Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

80 reviews

le_lobey's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

A beautiful nightmare. I found Khaw’s word choice a lot less distracting in this than in Nothing But Blackened Teeth. The rich descriptions built towards the Mermaid’s character and the overall project of juxtaposing the brutality of the story and beauty of the language.

I don’t think I’ve encountered this many new words in a while!

Bathyal --  a scientific term for the preabyssal zone of the sea, but in this context it was really like chthonic, but ocean
Sapidity -- having a good or pleasant taste
Exuviate -- to shed or molt, as a skin
Inimicality -- being hostile or unfriendly
Intaglioed -- artfully engraved
Vellicating -- touching softly to induce chills or tickling
Tunica -- organ mucus sheath
Paillette -- dangling shiny on clothing

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Domestic abuse, Gore, and Medical trauma

galliexyc's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma and Child abuse

Moderate: Gore

jayjm94's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

It certainly has its moments and clearly the author is talented. However, I’ve read many many challenging books in my day, ranging from classics to modern books that are heavily stylized or just extremely long and this book still takes the cake for most difficult to follow as far as just visualizing what is literally happening moment by moment. At times it’s beautifully and painfully written, however editing would have been amazing. Any amount of subtlety would’ve been amazing. Any amount of commitment to the reader understanding exactly what’s unfolding before them would’ve been amazing. I understood the plot and sequence events, but got very frequently bogged down by metaphor after flowery metaphor. It’s not an accessible read. I enjoyed the take on mermaids for sure, but the ending was not earned in the slightest. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Cannibalism, Death, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Torture

Moderate: Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Misogyny

anna__b's review against another edition

4.0

I don't really know what to make of this weird, gory little novella. The writing was definitely very beautiful and poetic (and nasty!), but there were also many times where I was wishing the author would just put down the thesaurus, and it maybe could've used one more round of editing to finish polishing up the prose. I think the goal of the story was to take readers on a brief and intriguing trip through this very dark and spooky and fairytale-esque world, and I definitely got that, but for me if this had even been a little longer it would've been so much better. I have felt like most of the novellas I've tried are missing something, so maybe I should just accept it as a me problem and stop reading novellas, but there was a lot of untapped potential here! More specifically, I would've loved to see more of how the relationship between the mermaid and the doctor came to be and understand more about their dynamic - the bonus story (?) after the acknowledgements did touch on this a little but it’s not clear to me why this wasn’t included as part of the main narrative, I think starting the story off with those scenes would’ve been a real improvement. I also would've liked to see a little more of this world before they arrived at the saints' village, although that may be more due to my own curiosity about the setting rather than feeling like the story really NEEDS it. 

So I guess the TLDR is I was intrigued, entertained, and sort of grossed out, but the prose was slightly overwrought and it needed at least a little more length and development to get me truly invested. I'd definitely like to try something else from this author though! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Blood, Death, Gore, Murder, Violence, Cannibalism, Child death, and Medical trauma

pullgodem's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Torture, Blood, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Animal death, Grief, Medical content, and Pandemic/Epidemic

reggiethebird's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book is in black and white and red. Lots of red. I feel like the author went through an anatomy textbook, found all the strange and unused verbs, and strung a story together as an excuse to print them out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, and Torture

carolined314's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.75

Brutal, precise, haunting

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Murder, Gore, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Grief, Medical content, Confinement, and Pregnancy

ninoshmino's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Loved Khaw’s voice through this, and the beauty and cleverness of their prose. Excellent reimagining of mermaids, leaning all the way into the strangeness and monstrosity of creatures from the depths.

Thought it was an odd choice to bisect two stories, with a short prequel added to the back of the book. (Why aren’t they a single story? Which came first? Why are they ordered this way?) I’m not mad about getting two of Khaw’s stories in a single volume, but am confused about the choice. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Violence, and Gore

kelleykamanda's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

Really fascinating idea but I thought the length did great disservice. I felt that maybe if it was longer with more character depth and lead in, the story would have been more captivating. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Violence, Death, Child abuse, Child death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

maresuju's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Kidnapping

Minor: Xenophobia and Torture