Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

113 reviews

mijtje's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.75

”There is nothing wrong with being a monster”

This is a very, very dark and twisted alternative conclusion to the story of The Little Mermaid. After murdering her prince, she travels together with a plague doctor, running into a village of children they then try to save. It’s a beautiful (and disgusting) story about love in a horrible world, and refusing to give up on each other.

The writing, however, is pretentious. The author seems to have written it with thesaurus.com to replace all normal-sounding words with the most uncommon, obscure and complex alternatives she could find. Words with one vowel? Nope. Not in this book. Even my e-reader’s dictionary struggled to keep up. 

It’s a shame, because underneath the overly complicated language, the writing itself is quite good and poetic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

mycarefulcardinal's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Violence, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

kristae1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Medical trauma

snackattackisback69's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I adored the two main characters and the concept of this book. Paired with the impeccable writing it could have been a 5 star read for me if the book had not been so short. I wish even another 100 pages went into expanding the world or fleshing out the ending. Additionally there is a section at the end about a character's backstory that I feel would have fit better at the beginning. If you are interested in this book I would also check the trigger warnings as it is quite graphic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Blood, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Confinement, Miscarriage, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

justjai's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book at first took a bit to get into. The prose reminded me of bramble off to the side of an unbroken path, me getting caught every once in a while. But I carried on, the story felt a bit distant, but I loved the language and the bits of lore, gore and fantasy woven into it. It’s short page length definitely helped in my enjoyment of this the story told in this style.

This book lent me it's words for a few evenings and I enjoyed each one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

frawst_disasta_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

“But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth.”
This is a novella about stopping horrible saints.  It grapples with the horror of cult like behaviour.

But the book is actually a love story that develops between the main characters, a deep love that is felt on the page.

While not my usual book of choice, I think this book will live rent free for quite some time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, and Outing

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

gauriraut's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

shetef's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

This book started out fairly interesting but just fell apart catastrophically around the end of the first chapter. Lots of interesting ideas raised and then abandoned. I was pretty excited to have some masc non-binary rep but the author whiffed it on this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, and Cannibalism

Minor: Antisemitism

spadefootfrog's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Violence, and Medical trauma

daybeonemay's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail