Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - The Salt Grows Heavy

"Mermaid. A word that demonstrates the ineptitude of human language, and the species' predisposition for ingantalizing the unknown. ... [P]alatability is prized over accuracy. It is easier to market a nymph than a viperfish."

The Salt Grows Heavy is a horror/fantasy novella of a murderous mermaid and a gender non-conforming plague doctor travelling through a near-dead kingdom, each with a traumatic past to contend with. Very well written, though it's hard to say 'beautifully written' when the subject matter is, very often, viscera. Heed the content warnings on this one - not for the faint of heart.

Content warnings: graphic gore & body horror throughout. Cannibalism is on page & described in detail. Blood, death, deaths of children, murder, violence, medical content, medical experimentation, misogyny, sexism, abuse, spousal abuse, rape (not on-page or described in any detail), kidnapping, mass murder, cult violence / religiously motivated abuse.

Content Warnings

typedtruths's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

1.25

i didn't like this at all. yes, the themes of unconditional love are beautiful but everything else about this did <i>nothing</i> for me

▷ <u>Representation</u>: nonbinary sc/love interest.

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ladykatka's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I had to read the first few pages a couple times to get used to the writing style. Once that happened it did have a unique beauty to it. The conversation between the mermaid and the plague doctor was easily the best part. It was gruesome at times but it added to the atmosphere.

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loki29's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.0

A bizzare but intriguing book. It took me a while to get used to the language. While I did end up kind of enjoying the language used, I found it felt pretensious at times.

However, it had a good pace and kept me intrigued from start to finish. I would love to have had more about the mermaid and the plague doctor

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not_another_ana's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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

3.75

No, we are not very different at all, even if one is fashioned with thread and dried sinew, the other cleaved and then conjugated by magic.

A siren and a plague doctor travel the land together, walking away from destruction and right into something sinister in the middle of the woods. This is a strange book to summarize or even describe. It felt more like an event or a landscape. I think you'll either like this or absolutely despise it, no inbetween.

Beautiful yet challenging prose. At times I felt like I was wading through a swamp whenever the author threw these complex and uncommon words (not helped by the fact that English is my second language). Very vibes but with a lot of thoughts. I would highly recommend checking trigger warnings for this one, you'll find everything from cannibalism to child death to graphic gore. Ultimately I liked it but I felt cheated by the length, like a meal missing its main ingredient.

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bangiebangs's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

4.5*

I read this not even knowing what genre this was going to be, and I can recommend doing that. Pick it up now, come read the reviews later and see what you think. It's definitely worth it.

This story is dark and uncomfortable, relentlessly tricking you into thinking what will happen next and then leading you somewhere else entirely. Extremely interesting, couldn't put it down, and even if I don't usually read... horror? Is it horror? ... I really enjoyed this one.

Beautiful language, excellent levels of horror, definitely recommended. I'm only not giving it a full 5* because I'm not sure whether I'd reread it... but maybe?

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ejoverly's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

It takes you around half the book to wade through the nonsense sentences to figure out what this book is even about and then you spend the rest of the time second guessing yourself. It’s like she wrote the whole thing with predictive text. There was an overwhelming amount of adjectives that had you forgetting the beginning of the sentence by the time you made it to the end of the sentence. Most of the sentences didn’t mean anything at all and once cobbled together with the other sentences it STILL meant nothing.

Please do not read this book thinking it is a fairy tale. The description is very misleading. This was a gory waste of time. The only reason I finished it was because it was so short I thought surely it would get better. It DID NOT. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything worse.

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yourbookishbff's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

If you're looking for a thoroughly macabre reimagining of The Little Mermaid and don't mind (or enjoy!) significant on-page body horror, this is an excellent novella. The story was imaginative and dark and calls back to the much grittier origins of our favorite fairytales. The writing is evocative and flowery (even in describing the rituals of a cannibalistic cult), and the epilogue was actually... sweet? That said, I almost set this aside at 20%, after realizing just how substantial the body horror elements were (I wasn't sure if I could manage another 60 pages). Ultimately, I pushed through because I appreciated the story arc and the thematic goal, and because I do like to read outside my typical genres occasionally. Recommended to horror readers who enjoy dark fairytale retellings!

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