Chlorine: 'Entrances even as it unsettles' – Buzzfeed

by Jade Song, Imani Parks (Narrator), Catherine Ho (Narrator)

🎧Run Time = 8 hours and 9 minutes🧜🏻‍♀️

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.

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.

But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she’s always longed to become: the mermaid.

Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill. 

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Queer, Fantasy, LGBT, Lesbian, Contemporary

Audible Audio

First published March 28, 2023

About the author

Jade Song is an artist and writer whose next book is Ox Ghost Snake Demon, a short story collection based on the Chinese zodiac animals forthcoming Jan 2027. Her other books are the novels I Love You Don't Die and Chlorine, which won the Writer's Center First Novel Prize and the American Library Association Alex Award and has been translated into multiple languages. Song pole dances and lives with too many books in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book where I appreciated the themes yet the writing didn’t do it for me. In Chlorine, Jade Song captures the darkness and confusion of coming-of-age for a Chinese American girl, the ways relationships between coaches and athletes can veer into problematic and harmful territory, and the process of honoring one’s identity in the face of various interpersonal affronts and assaults. Unfortunately I found the prose itself rather clunky and dry, like I could see what the narrative was trying to do instead of feeling immersed in the narrative itself. Still, Chlorine tried to do something different which I respect.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘You are not here of your own free will. You are here because I desired you first. I lured you to me using my intentional charms: my ethereal beauty, my siren song, my six pack, my tail with scales embroidered in flesh...’

Chlorine is a coming of age tale about a competitive high school swimmer and the pressures placed on young athletes. It’s dark, unsettling, slightly deranged literary horror with hypnotic prose. It explores race, sexuality, familial relationships, mental health and belonging, told by a (slightly unlikeable) very honest narrator.

But the core theme is one of identity and transformation, and the message is about the importance of existing as your true self, your true state of being, whether hidden or free.

In the same vein as 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.

I Highly Recommend.

I read Chlorine as part of a ‘Girl Horror’ group that I'm a part of. We read Horror by female authors.

[gauri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Me, your tortured lover, a sleepless death."

this is the kind of book that makes me want to dissect the author's brain and study how they proceeded to write such a story. chlorine is deranged and wild coming of age story about ren yu, a competitive swimmer hell-bent on leaving her human body behind and becoming a mermaid.

i have never read anything that portrays such an obsessiveness and a writing that completely situates the reader in ren's mind. the deep dive into pressures put on athletes, the difficulties faced by young girls and the thirst for transcending into one's true self, adds to ren's compulsive ambitions in an astonishing manner. the prose is so haunting yet immersive enough to mesmerise you with ren's rationalisation. and what a delightful dash of sapphic yearning, i love how ren and cathy's characters intertwine with each other. chlorine is a phenomenal debut (!!!) and you'll have to read it yourself to experience the extent of delusion in the story.

[R W · Rating 1 out of 5]

i was the first on my library holds list for this book. body horror? check. sapphic romance? check. mermaids? check check check. now i have created a goodreads account just so i can do everybody the public service of telling you how godawful Jade Song’s writing is. life is wild.

i don’t know what the editing process for this book was like, but i’m going to be generous and assume there simply wasn’t one. because if there was, certainly my poor eyeballs wouldn’t be subject to such witty turns of phrase as “Rob, ever the extravagant host, liked to hang mistletoe at parties because the point of mistletoe was to exist as an excuse.”

or let’s try: “I’m confined to a comprehension of human difficulties through an American lens, no matter how hard I try to break out of the star-spangled brainwashing I was subject to from a young girl’s age.”

or even better, when the narrator is supposed to be SEVEN YEARS OLD, she tells her mom: “Swimming can be my extracurricular activity on my college applications. The coach said I showed raw talent.”

the narrator is ostensibly a teenage girl, but she speaks like a cross between chat GPT and Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, constantly muttering about how humans are so annoying and frail and she can’t wait to finally be a mermaid.

big words and long sentences do not a good writer make. in fact, in this book, they make for a writing style that is pathetically self-conscious, so obviously eager to impress that it is genuinely embarrassing to read. when not beating you over the head with Earnest Messaging, this book makes word salad of the simplest phrases. even the most entry-level editor could have easily halved its length.

if you want worldbuilding, character development, or cogent writing, THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU! and forget about F/F romance, unless you’re into a self-aggrandizing, immature narrator who strings along her pathetic lesbian best friend for no discernible reason. (though the author awoogahs over her own protagonist’s muscles so often that one wonders how she stopped penning “omg step on me 😍” TikTok comments long enough to write an entire book.)

admirers of good writing, heed my warning! RUN!!!

[Mai H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've ever participated in high school or club swimming, this may trigger you. Ren begins swimming to have an extracurricular to add to her college applications. She doesn't expect to love/hate/obsess over it. Swimming is notoriously white. Sports are notoriously misogynist. We've got racism and misogyny in bounds, with a side of sexual assault.

[Jesse (JesseTheReader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5!

[Brandon Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahhhh so good!! Perfectly encapsulates the confusing, tumultuous, toxic, and sometimes disturbing aspects of growing up. And, it had one sequence of body horror so intense I got light headed 😂

[Katie Colson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Vlog

F I N A L L Y !
We have a success on our hands!

This perfectly matched the hype I had in my head for it.

I was told it was queer, weird as hell, kinda gross and beautifully written. ✔️, ✔️, ✔️ and ✔️ !

This is very reminiscent of the unhinged writing style and character perspective of Bunny by Mona Awad. You're not totally sure what's going on but you're having the time of your life.

Also QUEERGAYLESBIANBISEXUALQUEERASFUCK!
Jade Song really said "I present to you the horrors of competitive sports, adolescence, and obsession. Oh, and mermaids. But that's not quite enough for all the mediocrity you've been served in 2023. Allow me to add a huge dollop of bisexual realness. And, don't you worry honey, it'll be on-page." and, honestly, I love her for that.

The only complaint I have is that the letters strewn throughout the story were too long and drug out the pacing a bit. While I enjoyed parts of them, the rest felt unnecessary.

Anyway, read this book! Such a highlight of the year.

🖤 YouTube 🩶 Patreon 🤍 Instagram 💜

[yue ☽ · Rating 2 out of 5]

many people i know are very excited for this book, and i went into it with high expectations and was so sorely disappointed. i'll probably lengthen this review and actually approach my thoughts on the plot (which are a bit less complicated/perplexed than my thoughts on the language) when more folks i talk about books with have read it. i will just include a few snippets that demonstrate how clunky and poorly edited i think the prose is:

"I remember clearly how you said, What the fuck are you doing—I can replay these five words in your voice..." like... was this book not copyedited? am i going insane? is it 5 words not 6? this is the biggest thing that stood out to me besides the MC's name literally being ren yu (person fish) and the explanation for that being their mom thought it was an appropriate bastardization because of immigration-derived linguistic loss. which. sure? is it plausible? i have a lot of thoughts on the portrayal and treatment of the mom and how in trying to elide certain clichés CHLORINE falls into/for them hook, line, and sinker.

"How selfish I was. But I was meant to be selfish—my self, meeting the fish." come on

"Ess owned a body more a vehicle for their own pleasure rather than a body carrying scars on its surface." there must be at least 5 more concise ways to express this sentence

"I would have been able to measure the angles of your muscles, obtuse and right and acute, far better than any rhombus on my geometry worksheets. Acute, acute, cute." that was not a typo (on my part). the last word of that sentence is 'cute.'

"I mimicked the Hunchback of Notre Dame—I was the Hunchback of the Swimming Pool." this is a small gripe because i just personally didn't find this line funny which is no one's fault but mine, but i think the x of y parallelism only really works if both elements are replaced with new words that both contextually make sense and call back to the original object. lmk if you disagree!

"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

"I am alone. A-lone. A-, a prefix meaning 'without.' I am without you. I miss you." an installment of cathy's letters to ren, which i generally found to be purple prose-y and tonally inconsistent with cathy's speaking voice (which confuses me bc i feel like high schoolers' personal writing often sounds a Lot like their speaking voices but i am also pretty sure jade song was going for a certain effect here so the discrepancy is likely intentional). this line bewildered me because what novel thing am i learning from diagraming this word? it just feels like an effort to be poetic without substance.

ANYWAY. this is a mishmash of little things that jumped out to me. i am holding my general impressions of the book until my friends read it because ultimately these are small discrete points that hopefully don't fully color perceptions of the novel as a whole but provide a window into some stylistic patterns cropping up in releases for the "new adult" market that are starting to worry me. a debut is a tall mountain to climb, and i hope jade song gets to coast along the other side for a while!

[Gray Aether · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book follows the classic horror structure of the main character going through a lot of horrible/miserable events as rising actions, thus leading the character to the climax of some sort of breaking point. In horror, the climax is usually the main character killing everyone. In drama, the climax would be a suicide.

The problem is, the rising actions do not rise to the level of the climax. Ren goes through some unfortunate life events. Her dad leaves to go work back in China. Her swimming coach is a jerk. She doesn’t have many close friends. Her periods are rough. She has headaches all the time because she didn’t listen to her doctor when she got a concussion.

But these events are not bad enough to cause the level of mental breakdown Ren has. Ren’s life has reprieves. Ren lives with her mother who loves her. Ren has a close friend who loves her. Ren doesn’t get harassed or bullied. Ren doesn’t seem to struggle in school at all (she gets straight A’s and apparently doesn’t study). Ren’s dad still video calls her every night and still loves and cares about her and her mother. Ren has an entire summer where she is under no pressure, smokes weed (which gets rid of her headaches), has sex all the time, makes friends, and overall, just has a great time.

I just don’t buy that Ren’s life is bad enough to cause her to start praying to fictional mermaids, eating storybook pages, and chopping open her legs and sewing them together. Maybe I could buy it if the writing was more emotional and human, but the writing is detached. Things happen to Ren. Ren doesn’t feel anything about that. We are told things; we aren’t shown things. But even if the writing was emotional, it is a high hill to climb to reach that level of mental breakdown.



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.

Not only that, but it would make sense within the book for Ren to get on birth control pills. Ren gets an IUD because of a pregnancy scare, and she became worried that if she got pregnant, she wouldn’t be able to swim any more. However, every time Ren swims on her period her times are worse. Her performance is worse. So wouldn’t it make sense for Ren, who is obsessive about swimming and performing well, to get rid of her period through birth control pills? Cathy is on birth control pills. Surely this is something that would of naturally been brought up in their friendship.



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 breakdown 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?



Ren is hard to care about. As a character, she is written to be narcissistic. She gets disqualified in an event because of poor form? She claims the judges are racist. She’s having difficulty having the IUD implanted? She says the OBGYN must be incompetent. She lies to the doctor that she has recovered from her concussion so she can go back to swimming? It’s the doctor’s fault she now has chronic headaches for not knowing she was lying. No one around Ren is good enough for her. Even Cathy, who ‘saves’ her from the hospital and does exactly what she wants, is still just a worthless human.

The book is written from Ren’s “ascended” POV, and it makes it hard to read. She hates men. She hates Americans. She hates every human. All of you are beneath her. She is better than all of you. She judges the reader, and lectures directly to the reader her preconceived notion of who you are. And I get it. That’s her character. But she repeats it. Over. And over. And over. How many ways can you say you hate me? I get it already.



The prose is really bad. It is overdramatic, and most of the times it borders on purple.

For example, page 8:

We mutilated our hair, cultivating our arm leg pit vagina hair for months like farmers growing wheat, until we cropped it off in one hour, together at the shaving party before the big meet.

We mutilated our guts with bowls of raw oats mixed with applesauce, stacks of banana walnut pancakes, pots of pasta mingled with marinara and basil, shakes of protein powder blended with egg whites, casseroles of coalesced buffalo chicken dip.

We mutilated our beauty, though this sense of beauty was an outdated version defined by narrow wrists and bird bones. We created a new and improved beauty from weightlifting, stair climbing, swim practicing. Our shoulders thickened, our thighs expanded, our muscles bouldered…

You shaved and you worked out. Your body wasn't mutilated. Ffs.

For example, page 29:

I was thirteen years old. I did not understand what was happening. I bled through my underwear, which we bought from Target using the 5 for $20 deal, my mother and I sharing the treasures of our haul – she used the first two of those five and I used three. I leaked onto our dining room’s upholstered oatmeal-colored chairs. I left skid marks evoking roadkill, whose carnage I knew well – Pennsylvania had a deer-overpopulation problem, and anytime I hopped into our car, I prepared myself for the inevitable sight of deer carcass in the road gutters, no matter how short our drive. Once my mother had hit a deer when we were driving to swim practice; its body flopped and landed on the windshield with a thud before sliding off onto the road. We didn’t have the time or money to repair the crack for months. When I took off my pants, the clump of blood there reminded me of the large shovels attached to the municipal Department of Transportation trucks scooping up the fore once composed as a doe.

What the fuck are you talking about? You start off with good imagery. You compare the stain you left on the chair to the smear of roadkill on the road. Most people know what that looks like. It’s visual. It’s good. But then you go off into this weird tangent about how in Pennsylvania, there’s a lot of roadkill, and one time your mom hit a deer. And then you end up saying that blood clots reminded you of shovels used to clean up roadkill.

….what?

What are you talking about??



There’s a weird.. somewhat pedophilic relationship between Ren and her swim coach. Ren’s swim coach makes inappropriate comments towards Ren about her body. That's obviously gross, but, why is it here? The main catalyst for Ren having a mental breakdown is that Jim is overbearing, over trains, and is a strict couch who is emotionally abusive (he throws stuff at his students in anger). The potentially pedo-ish stuff actually doesn’t seem to have that much of an impact.

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 doesn’t like men. And I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be the character, or if that’s the author coming through.

For example, on page 16:

He inhaled and lifted the whistle to his mouth, but before he could blow, I dove into the pool. I couldn’t wait any longer. I was so close. I wanted to touch water without other children inside it too. Their bodies would have corrupted my experience. And I had already grasped how men liked it when I did things they wanted without them needing to ask first.

Ren is 12 in this scene. Where did she get this idea that she needs to please men? I certainly didn’t have this need to please men at the age of 12. I guess the author just assumes that every little girl is beaten down by evil men all their lives, and they’re taught to obey and please men, because that’s all women are good for to men. Like wtf.

I can understand why Ren would dislike men later in the book, because they creep on her. But at this point, men haven’t done anything at all to her. There is no narrative reason for Ren to feel this way, so I have to assume this is how the author feels.

There’s also the fact that 99% of men in this book are portrayed as bad. Ren’s third-grade teacher doesn’t believe she can read words out of an adult fantasy book. Jim is abusive. Ren’s boyfriend is apparently so stupid he wouldn’t even know what a UTI was (according to Ren). The other swim team members’ fathers creep on Ren.

There’s also lines like these, page 40:

Menstruation was more smashed acidic tomatoes than sweet fruit compote. I wiped my fingers on white jeans made of napkins and left streaks dried to rust. The stains came out with bleach and detergent. I died and regenerated every month. How else could I define the experience? The reasonable explanation was death. I would declare when my body was wheeled into the morgue, the coroner would declare I died of being a woman. Which was far better than dying of being a man.

Also, no, the stains most definitely do not come out with bleach and detergent.

Also Ren says the reason she wants to impress Jim is because he is male, but that’s just not right. She’d want to impress him even if Jim were female, because Jim is her swim coach. Children want to impress adults that hold power. It has nothing to do with sex.



There’s just weird events in this book for shock value (I guess?). For example, there’s a scene of two 13-year-old girls, where one of them is touching the other’s vagina and inserting a tampon into 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.

Why? Why does this scene exist? Is this supposed to be romantic? Heartwarming?

It’s just weird.




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.

And then there are descriptions of how one of them masturbated to the thought of the other and moaned their name. Like I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for this.



There’s a scene in this book of the first time Ren gets her period. Apparently it took Ren and her mother, working together, 7 hours to insert a tampon into Ren. That seems overdramatic. I have never met anyone with such an experience as this.

Also there’s this line, page 30:

I was furious I was forced to push a cardboard-and-cotton tube into my vagina before a dick or a finger – pain before pleasure.

No you weren’t. No 13-year-old is worried about that when they first get their periods. No one is experiencing the pain of a period and the trouble of inserting a tampon and thinking, “Oh man, I really wish I had a dick or a finger inside me before a tampon.”

No.

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I dreamt myths larger than my girl body could hold.”

such a heartfelt literary horror debut that i think i will hold inside me forever. i really did love this, and the writing is just completely out of this world. i cannot wait to see what this author does next, and just follow their career and stories forever.

ren has loved mermaids and their stories for all her life, but when she is a small girl she also discovers her love and fascination for the water, and the escapism and transformation it can bring. She joins her school's swim team and starts swimming competitively, and this story takes place in highschool when her life is consumed with being the best swimmer her body will allow her to be, despite being only human… for now. and we get to watch ren holding on to the identity of a girl, of a swimmer, of a child of immigrants, of being queer, and we get to also watch her become the mermaid she was always meant to be.

chlorine is also a little bit of an epistolary novel, and we get to see letters being written to ren’s friend/love interest, cathy, where we get to see her perspective of the transformation of ren, while also being filled with longing. this just adds an extra dark tone to the novel, because the reader is reading these one sided letters of missing someone, while switching back and forth to the story and the direction of events that are playing out with Ren inside her mind.

i feel like you probably shouldn’t know too much more before going in, but some other things in this novel that i really loved, despite being hard to read: talk of being a child of diaspora and how the american dream your elders came searching for can really be a nightmare. how doctors can be horrible and not actually care about their patients or their health, and how medical care you are choosing to get can still feel like a violation, and how these last two things can be so much bigger when you're a queer nonwhite kid. how adults can push kids so far past their limits, yet still ignore all the signs that they are drowning.

overall, i really did love this and sapphic asian stories about feeling like you’re from a completely different world are always going to tug on my heartstrings very hard and very deeply. (and if you need to hear it, you belong and your continuous transformation is beautiful.) i really recommend this debut if you are in a good head space with the trigger warnings. bonus: this author is army and wrote a really beautiful piece about their debut novel, inspiration, and bts (and i am very grateful to read this blue side story and gain hope.) - On BTS, Writing, and What Makes an Artist. bonus bonus: i wrote this entire review listening to come back to me by rm on repeat because bts are also one of my greatest inspirations in life.

content warnings at the start of the book: racism, misogyny, self-harm, eating disorders, homophobia, depression, and sexual violence.

additional trigger + content warnings i found while reading: blood, menstruation, scene getting an iud, talk of abortion, pregnancy scare, abandonment, child abuse, grooming, hospital setting, concussion, extreme headaches, car crash one sentence mention, anxiety, grief, pica, needles, talk of debt, abuse of medication, drinking, smoking, vomit, bad medical professionals and treatment, a lot of microaggressions from the love interest, and i just want to emphasize that there is a lot of talk of body image and a lot of food descriptions that are central themes in this book that go hand in hand with disordered eating.

━━♡ buddy read with evie
━━♡ + their amazing spotify playlist

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[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

a beautiful, gruesome, surreal yet oddly realistic fever dream about transcending humanity and becoming a mermaid. and who among us has never desired that type of transformation?

ren yu, a teenage competitive swimmer whose life revolves around her athletic pursuit, is a particularly good candidate for mermaid transformation. she tells her tale as a "coming-of-being story," recounting the way she left behind girlhood. there's a lot of deep metaphor here, much about the body, control, obsession, expectations, being seen.

i really love the way this book builds up. from the beginning it contains details that are unsettling but not unbelievable. there's jim, the dedicated swim coach who is creepy and violent but knows how to get away with it, how to push but not push too far. there's a naive scene where preteen ren and cathy do their best to insert a tampon for ren so she can swim, neither of them knowing what they're doing, blood smears on both their palms. there is so much within this novel that's semi grotesque, yet wholly believable.

all leading up to the pivotal moment at which the reader realizes why the book can be classified as horror. ren's mermaid transformation is literal. she waits until just before an important swim meet, hunkers down in a locker room shower stall, and unflinchingly sews her legs into a tail. deeper than any physical pain is the pain of the reactions of others, as she stumbles out toward the pool and they don't see her mermaid self, they see only horrific gore.

it is quite a visceral climax.

ren's story is about her obsession and transformation, but throughout the chapters, there is always cathy, her maybe-sort-of sapphic love interest. cathy is deeply in love with ren, and there are even chapters of yearning letters in bottles than cathy has sent to ren after the book ends (an effective storytelling device)! the romance is painful in its disconnect. ren is continually disappointed in cathy, while cathy is shyly and ignorantly devoted. it feels realistic for a young sapphic romance; there's something there, obvious yet uncommunicated, and never quite right.

overall, this is a wonderful debut. unapologetically queer, chinese american, second gen immigrant, working class, weird, wise, at times gross, ultimately beautiful, and filled with subtleties. i love the bittersweet creekside ending.

[Brooke 𝜗𝜚 · Rating 4 out of 5]

—— 𝟒.𝟐𝟓 ✰ 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬. 🏊🏼‍♀️

❝𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚁𝚎𝚗 𝚈𝚞. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 人鱼. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚒𝚜𝚑. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍. 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚐𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢?
𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎. 𝙰 𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍, 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗. 𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛, 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚗𝚘 𝙰𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚕. 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 ��𝚘 𝙽𝚞𝚠𝚊. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚖𝚢 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍, 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚎. 𝙼𝚢 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚕.❞

📱┆𝐂𝐡𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠
🏷️┆𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝔽𝕚𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟, ℍ𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕣
📆┆𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝: 𝟟/𝟚𝟠/𝟚𝟝 - 𝟟/𝟚𝟡/𝟚𝟝
📃┆𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬
「 “Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. She aches to be in the water, dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.”」

❝𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝙸 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕? 𝙰𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐? 𝙰 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛? 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚑𝚕𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎.❞

𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸

❝𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏. 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜. 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏𝚒𝚜𝚑-𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏, 𝚖𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚜𝚑. 𝙸𝚗 𝚊 𝚠𝚊𝚢, 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚊𝚜𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝙸 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚕 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙸𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎.❞

ᴍʏ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: ★★★★.𝟐𝟓
ɢᴏᴏᴅʀᴇᴀᴅꜱ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: 𝟹.𝟼𝟽 ☆ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ
ᴘᴀɪʀ ᴡɪᴛʜ: ᴍɪᴄʀᴏᴡᴀᴠᴇᴀʙʟᴇ ᴇɢɢ ʀᴏʟʟꜱ 🥡
ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ɪ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅ?: ✅ —ꜰᴏʀ ꜰᴀɴꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴡᴇɪʀᴅ ɢɪʀʟ ʟɪᴛ

⊱ ────── {⋆ ‧₊˚♪𝄞 ⋆} ────── ⊰

lıllılı.ıllı.ılılıılıı.lllııılı.

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: ᴠɪᴇɴɴᴀ — ʙɪʟʟʏ ᴊᴏᴇʟ
1:40 ———♡——— 3:18

⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻

╭───
┆
╰⪼ you’ve got your passion, you've got your pride, but don't you know that only fools are satisfied? dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true. when will you realize vienna waits for you? slow down, you crazy child and take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while.

⊱ ────── {⋆ ‧₊˚♪𝄞 ⋆} ────── ⊰

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ:
🏊🏼‍♀️ ᴡᴇɪʀᴅ ɢɪʀʟ ʟɪᴛ
🪡 ꜱᴀᴘᴘʜɪc ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴄᴇ
🏊🏼‍♀️ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ ᴍᴇʀᴍᴀɪᴅꜱ
🪡 ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴀɢᴇ ꜱᴛᴏʀɪᴇꜱ
🏊🏼‍♀️ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴇᴛɪᴛɪᴠᴇ ꜱᴡɪᴍᴍɪɴɢ
🪡 ᴜɴʜɪɴɢᴇᴅ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʏʟᴇꜱ
⚠️ TW: body horror, blood, sexual assault, sexual scenes, racism, homophobia, misogyny, self mutilation, eating disorders, child abuse, grooming

❝𝙸 𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢’𝚛𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍. 𝙸 𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚢. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝙸’𝚍 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜.❞

𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸

💬┆𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬
It’s giving we have mermaids at home.

• Let’s be real: we’ve all wanted to be mermaids at some point in our lives, I just don’t think any of us would go to the extremes that our unhinged girl Ren Yu went to. Jokes aside, I LOVED this book. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into at first. From page 1, the whole vibe is unsettling & off putting, between the weird interactions with the swim coach to the period scene in the bathroom stall. But I could not put it down. And I can’t believe this is a debut novel! Bravo, Jade Song. 👏🏼 This was the perfect amount of weirdness for my weird little soul. 🙂‍↕️

• This is not going to be your typical horror novel. Sure, it’s dark & deranged, but the real “horror” doesn’t happen until almost the end. The last 50 pages had me sitting up with my hand covering my mouth thinking, “is this bitch really going through with this?!” & “she’s gonna need something a lot stronger than Ibuprofen.”

• Justice for Cathy! She deserved so much better 🥺 My heart hurt for her even though she was so naive in her feelings for Ren & blindly followed her, no questions asked. The letters she wrote to Ren that the author incorporated throughout the book were such a nice touch to give us that connection to Cathy.

• Chlorine is raw, personal, emotional, a little awkward, & too much at times, but that’s what makes it so good. This is a book I’ll be thinking about for a while.

𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸

❝𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑. 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝙸 𝚍𝚎𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎? 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑. 𝙸 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚞𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗. 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚊𝚛 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚍𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚖𝚊𝚗.❞

𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒𓏸𓂃 𓈒

[inciminci · Rating 4 out of 5]

While an accurate cover text for a book is a success for the writer of that description and undoubtedly fulfills its purpose, I have to admit that a cover description which is accurate to a fault gives away pretty much all the book is about, that can dampen the final opinion even though all expectations are met, but there has been nothing more than what the description gives. That is the case for me with Jade Song's Chlorine.

Chlorine is a dark coming-of-age narrative about Ren Yu who is in the swimming team in her school and that team makes up all of her world, she doesn't really have anything else going on for her. She is wildly ambitious to be the best, to be mermaid-like and her family and coach fuel that ambition without really realizing what kind of mental disorder they have been creating and feeding. The book touches upon many weighty subjects such as immigration, the pressure and expectations put on young women's bodies, sapphic longing, and of course, transformation, which enrichens the reading experience despite the predictibility of the plot. That predictability ultimately wasn’t really a problem for me, I enjoyed reading this anyway. The dual narration split between Ren's and her teammate Cathy's points of view was actually well done and furthers the pace nicely.

A shocking surprise for me was that I actually liked reading a story about a bunch of teenagers in a sports team environment, eating a lot of food so they have the energy to maintain their athletic levels and going through hormone changes a lot.
Congratulations Jade Song, that's quite the achievement in itself, I would say.

[Grace C · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot believe every time I finish a book and think “that’s the most incoherent prose I’ve ever read in my life” I come to this godforsaken website and see pages of 4 and 5 star reviews praising the writing as sharp and insightful and witty.

[hime · Rating 3 out of 5]

I leave this book feeling meh, in that there is potential, but it doesn’t quite reach the mark of greatness. The fact that it is marketed as a dark, magic-realism-esque, girl-reclaims-her-body-and-selfhood narrative, but is, at its core, an unabashedly, culturally American high school athlete story, makes the mermaid aspect hard to believe.

That said, I’m not sure it’s even supposed to be “real,” because, in my opinion, Ren’s story reads as mentally ill daughter of immigrant parents displays side effects of being a mentally ill daughter of immigrant parents. If mermaids are supposed to be real, more attention should have been given to developing that than Ren’s life as a contemporary high school human.

In terms of the overarching narrative, the stakes could have been built a little higher. This book is a short read, and while I got a sense of the ick Ren felt toward her swim coach, for example, she didn’t express enough of this ickiness to make her desire to flee feel absolutely necessary. And there’s some addressing of that, of Ren not lingering on these “human” problems that make them so “weak,” an association she doesn’t want to have, but her yearning for mermaid-hood doesn’t feel dire either, the narration of her desires falling flat for me, in that they merely state her wants rather than delving into them. And while the “plot twist” is certainly jarring, it doesn’t work to convince me of her desires because it stands alone without the support of the narrative build-up to make the turning point understandable and essential.

Overall, I came out of my reading of this book feeling like I knew and empathized with Cathy, the supporting character, more than Ren, the protagonist. And maybe that’s purposeful, but with the narrative framed around Ren, I’d like to understand and feel for her and her motivations first.

Tl;dr: This book is promising, but there could have been more to make it stronger.

[siu · Rating 5 out of 5]

this coming-of-age story is horrifying and beautiful. the writing and imagery, UNMATCHED. adding jade song to the list of authors i fear... ren yu's obsessive character was so interesting to read and the body horror in this book... i had to take breaks bc holy shit it was intense. phenomenal debut.

[Niharika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Guess what, you mermaids? It's a win for us humans that this narcissistic whiny bitch with a God complex decided to forsake her humanity and go waggle her tail somewhere deep in the sea.

[emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

sure, become a mermaid because of the weight of bigotry in the world...but do you have to be SO DRAMATIC about it.

i loved the idea of this book so much (satirical ish literary horror about a swimming star who chooses to become a mermaid because of the weight of misogyny and homophobia and racism), but the execution...not so much!

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.

otherwise it tended more toward melodrama and hit-you-over-the-head themes and arguments. here's an example, when our protagonist has recently sustained a head injury and is conspicuously refusing to answer her doctor's very normal question (how's the pain):
"He misunderstood.

How was I supposed to differentiate between the pain due to the concussion and the pain due to the agony of everyday human life?"

yikes.

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 cannot stand being talked down to as a reader, especially for themes as simple as "bigotry abounds."

bottom line: my biggest, hardest NOPE in a while!

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certain books come along and I know within the first few pages that they will be favorites. Coming-of-age books have a special advantage. I listened to this book. The narrator, Catherine Ho, did an amazing job.
I also loved the POV of the love letters in a bottle narrated by Imani Parks. This kind of gave me Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh vibes but for a YA crowd in the way that we, the readers/audience, are very much inside the MCs head and have an intimate peek inside what makes this character tick without a filter. It's very raw, personal, and emotional--even awkward and to much sometimes, which makes it weird and great (just like Moshfegh)
anyhoo, full review soon

[casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

captivating and unique debut i found myself really sinking into as it went on. fully biased because im already predisposed to enjoy any story looking at the female condition that ties in freak aquatic shit, but the way this unravelled with that horror-adjacent element to it was really cool.

[may ➹]

a book in which “she decides that to achieve her dreams she must become a mermaid, by any means necessary, no matter the blood she’ll spill, or the cost she’ll pay” and it’s sapphic and Asian?? a win for gaysians everywhere

[☆ juno · Rating 5 out of 5]

y’all wanna play mermaids until i pull up with my obsessive, off-putting personality and hatred for men…okay

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
I loved this dark and twisted literary coming of age story. I have a soft spot for female driven sports narratives and this is one of the best. This novel felt very reminiscent of the work of Megan Abbott who also writes these cutting sports stories.

I loved the biting representation of female maturity intersecting with a queer Asian experience. The story is nuanced, slow and quiet. The horror doesn't come to the front of the story until the end, but the story had a subtle form of horror threaded through every chapter.

This is so different from most of the widely commercial horror and thriller books that I read which made it feel particularly fresh. I would recommend this one to anyone looking for a cutting dark narrative.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from LibroFM. Here's my referral link if you are interested in an audiobook trial: https://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm...

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Catherine Ho and Imani Parks
…..8 hours and 9 minutes

“Chlorine” is a strong ….. debut novel.
Jade Song wrote a magnificent original literary-horror stricken coming-of-age story that examines how brutal the pressures of society can be for young girls….
It’s dark—but it’s relevant….

I found it incredibly intoxicating - fairy-tale-ish….grimly….entertaining fantastic!!!
The issues are serious….
but the storytelling is beautifully...horrifying brilliant!!!
I didn’t ‘feel’ shocked-to-my-core.
I understand and empathize (already) the pressures on young girls….
….heavy expectations from parents, teachers, peers, fitting in, body issues, the right clothes, beautifications,
and the endless emotional anxieties associated with trying to measure up to ridiculously high standards.

I understood the over-all contextual relevance and it’s novel importance.
Hell, I lived through some of these things myself.
I admire, respect, and enjoyed Jade Song’s mystifying mermaid symbolic story…. with fascinating mythology armor.
I loved the voice of seventeen year old Ren.
From her Asian family conformity to the chlorinated pool as a competitive star swimmer…. to her steady climb to independence….
(even a little inspiration from a group of pot-smoking skinny dipping non-goal-oriented kids, enlightened sparks of rebellious possibilities)….
Ren Yu is memorable luminary protagonist.

Beware….
….of a body-bloody-self-harm scene ….
….of a sexually suggestive visual description …..
abusive familiar themes …..creepiness,
squirmy skin scratching scenes ….
as well as an admiration for the substantial poignant freshness …
….a terrific supporting cast of characters….
….and a very real look at the horrors of growing up.
I simply loved it!

As for Jade Song….
…. I’m already looking forward to her next book.
Congrats to her on this one … Fabulous job!!!

Note - This is clearly not a book for everyone. But for those who have a swimming allure - an elite athlete inside you - can tolerate a little horror- with purpose and substantial themes - then swim these laps and give it your best dive!

[Jan Agaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

PENELOPE 😍

this one's for fans of Our Wives Under the Sea but make it commentary on Asian culture in terms of the commonality of mental health being "all in your head" and intense parental expectations

[Krissy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three or so pages into this book I thought to myself, oh okay, this is going to be a two-star review, and only because my one-stars are purely reserved for Haruki Murakami. But with every chapter. Every chapter. This book tested me and that rule I've made for myself. But in the end, I've decided to be generous since I do like the concept, as poorly executed as I found it, and because there was no 'The woman breasted boobily down the stairs, her bosom jumping with every step' (though we did come close at some points -- we get it, Ren has abs.)

I would've loved a different exploration of those same concepts because I find body horror to be such an effective and interesting genre within horror and when you add to it girlhood as a vicious rite of passage, the rejection of that, and the promised sapphic longing... this book could've been so good. And it wasn't.

Mind you, I don't mind all that much that said sapphic longing was heavily one-sided, manipulative and frankly, probably a total of ten combined pages. I'm cool, I'm hip, I like a bit of 'toxic yuri' as the kids call it, so I can forgive all those things. What I can't forgive was the cringe -- and I hate using that word so you know it's bad. Someone in another review said it's giving Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and it's so true, except there's nothing quite as iconic and fun about Ren. She sucks, which is fine since not every character needs to be likeable, but if the entire book is going to be from her POV, I need to at least enjoy her as a character, which I didn't. She sucks.

I tried to excuse it in the beginning by thinking she was meant to be a young child (though she most definitely didn't talk like one -- more on that in a sec) but by the final chapters she's meant to be what, 18? Sorry, I don't speak American, but it was my understanding she's in her late teens at least. So you'd think she'd be marginally less of a nightmare. You'd be wrong.

On the note of character voices, they don't exist. Everyone speaks how Jade Song wants them to. Cathy is shy and timid (which I didn't even think until a third of the way Ren goes 'Cathy is so shy and timid' like,,, ok? I guess?) but she's only that when the book needs her to be. The rest of the time she's writing love letters, talking like she's some sort of John Green character. And she says nourishing and nourishment, as does Ren. Multiple times. Girl if you don't put that thesaurus down.

I could keep going on but I think my point is clear tbh. I didn't like this. The only reason I finished it was because I love being an annoying hater.

(Also, there was a mention of the Blue Eyes White Dragon -- from the Academy Award-winning, Nobel Prize-nominated show, Yu Gi Oh -- as an allegory for whiteness and white people. Which I don't hate, it just made me... blink a bit.)

[Briana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m really disappointed by this one. Chlorine by Jade Song seemed like a book that I would really be interested in but my rule is that if I DNF it because I’m not into it and have no desire to return to it at a later date, then it’s getting one star. This book has body horror, sapphic romance, and mermaids… to a point and that’s cool and all, but it just didn’t hit the beats I needed.

I was powering through the editing relatively OK, it was an okay-ish read but then graphic sexual content from the perspective of what was meant to be a minor was too much for me to stomach. As an adult, I just don’t care to read the perspective of kids having sex or about how much they enjoy fucking. That’s not to say I only read content where teenagers are chaste virgins, it’s just when the narration is meant to be from someone currently at that age where we know their inner thoughts, then it’s just not something I want to read about.

The “sapphic romance” mainly consists of the main character stringing along her best friend for no reason, only reaching out for a deeper connection with that best friend in moments of need. For example, she blows her off to have unprotected sex with this guy and only hits up her friend when she wants someone to come with her to get a pregnancy test. Later in the book, she ghosts this friend for a while and the friend is blamed for something awful that happens to the main character with another guy. The friend is then left wondering what she did to the main character.

I didn’t enjoy the writing. I didn’t enjoy the story. There’s not much about this book that I particularly enjoy at all. I do like the author though. Jade Song (she/they) has a nice social media presence, they seem cool and maybe with more maturity, I’ll read a better book by them. I like their love of Wong Kar-Wai and Leslie Cheung films because same.

Most of all, this book felt like it was trying to be something that it wasn’t. It was like reading one of those dark, edgy, cool girl litfic books (my guilty pleasure) without the finesse flowery writing that I actually think is okay from time to time. It also lacked anything of interest happening for most of this book, perhaps the lack of relatable late-millennial/older Gen-Z depression is what took me out of it. I like literary fiction about mid/late-20s and 30-something-year-olds who are bitter, depressed, angry, and slightly murderous.

Anyway, I don’t want to dump on this book too much because it just wasn’t for me and that’s that. Maybe it’s for someone else, I’m currently in the minority. I don’t want people to pass on reading this book, it’s just not what I thought it would be. After reading more reviews on this, it’s been compared to books that I also don’t like so it makes sense why I didn’t enjoy this.

[Celine Ong · Rating 5 out of 5]

OR NOR CLEOR THE CONDENSATION

weird girls run this world

[frankie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75
i appreciated the themes but the writing just didn’t do it for me. wished it was more horror like it sets itself out to be
i wanted more from this book 💔
but i know this is jade songs debut so i’m hoping her writing skill improves because i do think she’s got the basic symbolism, exploration of themes, and character dynamics down