Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

94 reviews

archiebb's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

Definitely a gorier book than I usually read. I liked the fairy tale feel of this read. I saw someone critique the use of the big words and academic kind of sound which could definitely be a turn off to be aware of. I didn't mind it and it kind of fit the fairy tale feel for me. 

My biggest grievance with this book involves a spoiler.

This felt like watching Superman vs Some Other Superhero (or really a common thing in Marvel movies) where everyone is seemingly invincible and there's no sense of what someone can't recover from. 
E.g., her being completely taken apart on the doc table but she is able to eat him entirely and then he still comes back and captures her and then she burns them all to ash. But then she can still salvage the bezoar that makes her plague doctor come back 400 years later. Like at that point I really didn't care.

Wouldn't re-read tbh!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cannibalism, Child abuse, and Torture

emzhay's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

This is a captivating and wonderfully grotesque fairytale, but the vocabulary distracts from the atmosphere and emotional beats. So many times I was pulled out of a scene because I had to look up a word that was used. I understand what the author was going for, but sometimes it seemed like they wanted to pick the most obscure synonym from a thesaurus. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Gore, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, and Death

Minor: Miscarriage

fox_at_the_circus's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful 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? No

5.0

I loved how poetic and flowery and even animalistic at points the writing of this book got. It really pulled me into the world and set the atmosphere of the story perfectly! And I love this world; even though the book is pretty short, it still felt like a developed setting with hints and more lore.
And I really like the two main characters and their relationship with each other, too. This is a story about two people dealing with their trauma together, healing together in a way, and supporting each other throughout it. They are not perfect or try to be, but they feel realistic and are loyal to each other. I especially loved the line, where the plague doctor calls out the "your trauma makes you stronger" bullshit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Body horror, Child abuse, Cannibalism, Death, Blood, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Grief, Kidnapping, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Confinement

eddieboy's review

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Medical trauma, Cannibalism, Body horror, Medical content, Child abuse, and Child death

meagan123's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Violence, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, and Gore

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Abandonment and Pregnancy

anderska1011's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Child death, Cannibalism, Gore, Body horror, and Blood

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Domestic abuse

valodniece's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

Daaaaaamn. I'm not sure if Khaw intended this to be a criticism of the Russian state throughout all of its incarnations (imperial, communist, modern), but it certainly is. Set in the taiga, worshiping those who hurt you and cannibalize you and the belief that they will still somehow lift you up but never do... on the surface, sure, it is a dark and cannibalistic Little Mermaid retelling, told through the looking glass inspired by Lord of the Flies, but it really reads as more than that. Excellent work by Cassandra Khaw, and I will definitely be reading more of their work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Child abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Body horror, Cannibalism, Confinement, Violence, and Child death

Moderate: Bullying, Kidnapping, and Domestic abuse

magnetarmadda's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Medical trauma, Violence, Child death, Pregnancy, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Gore

This is amazing and beautifully written, but do be careful going in: there is so much gore, a truly unbelievable amount in 106 pages, and if that’s not for you, I would not recommend this book

emk5's review against another edition

dark hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

A really quick read, very bloody, strong

happy

ending. This is queer as in (redacted) 

This author does use a lot of really specific vocabulary, which was mildly distracting at first (in the initial 50 pages, about a third of the book, I looked up: parturition, bauta, koan, gelding, abattoir, bier, limns, unctuous, bathyal, repast). Honestly most you could use context clues or ignore, but I had literally never seen some of these before so obviously I wanted to look them up. 

I would love to read a sequel! I will be checking out other things Khaw has written! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Blood, and Gore

gaeliloveweiss's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Torture, Child death, Physical abuse, Blood, Cannibalism, and Grief