yumdirt 's review for:

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

2.25

dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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This horror (short story?) fairytale about a mermaid and a witch doctor just absolutely butchering a cult of children is so nauseatingly verbose I was constantly pulled out of the melodramatic, eerie stage. Complaints about verbose writing...coming from me? Yes, because I like sticky sweet prose, but Cassandra: not every. single. word has to be unique and out of a thesaurus. Are you out of your goddamn mind? At a certain point, describing every detail and action with words no human being has ever actually written or uttered became hilarious to me. I was in sheer disbelief at this continued bit (and yes I see it as a bit, not as an academic flair or writing style. No one writes like that.) Anyway. This has a lot of slippery surgery, crunching, wet gore and stringy disemboweling. Dude I don't know man...uh, love persists?