Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

77 reviews

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

bookish_mermaid's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book immediately sucked me in. I couldn't put it down! It blended my four favorite things; mermaids, romance, horror, and gore!
The only criticism is that a lot of the words were pretty large and advanced. I felt like I needed a dictionary next to me as I was reading 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, and Medical content

ichthyomancer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

4.5

Honestly felt the first half was a little hard to get into- it’s own language bogged it down in the beginning, but matured as the novel progressed into something I honestly can’t be mad about. I think the lore contained in the book despite it’s small size was amazing and genuinely made me want to see other fairytales set in the same universe, but I’m happy with this little sliver into it that we got.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Rape, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

gxuosi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

cannibalism as a metaphor for love, to be so devoted that you devour them whole, but seen from the eyes of the eaten. to be so desired you are torn apart piece by piece. to have nothing left as you are rended from bone and marrow into a porcelain doll, finally an empty husk that’s no longer the idol of your keeper’s eye. to be left in a world of cannibals, devourers, the eaters and eaten; and then against all odds to choose instead of destruction, that someone is worth cannibalizing yourself for; creation, sacrifice, love.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Confinement, Grief, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Miscarriage and Excrement

nightlight_reader's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-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

4.5

I’m not a body horror person, or at least I need to be really specific about my body horror triggers, but this was excellent throughout and I think some of the clinical voice of our mermaid narrator helped to mitigate a lot of that for me.

I think the acknowledgements sums up this book well:
“This book of mine about people who won’t give up on each other, who stay even when the world crumbles to ash, who hold on even when there’s nothing but hope.”

It’s a good one. It’s full of love and hope even when it doesn’t seem like it. It’s incredible and dark and fucked up. But it’s a good one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Self harm, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Murder

Minor: Child abuse

zachari's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense

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

5.0

baroque yet spare, clinical in its violence, the desperate brutality of Khaw's prose leaves me thirsty for more without feeling unfinished; on the contrary, I'm left feeling charmed by that special combination of  self-completion and open-endedness which keeps one up late mulling over the details of ghost stories long after the campfire's ashes have gone cold. in four brief chapters Khaw sketches just enough of a queer, cruel fairytale landscape for the reader to intuit horizons beyond its horizons and depths beyond the depths, only to send the whole thing up in an ambiguous inferno which leaves me blinking hard at the afterglow and struggling to make out just what it is I've read. fans of the  mytho-banal-horrific trifecta in Ken Liu's "Good Hunting" and Madeline Miller's Circe will notice resonances, amplifications and elaborations on certain themes and motifes. I look forward to watching where the literary subfield and Khaw herself go next in the wake of The Salt Grows Heavy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

thenoboshow's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

mreadsbooks's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, and Miscarriage

melodyseestrees's review

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, Child death, Gore, and Blood

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, and Miscarriage