A review by mijtje
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

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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