Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

118 reviews

e_l_k's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

I'd seen this book on plenty of best-of horror lists, but I'll be the first to admit that the premise alone didn't thrill me.
That doubt was dashed from my mind from the first page onwards.
Khaw has a way with descriptive prose that my English teachers would have envied, coveted, before gagging at how vivid the depictions of viscera and horrible violence are. This is NOT a book for the faint of heart or stomach. But it is a spellbinding tale of rediscovery, self-acceptance, and love in the face of pure, selfish evil. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Medical content, Grief, Pregnancy, Slavery, Gore, Vomit, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Cannibalism, Violence, Torture, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Blood, Child abuse, Dysphoria, and Murder

There is a short story at the very end of the book that presents the events directly precluding the main narrative.

pacifickat's review against another edition

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.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Murder, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Cannibalism, Gore, and Slavery

Moderate: Xenophobia, Vomit, and Animal death

religious radicalization

, power and control

woodsybookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The Salt Grows Heavy is not your childhood little mermaid story. Opening with a kingdom on fire and a brood of baby mermaids tearing into the last remaining citizens, we meet our main characters - the Mermaid and the Plague Doctor.

Leaving behind a kingdom in ruin, the two set out together to find a new home - and maybe a new kingdom to throw into chaos. But like anyone who's played a videogame, these two get distracted by a side mission and find themselves in an encampment of feral children run by three otherworldly surgeons. 

I can see why there are so many mixed reviews about this book now. It is very atmospheric...abstract? Philosophical? It's all vibes, let's say that, but with every 10 dollar word in the thesaurus being used to fill its pages. It's easy to get lost in the story which is written like a stream of consciousness diary from the mermaid's perspective, but there were some surprisingly tender moments sprinkled throughout that chaos. 

The ending and the epilogue (which is actually a prologue) were beautifully written and I honestly fell in love with the Plague Doctor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cannibalism, Gore, Body horror, Child death, Murder, Torture, Death, and Child abuse

tenthousandactualbees's review against another edition

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Torture, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Physical abuse, Gore, Death, Body horror, Miscarriage, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

jlchabotte's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Cannibalism

thesupermassive's review against another edition

dark emotional fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Torture, and Self harm

noah_loves_you's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Torture, and Self harm

cozyscones's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Violence, Gore, Child death, Cannibalism, and Murder

vbarsi's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Really cool premise but didn’t read as easily as I would have hoped. I’m a pretty avid reader, but I found myself struggling due to needing to stop every few sentences to look up obscure vocabulary. It distracts from the story when you need to pause so often. Some cool themes about women’s rage and the things that men take from women, their entitlement to their bodies etc. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, and Child death

unexpected love story at the end! Didn’t imagine that would occur for a book filled with gore, despair, and violence

auudrey's review against another edition

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, and Torture