A review by mariebrunelm
salt slow by Julia Armfield

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Welcome to the wonderful feeling of falling in love with a short story collection.
Julia Armfield has a knack for writing intense, flawed female characters who are on the brink. Whether they are teenagers in that uncomfortable space between childhood and adulthood, or women going through a break-up or grief, most of them are teetering, and ready to embrace the mess that is their life. I loved that each story was very different from the others, but they had very tenuous, easy-to-miss links that tied this collection together. Most of them start off with a very strong concept that is given in the first lines of the story, and then explore the repercussions of that concept not on the grand scale of geopolitics (though the author easily could) but at the level of bodies. Be ready for both implied and full-on body horror depending on the stories, with a scrumptious taste for words and that delightful hesitation between speculative and realist.
My favourite story was The Great Awake, which was very timely (although a bit late) because I’ve just finished hosting a monthly writing workshop on the theme of sleep.
Rep: queer characters, mostly sapphic. One is on the asexual spectrum.
PS: I bought this book when I first went cat-sitting for a friend, so it is doubly special !
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