into the next. It's a truly unique book, and I can tell Lai is a phenomenally talented author, but I never really reached that place of being truly sucked into this one. I was never dying to know what happened next.
Salt Fish Girl is beautifully written and exquisitely descriptive of its just-a-bit-odd settings. It's a blend of magical realism and cyberpunk, written as literary fiction with a dream-like quality where one scene morphs into the next. It's a truly unique book, and I can tell Lai is a phenomenally talented author, but I never really reached that place of being truly sucked into this one. I was never dying to know what happened next.
kxiong5's review against another edition
5.0
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- [ ] The transformation narratives + stories as tied to the immigrant narratives / the selling of heritage
- [ ] Generational narratives + the literal breakdown of time barriers & temporal narratives
- [ ] What you owe a family // where you come from [the rootedness of narrative / stakes]
- [ ] Symbols — life and death and trees
- [ ] Cyclical narratives//sharing/similarity of narratives (becoming similar/different from the people you love)
- [ ] Loving someone similar/different from you
- [ ] Myths and technology (magic and science) + the paralleling/merging/inseparability of them
- [ ] The fabulism — significance of the symbols [could go through and parse]
- [ ] Where you come from as tied to the symbols [coming from fish, etc.]
- [ ] Government control as patriarchal // parental control [houses of fathers and mothers] + “playing god”
- [ ] The transformation narratives + stories as tied to the immigrant narratives / the selling of heritage
- [ ] Generational narratives + the literal breakdown of time barriers & temporal narratives
- [ ] What you owe a family // where you come from [the rootedness of narrative / stakes]
- [ ] Symbols — life and death and trees
- [ ] Cyclical narratives//sharing/similarity of narratives (becoming similar/different from the people you love)
- [ ] Loving someone similar/different from you
- [ ] Myths and technology (magic and science) + the paralleling/merging/inseparability of them
- [ ] The fabulism — significance of the symbols [could go through and parse]
- [ ] Where you come from as tied to the symbols [coming from fish, etc.]
- [ ] Government control as patriarchal // parental control [houses of fathers and mothers] + “playing god”
keetham's review against another edition
4.0
Super strange and fascinating book. It jumps through time and doesn't really explain itself. Worth a read. Though I preferred her previous book
saltycorpse's review against another edition
3.0
I felt attached to this book from the beginning because it is based in and around where I was born and still live, and because it reaches through folklore, history and future imaginings to tell a complex story.
Yet I felt that the novel seemed rushed and scattered, and like certain pieces of the dystopian/apocalyptic future were dangled in front of me without any real, in-depth explanation. In part this allows the imagination to assist in the creation of the world, but it also raises a lot of questions and the gaps left by lack of probing and exploring the environment of the future world were felt quite deeply.
But in a sense the book itself is about not entirely-formed worlds and the role our imaginations play in filling in the blanks and giving mythologies renewed life.
Thematically, the story is a strong narrative about feminism and race, the novel strikes a balance is not too overt or heavy-handed. The messages are very firmly in place and familiar and obvious metaphor and imagery are employed, but the narrative is very clever in that it is a perfect vehicle for familiarity - Larissa Lai makes the well-worn strange and new again.
Salt Fish Girl is very much worth reading, and I found it to be an engrossing and very enjoyable novel. I particularly loved, for all that was left out or unexplained, the imagining of a future British Columbia coastal landscape. If only Lai had allowed more of that world to be open for exploration.
Yet I felt that the novel seemed rushed and scattered, and like certain pieces of the dystopian/apocalyptic future were dangled in front of me without any real, in-depth explanation. In part this allows the imagination to assist in the creation of the world, but it also raises a lot of questions and the gaps left by lack of probing and exploring the environment of the future world were felt quite deeply.
But in a sense the book itself is about not entirely-formed worlds and the role our imaginations play in filling in the blanks and giving mythologies renewed life.
Thematically, the story is a strong narrative about feminism and race, the novel strikes a balance is not too overt or heavy-handed. The messages are very firmly in place and familiar and obvious metaphor and imagery are employed, but the narrative is very clever in that it is a perfect vehicle for familiarity - Larissa Lai makes the well-worn strange and new again.
Salt Fish Girl is very much worth reading, and I found it to be an engrossing and very enjoyable novel. I particularly loved, for all that was left out or unexplained, the imagining of a future British Columbia coastal landscape. If only Lai had allowed more of that world to be open for exploration.
danbristol's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.0