Dana's Reviews > The Salt Grows Heavy

In lieu of a review, I'll just put up some quotes.

"The foundation, at a careless look, could pass for bones, the door for a mouth, the chimney a finger crooked at the sky, or at a wife who would not be a savior." - what does that mean?

"The plague doctor tasks themself with everything else: defenses, the replenishment of our rations, the ablutions of my mount." - the what of your what?

"They laugh, the sound refracted by keratin." - huh

"The two of us move in simpatico, keeping time with each other, always parallel, dark and light and the smell of plasma from my clandestine repast cooling on my fingertips." - if this is romance, I don't want it

"His mask is a drowned man’s blue, and his gaze, restored somehow, whole again, is the color of medusae washed to shore, all turgid transparence and shuddering villi." - WHAT COLOR IS IT CASSANDRA I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

"...and they laugh like they’re proletariat-raised, full of brashness." - idk I just found that funny af lol, only the working class knows how to have proper fun

"The door is slammed open. The children barge in. I join the mass of bodies, craning a look around their shoulders. The antumbra reveals little: ..." - I had to Google antumbra and even then, it didn't make sense. The light you're describing is NOT an antumbra

"To my surprise, no one has come to investigate the wailing, not even at its inchoate apex." - just say incomplete or beginning, wtf is with inchoate

"It piles higher as I walk, ankle-length first, then rising to the height of my thighs." - serious question, the main character is a mermaid - does she have ankles??

We get it, Cassandra, you use thesaurus.com. I'm not bothered by more flowery writing, but come on, it's a touch too much. I also don't know how the plot felt like it meandered even though the novella was so short. The premise sounds dope, but this is the second time Khaw's execution failed for me. The chapter about the mermaid's captivity was by far the coolest and most interesting - why couldn't the novella have been about this instead of a random village of three guys killing children? If you include a cool mermaid, why not REALLY write about her?? I think the decision to instead let the story be about this largely unrelated incident was bizarre.

Since I did like Khaw's take on mermaids and the plague doctor, I'm giving it two stars. I wanna end with the one quote I found really beautiful to mourn what could've been: (view spoiler)["I clutch at my plague doctor, palsied by my weeping, and I am deserted by every thought save these: That I want to die here, mired in the cold. That I want to race them to Death’s carriage, exceeding their pace but only just, never going so far as to be unable to turn and corset their fingers in mine." (hide spoiler)]