Salt Slow

Average Rating Per Story: 4.0 Stars (9 Stories)

Favorite story: Formally Feral. This was a stand-out one for me; it was of good length and hella disturbing. Par for the course when it comes to this collection. I loved our MC, who is not popular or pleasant. Another par for the course. Aspects of this story have stuck with me since I've read it. The wolf idea freaks me out, an animal slowly becoming a possessive, weird sister. I don't know how, but it was painted somewhat realistically, making it frightening. Don't keep wild animals as pets, y'all. It's just not a good idea.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

My least favorite story: Smack. this one didn't hit me in any way. It's about a woman getting over her divorce. She's never taken care of herself before. So she's living in filth and holed up in her ex's beach house. I didn't connect with her at any point. I don't know what the story was trying to prove. It was gross and feminist, but she felt more pathetic to me than anything. The ending felt cliche as well. 2/5 stars

Overall Impressions: Armfield reminds me of the two Eric LaRocca books I've read. She almost solely writes disturbing characters and prose. I don't think I could come up with gross details like hers even if I wanted to. The significant difference is Armfield writes tremendous feministic stories. Every story in this collection has a female MC, and every single one isn't your cookie-cutter stereotypical girl. I found beauty in this and liked that this collection had a voice. Some stories were better than others, which is what will happen when you read a collection. But I liked the book overall.

"Stop your women's ears with wax" was a close second in my favorites, although I won't leave a full review. I found the cultish feministic story about the power of music and mob mentality to ring with me. It was a hard decision between that and "Formally Feral" as my favorite. "Salt Slow" was also very good, although I felt it hard to connect with the main character. The world-building was vivid and imaginative.

I can only take this type of writing in small doses. I can't connect with it enough to want to read it more than once in a while. It is fun, though, and as always, I'm trying to broaden my metaphorical horizons. This was the second short story collection I've ever finished, and it takes its place at number one for the time being.