Song, J: Chlorine

This book is so incredibly haunting. I will never be able to see mermaids the same way again. And who would have thought that I would be obsessed with mermaids again as an adult. In Chlorine we follow a young girl that wants nothing in life more than to become a mermaid and this story is her metamorphosis into becoming one. It is her descent into madness. The story has a beautiful build up, the writing is good and you could practically smell the chlorine from the swimming pool while reading. It is a story where you don't quite know what is going on at times because the narrator is unreliable and fooling not only herself but also the reader. Chlorine is a novel that is perfect for everyone that loves a bit of unreliability in their narrator and quite a bit of insanity.

“I guess hearts are slippery because they’re covered in blood. I wish I could bleed mine dry. Then I’d miss you less.” This honestly made me dizzy at times. It's beautifully written, exactly as visceral and gory as it should be - it just explores the many horrors of womanhood incredibly well. I loved it so, so much.

"Chlorine" reminded me of Han Kangs "The Vegetarian" towards the end of the story. It shows the same decay of humanity in the main character and their - sometimes terrifying - new reality. Ren is caught in a coming-of-age story painted by horrifying tales while swimming for her life. Although this book seems to describe the normal upbringing of a potential star-athlete, it has the potential to haunt you. This book is definitely the right pick for you if you enjoy absurd asian literatur and if you can stomach slight body horror. If this is a new genre for you, I suggest that you start with something like "Pizza Girl" by Jean Kyoung Fazier, which is also a sapphic and slightly uncomfortable read about different desires.

Chlorine is horror in its purest form or rather, a deep exploration of how far horror can go. Jade Song delves into the dark side of competitive swimming, adolescence and pressures from all the sides. Blending racism and misogyny with a slow, chilling descent into madness. The story is tense and suffused with dread. As a reader you know something is coming, but not when, how or why. The book also serves as a bitterly honest portrait of growing up as a girl in a patriarchal society, in a culture that fetishizes women’s bodies. Song handles this with raw realism rather than pure shock value, making it gut-wrenching and profoundly haunting. This isn’t a book for new horror readers! Chlorine is intense! It’s perfect for anyone ready to confront darkness that feels all too real. But even for me, some chapters and scenarios were almost too much to handle. All in all, Jade Song is an author to watch, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for their future work.

Chlorine“ ist ein Coming-of-Age-Roman, roh und intensiv. Er spricht klug über Körper, Druck und Selbstfindung, mit starken Bildern für innere Zerrissenheit. Leider verliert er sich aber etwas im Warten auf die am Anfang versprochenen Meerfrauen-Thematik. Das bleibt dann doch eher Metapher als Magie.