A review by waybeyondblue
Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

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

4.25

Maybe wasn't the best choice for someone on the tail end of a chronic illness, who has spent the last year watching in disbelief as her body deteriorates, disintegrates, and does some weird shit that can't be controlled or understood... Or maybe that made it the perfect choice, I'm not sure. 

I was enthralled and repelled in equal measure; and no matter how surreal the concepts got (Sleep becoming a shadow-self; wolves becoming sisters; boyfriends turning in to stone) the stories were so anchored in reality that they seem completely believable. 

Certain images and descriptions echo through the different stories, tying them together - tangerines and jellyfish and teeth and rotting food. The stories speak to the experience of living in bodies that are essentially unstable, unknowable and unreliable organic matter; and the mundane horror of accepting we are in a constant state of mutation, change and decay.
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