Chlorine: A Novel

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I’m very thankful to Cristina Bacchilega and Marie Alohalani Brown for their book The Penguin Book of Mermaids ! I loved the story of the Chinese mermaid whose body was covered with fine hair of many beautiful colors—I like to imagine it’s the mermaid version of rainbow armor. Song’s harrowing novel subverts the standards of merfolk lore — clamshell bras, underwater kingdoms, the love of a sailor or prince. 'For too long you’ve been inundated by G-rated fairy tales,' Ren says. She is not beneficent or seductive; she’s ruthless and mutilated." 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.”

I think I have been waiting my whole life for this book — for someone to write adolescence like the body horror it is, with all of the cultural specificity of being a Chinese American girl, simply bursting at the seams with sapphic longing. Jade Song’s writing is gruesomely lyrical, contrasting the sublime with the deeply disturbing. There were several points where this book almost made me throw up, and I mean that as a high compliment." Probably one of the darkest and most twisted books over the year, this coming-of-age story of a young Chinese swimmer and her dream of becoming of mermaid is the stuff of both dreams and nightmares."Chlorineis not for the faint of heart. Fierce and visceral, it seethes with rage and pain and the urgency of transformation. There are no pretty mermaids wearing seashell bras here, but readers open to sinking into darker waters will be captivated." 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.

and the endless emotional anxieties associated with trying to measure up to ridiculously high standards. I didn’t intend for Chlorine to be horror because many of the horrors in the novel—for example, blood pouring out of a body because of menstruation; body horror because of self-harm; stalkerish shadows because of abuses of power—already exist in real life. These horrors are real! I suppose Chlorine is contemporary horror because the novel is gory and creepy and disturbing, but I think reality is gory and creepy and disturbing. I’m not sure how to sugar-coat these experiences or pretend it doesn’t happen. People bleed, people self-harm, people are abusive. People hurt others even when they’re trying to love. So, to me, Chlorine is both contemporary horror and contemporary literary fiction. To be honest, it kinda makes me giggle when people are like, oh, this was really hard to read, because in my head, I’m just like, well, many of my friends and I, we lived it. Sometimes it’s really hard to live. Life is the horror genre. Transformation, whether supernatural or not, is often riddled with loss and difficulty, and Jade Song boldly refuses to let us forget that.” — Xtra Magazine We mutilated our hair, cultivating our arm leg pit vagina hair for months like farmers growing wheat, until we cropped it off i

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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. Part body horror, part science fiction, part queer teenage romance, Song’s debut novel dives into the deep end of bodily and psychological metamorphosis—but it’s not for the faint of heart.

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. You excellently explore themes of identity, peer pressure, body dysmorphia and sapphic longing. How important was it to you to represent these issues that a lot of young people face?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. Now let’s discuss your splashingly eye-catching cover! (Sorry, I had to add at least one swimming pun!) How involved in the process were you? Was there a particular aesthetic you hoped the artist would portray? 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.

With their debut novel, Song presents a beautiful and horrific coming-of-age story about the power of transcendence to become who you truly are.” — This is Horror 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 Ren’s voice takes some time to get used to, but once the reader relaxes into the novel’s cadence, her narration adds an important, subtle layer to the story of Ren’s girlhood and eventual transformation. The plot, too, takes time to settle into. The first half of the book is more or less plotless, as the reader follows Ren throughout the various stages of her teenage life in an almost episodic way, patiently waiting for the mermaid transformation they’ve been promised. Although this promise falters occasionally as a driving force for the narrative, it pays off in the book’s latter half: Ren’s carefully planned school year devolves into athletic failures, psychological spirals, and eventually a horrific act of bodily violence. The other characters that became a fundamental part of Ren’s transformation and growth are written with equal care. Song’s intent to push Ren through the side characters was so deliberate and precise. There are goosebumps all over as I see the shift in Ren’s conscience and demeanour taking effect. One of the side characters that is a tool in helping Ren is her best friend, Cathy. Their relationship is one of the highlights of the story for me. I love how Song weaved in a sapphic plot line through Cathy. She has been loyal to Ren ever since they were young and she continued to be so up until the end. In a way Cathy enabled Ren’s fantasy to become a reality as a result of her infatuation and loyalty. Cathy’s longing for Ren’s affection is intense and palpable that the tension is so high, as a reader I could feel it through my bones.In the vein of The Piscesand The Vegetarian, Chlorineis 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. Jade Song is an art director, artist, and author of CHLORINE (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2023), their debut novel about a swimmer-turned-mermaid, lauded by Publishers Weekly as “visionary and disturbing.” Other writing is published in Teen Vogue, The Missouri Review, and various literary magazines. 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. Major themes which Song explores are identity, peer pressure and how culture plays a significant part. For example Ren idolises Faye Wong, her and her mother’s favourite Hong Kong musician and actress, yet her swim team friends like Bon Jovi and Journey, therefore Ren’s passions are lost on them. In the midst of hormones and trying to fit in, Ren’s life is filled with a lot of toxic damaging experiences. Yet there is some light, in the form of a red haired girl called Cathy. Their blossoming friendship and their sapphic longing is raw and turbulent, but holds such sweet moments. Though even Cathy cannot hold the darkness at bay and as the pressures rise from her swimming coach and from her mother, when she cannot meet their expectations and ultimately begins to fail, we see the toll it takes on Ren’s mental health. The way Ren copes with life, the way she’s always coped really, is to only visualise succeeding in her studies and swimming meets as ‘human’ tasks which will eventually fulfil her goal to becoming a true body of the water. 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: