Book Review: Chlorine by Jade Song

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“Humans and monsters both understand stories about magic and marvel and myth are made interesting by their stemming from trauma and violence and blood. How can one grow without pain?”

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Chlorine is a literary horror/coming-of-age tale that follows high school swimmer Ren Yu as she trains to become the best in hopes of earning a college scholarship. Living alone with her supportive but financially strapped mother after her father returns to China, Ren exists in a claustrophobically insular environment composed of a domineering, volatile, and abusive coach and intense, ignorant, and racist teammates who leave her feeling like an outsider. No one — not Ren’s well-meaning mother, nor her one close friend and teammate, Cathy — truly knows how Ren feels, thinks, or sees herself.

Through years of grueling training — including savage team pool “games” that often result in bruises and carnage — Ren comes to learn that her body is not her own, but rather her coach’s to torture and sculpt as he sees fit. At the same time that it enables her to perform magnificent swimming feats, her body revolts, and she struggles with the horrific realities of womanhood, endless months littered with loveless sexual encounters and invaded by violent, gory, intensely painful menstrual cycles.

While Ren outwardly goes through the motions, enduring and sacrificing in her attempt to succeed, she inwardly dreams of her ideal future, one where she transcends her weak, human form for that of her powerful, true form: the mermaid. Having grown up on mythical siren tales, Ren believes that she will finally be free, and will attain happiness and acceptance once she trades her legs for a tail — an unhinged obsession that fuels a descent into madness rife with tension, teen angst, and gruesome body horror.

Chlorine is a disturbing, immersive read imbued with a dark, at times blunt and razor-sharp writing style reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, also a story of mental health, isolation, unhappiness, and self-flagellation. Packing an incredible punch in under 300 pages, this debut is an intense, haunting, and impactful story of generational trauma, abuse, racism, longing, and defiance, one in which a young woman will stop at nothing to attain her dream and her freedom, no matter the cost. This book is an incredible and horrifying read, and, one can only hope, the first of many books Jade Song writes in the future.

❤Amanda

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