Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

308 reviews

sussaann's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

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

5.0

I've never loved a book as much as I love this book. It's remarkable and heartbreaking, every time I re-read it I find a new line that makes it hurt better, this time it was "Better I be reduced to miscreant daydreams of the ocean than be alive without them." Khaw has a unique talent for making body horror beautiful and disgusting. Am I throwing up because it's so graphic or because I'm crying so hard? The world may never know...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

swamphag666's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

trante89's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Interesting, dark, take on a fairy tale. Combining aspects or characters from the little mermaid and Frankenstein into a horror novella. The vocabulary was a bit distracting and can cause the reader to have to pause and look up the words very often with a few pages. It's a only a hundred or so pages but still took roughly a week to finish.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

ashlynncj7's review against another edition

dark emotional fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

pancre_ass's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

• I liked the contrast between the known mermaid tale and what actually happened
• The writing style is quite pretty and grotesque
• Not a native English speaker but I don’t mind looking up words every page.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, and Medical content

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Torture

Minor: Pregnancy

arodplatypus's review

dark medium-paced

3.5

I don't know, man. This is a weird little book. The MC being the little mermaid setting the record straight is almost incidental. An arbitrary choice of fairy tale characters. It's kind of like if The Little Mermaid walked into a combination of The Lord of the Flies and The Island of Dr. Moreau. (Sounds like a bad "a guy walks into a bar" joke.) But the story is deliciously dark. Sometimes, it's even lyrically beautiful, but it's also often overwritten. For example, a nose gets broken, and the author writes that the "nasal bone fenestrates." That one made me laugh out loud, which was absolutely not the desired effect. It got to the point that I was rolling my eyes at the grasping ten cent words that were actually taking away from the story. 

I did like the parts of the story, though, that challenged the mermaid fairy tale. Challenged the idea that the mermaid made a choice to give up her voice, to give up her sisters, and to marry the prince. I liked the mermaid as a beautiful but monstrous deep ocean creature whose razor-sharp teeth are removed in an attempt to tame her. Ah, what folly, what hubris.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Violence

marcusistired's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, and Cannibalism

adragoninspace's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

nerdatlas5's review

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? No

4.0

Gotta say, I was a little worried about starting this because I found Khaw's other novella, Nothing but Blackened Teeth difficult to follow to a negative degree, but this was a huge improvement. I enjoyed how she played with the way fairytale's betray the bias' of the teller and how she twists them to a much darker form. The horror of it was also well done, especially hearing some of the body horror being described made me pretty squeamish. The characters of the mermaid and plague doctor were done well, and their developing relationship with each other felt so real and full of depth. And for the most part the story did a good job balancing unveiling information to drive the plot while still giving enough to make it understandable. Overall an excellent horror novella.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Torture, and Violence

vicious's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Child death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death