Reviews with content warning for Body horror - House of Salt and Sorrows

This is a Dark retelling and you should check TW/CW info
This book genuinely surprised me. I thought ‘its a YA fairytale retelling I know how this goes. Theres the gorgeous mysterious dark haired love interest who’s gonna turn out to be the twist villain.’ I dont think its a spoiler to say i was Wrong in assuming the twist, because I genuinely didn’t know who the villain was until the protagonist did.

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buzby72's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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emilyreads15's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

5.0

Omg. I’m literally at a lost for words right now. This book was the weirdest and creepiest book I’ve ever read and I enjoyed it very much.

I randomly just decided to start this book one day, since I had recently gotten it in a giveaway and oh my gosh. I just didn’t expect this at all. Tbh it’s been so long since I read the synopsis, so I kinda just went in blind.

It was just the most interesting plot I’ve ever read. To start off the story is a creepy retelling of The Brother’s Grimm fairytale, ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses.’ We read the story from Annaleigh’s pov and she is the 6th born of the 12 girls. Since I’m not too familiar with the fairytale, I didn’t know what to expect so ofc I looked up the original and it was already crazy itself. But the author took this twisted story and twisted it even more. I had no clue this book had horror elements to I was so shook while reading it.

On top of this, the author is a phenomenal writer. Like the level of writing and planning it takes to write a book like this is insane. So I definitely applaud her on that. There were so many twists and turns and I just kept being surprised. While I had my suspicions, I truly didn’t know who to trust and at times I didn’t even trust Annaleigh even though I was reading from her perspective. This book truly took gaslighting to another level.

Overall I really enjoyed this read! At times the world building lost me a little bit. Also because there were so many sisters, I sometimes lost track and often couldn’t remember what they were supposed to look like. Some of the characters also got on my nerves *cough* Camille and Morella 👀 *cough*. However, I still really loved the book and in the end I definitely recommend this read. It was truly unlike anything I’ve ever read before!

Read this book if you want some mysterious fantasy gothic vibes with a little bit of horror.

I also recommend this book to anyone who loves Belladonna by Adalyn Grace.

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kemikemi's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

the loveline was a little too insta-lovey for me to truly get invested in them, but

the truth about what happened to fisher was actually so horrifying, and are we to assume the dad died in the fire??

i felt like i was losing my mind i think the author did a good job of keeping us on our toes, as i didnt know where this was going to go and most of my guesses were wrong. however, the ending did feel a bit rushed it was like i was suddenly getting information launched at me from all angles cascading into an all-consuming explosion and then it was just over and somehow we still got a happy ending? i have my complaints but the fast moving story, strong imagery, and imagination throughout the book override my negative feelings about that

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mizzy406's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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braveprincess11's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

It’s a solid horror retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. There was a lot going on, and a lot to keep track of, but it did its job well enough. It really picked up around the halfway point with

the death of Edgar.

That was exactly what I needed to get me hooked back into the plot, and from that point forward, it was really well paced.

I was able to guess a couple of the twists as information was revealed (though I never got anything exactly correct), and the romance seemed unnecessary, but overall a fun time.

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_hart_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

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chezler24's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

This book opens with a funeral and hints at ghosts setting me up for a book similar to gothic horror novels like Haunting of Hill House. I was ready to find myself lost in a new fantasy realm exploring the customs of the people of the Salt veiled with this overarching aspect of doom and gloom. The writing kind of lost me for a bit as it seemed to abandon the gothic horror elements in favor of random fantasy and love triangle plot lines. These aspects later came back around as the source of these elements was revealed but I did have to push through certain chapters to get to the big reveal. Ultimately, I feel like it would fall into the category of fantasy/gothic romance rather than gothic horror. The ending was enjoyable enough; however, the overarching plotlines were a bit weak at points and left me wanting certain aspects to be explored a bit more.

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