In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian , Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming. At the end of the book, Ren says she used Jim as somewhat of a surrogate father. I just don’t see it? This could have been an interesting plot point and relationship dynamic. Ren could have been shown trying to emulate a father-daughter relationship with this man who is emotionally abusive. That could of been very tragic. But Ren and Jim don’t really have a relationship. Yes, Ren wants to please Jim, but it never went outside the boundaries of what you would expect. They don’t have a unique bond or dynamic. Ren isn’t going out of her way to perform because of some surrogate father-daughter relationship with Jim. She’s doing it because she’s full of herself and she loves being the best. She loves swimming. She doesn’t love Jim. Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. the language felt sloppy and imprecise in that hard-to-define underedited-debut way, and despite being categorized as a horror novel i would say only one scene really qualified as such. GO GO GO JIAO YOU JIAO YOU JIAO YOU ADD OIL ADD OIL ADD OIL" this is not a complaint i actually think it's very funny the translation is included bc no other pinyin (afaict) is translated throughout. spread that culture. EDIT: my friend pointed out to my extremely sleep-deprived brain that the correct pinyin is "JIA YOU" (from the other available pinyin, the text does seem to use standard mandarin) and at first i thought i'd made a typo but actually it says "JIAO YOU" in the text. so actually now i do have a problem which is echoing my earlier point Who At HarperCollins Copyedited This

The final result of this is that Ren does earn her tail, but not by any supernatural force. Instead, she sews her legs together in a climactic scene that is Song’s writing at its most revulsive and sumptuous. Crucially, this moment is described not merely as a visceral account of physical extremity, but as a prolonged, psychically sublime process that forces us to consider how freedom and punishment are perhaps inextricable. How what we want to believe will unfetter us might never be totally distinct from the violent forces of the world; but is tainted too, and therefore has a shredded, carnal beauty. This book also has descriptions of a 14-year-old lusting after another 14-year-old’s body. Talking about her butt. Her muscles. All of it. if i am being fully honest—and to the eternal chagrin of myself, my loved ones, and the world around me, i usually am—this was annoying and boring. in our main character, in the frustrating writing, and in how obvious and repetitive all the themes are. I admire, respect, and enjoyed Jade Song’s mystifying mermaid symbolic story…. with fascinating mythology armor.ARC provided by Kelly at William Morrow in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! All quotes used are taken from an early ARC and are subject to change upon publication. A lot of Ren’s problems in life could be easily solved. For example, Ren has horrible periods. Ren never seeks treatment for them. If Ren sought treatment, she would’ve been put on birth control pills, which would mean she wouldn’t have true periods any more. There would be no more pain. If Ren didn’t want to go on birth control pills because her mother was against it or because Ren personally didn’t want to, then it would be fine. But Ren is already on birth control anyway. She gets a copper IUD (which makes her periods WORSE). Her mother is okay with her getting the IUD. Her mother drives her to the appointment. So Ren could of just got birth control pills and solved her period pain problem. It’s a common treatment for it. The inserter girl gets blood on her hands. The insertee girl tells her to wash it off. The inserter girl doesn’t wash it off.

A strikingly original coming-of-age story . . . Full of contradictions, magnificently balancing and remarkably sustaining wonder with dread and magical realism with harsh reality, with a heartbreakingly beautiful and intensely uneasy tone, this is a story that will hold readers in its thrall. [A] great choice for fans of weird, immersive, female-driven body horror by authors like Julia Armfield, Cassandra Khaw, and Carmen Maria Machado’– Booklist starred review This fantastically strange, explosive debut novel entrances even as it unsettles. It’s so brilliantly written‘– BuzzfeedIn the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies... a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming. Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. Ren’s delusion that she is a mermaid might(?) be because of her concussion, and her brain damage progressively getting worse because she didn’t treat it correctly, but it’s never fleshed out. When Ren first gets the concussion, she sees a mermaid tail in the stars. She also sees everyone in the hospital as fish people. This never comes up again. Several years later, she has a mental break where she thinks she’s a mermaid, but it’s not portrayed as the concussion caused some sort of damage that progressively got worse. All the concussion does is give her chronic headaches. So why was she hallucinating fish people in the hospital? What was the point of that? From her Asian family conformity to the chlorinated pool as a competitive star swimmer…. to her steady climb to independence…. When Ren finally gains a tail and transcends her human form, it is simply the most logical conclusion.