Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

136 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

reaisin'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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Medical content, and Murder

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

booksandfin's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.25

This was an interesting novella. A quick and gruesome read. I loved a lot of the elements in the story and how it fell back into original myth telling that is dark and eerie. I wish it had been a little longer so we could have gotten to know characters a bit better though. I think that there just wasn’t enough time for me to become invested in the characters.

Great for body horror fans! :-)

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Content Warnings

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

clarissag's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

The writing is beautiful, but too ornate to be truly visceral. It succeeds at being a fairy tale, but despite the subject material, does not quite read as horror to me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Medical content

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

telligraphy's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

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

kingrosereads's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Self harm, Torture, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

elle_mv's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, and Classism