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A review by kaiyakaiyo
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Did not live up the premise! A lot of overly descriptive, borderline garrulous prose that amounted to very little substance, character building, or plot. it felt like they received a thesaurus for christmas from a loved one and wrote this book to prove they’d used it.
it got to the point where the sensorial detail even became repetitive; blood = rubies, entrails = coils/ribbons, bones = baby teeth… we get it! tons of words used over & over to the point where it almost felt like copy/paste. for a book so short it shouldn’t have been hard to come up with a word to replace “bathyal” instead of saying it over & over
neither of the leads were interesting. we were on the cusp of so many interesting details about “mermaid” lore, about human reanimation, the magical universe they are in, but the author chose to squander that on pages and pages of describing trees and skin and teeth. the romance had potential to be interesting, but again… the author chose to focus on how everything smelled and tasted for some reason
also this was an extremely loose “fairytale retelling”; I was personally okay with that, but don’t come in expecting anything detailed in that regard. Khaw doesn’t really go into detail about anything that isn’t a texture or a taste
if style over substance is your jam, this may be for you! it is firmly not mine so 2 stars trending downward. I had a similar complaint with Nothing But Blackened Teeth, so I think this author is just on the Don’t Read list for me :/ kernels of really interesting but ultimately unrealized premise seem to be the lay of the land. spent the whole book waiting for Khaw to get into the story only for there not to be a story at
it got to the point where the sensorial detail even became repetitive; blood = rubies, entrails = coils/ribbons, bones = baby teeth… we get it! tons of words used over & over to the point where it almost felt like copy/paste. for a book so short it shouldn’t have been hard to come up with a word to replace “bathyal” instead of saying it over & over
neither of the leads were interesting. we were on the cusp of so many interesting details about “mermaid” lore, about human reanimation, the magical universe they are in, but the author chose to squander that on pages and pages of describing trees and skin and teeth. the romance had potential to be interesting, but again… the author chose to focus on how everything smelled and tasted for some reason
also this was an extremely loose “fairytale retelling”; I was personally okay with that, but don’t come in expecting anything detailed in that regard. Khaw doesn’t really go into detail about anything that isn’t a texture or a taste
if style over substance is your jam, this may be for you! it is firmly not mine so 2 stars trending downward. I had a similar complaint with Nothing But Blackened Teeth, so I think this author is just on the Don’t Read list for me :/ kernels of really interesting but ultimately unrealized premise seem to be the lay of the land. spent the whole book waiting for Khaw to get into the story only for there not to be a story at
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Blood, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail