Chlorine: A Novel

Product Information

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. The final result of this is that Ren does earn her tail, but not by any supernatural force. Instead, she sews her legs together in a climactic scene that is Song’s writing at its most revulsive and sumptuous. Crucially, this moment is described not merely as a visceral account of physical extremity, but as a prolonged, psychically sublime process that forces us to consider how freedom and punishment are perhaps inextricable. How what we want to believe will unfetter us might never be totally distinct from the violent forces of the world; but is tainted too, and therefore has a shredded, carnal beauty.

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. 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. Ren, being an immigrant’s daughter with a father that lives in a different continent, is shaped to become the person everyone influential in her life expected her to be. Though Ren herself doesn’t know who she wants to become; her identity is put on the shelf multiple times as she is put under enormous pressure. Song writes Ren’s story with masterful skill pushing Ren slowly to the edge with incredibly engaging prose. The slow ascent to unhinged madness as Ren is whipped to reality by the disappointments of her coach, peers, and family; pushes her to embrace the identity formed by her delusions.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. 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." 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.

Though Song leaves much to the reader’s imagination, I personally saw this novel as a tender story of a lonely outcast girl who just wanted to transcend into a body which revelled in power not pain. I absolutely loved the way the ending leaves the reader to decide Ren’s fate. Was she finally free? 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. 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.Transformation, whether supernatural or not, is often riddled with loss and difficulty, and Jade Song boldly refuses to let us forget that.” — Xtra Magazine 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. Chlorine is a fantastic debut book of up and coming writer Jade Song. The story is a modern and twisted coming of age mermaid inspired story about a competitive swimmer, Ren Yu, as she attempts to reach the expectations of her immigrant mother all the while going through puberty and achieve swimming greatness under the brutal coaching of a demanding trainer. It is a story that highlights the pressures of being a teenager struggling coming to terms with womanhood and shouldering the expectations of a high achieving student wanting to please everyone in their life.

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.' 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. What feels unique about Chlorine is that it’s told not in the present, but from the future, by a mermaid Ren who has already shed her “pain… from remaining human.” Song writes in a prosaic style that is blunt and confessional while still strikingly detached. It’s clear from the outset that Ren is not speaking from the familiar perspective of an outsider Asian teen, but also as an immortally higher being. “Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human,” she tells us in a contemptuous aside, refuting cultural assumptions of the mermaid as powerless, or ashamed of their physiological difference.AND ALSO!!! Can I just say the sapphic longing and yearning was awesome and I love Ren and Cathy so much, especially how each of their characters plays a key role in one another. Mermaids are having a moment in the cultural slipstream: Chlorine sees a high school swimmer go to drastic lengths to assume what she believes is her true form... The creatures have traded languid hair combing for power brokering on their own terms. It's a welcome tidal shift." 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. 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

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. You must know by now my mermaid tale is no such joyful narrative. And you would not be interested in this story if it were.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.