Thankfully, the story lives up to the name in its execution. Intriguing and honestly just quite fun to say. It followed all the beats I expected it to and while the ending was satisfying enough it didn’t challenge me in the same way the other stories did.įirst of all, what a brilliant name for a story. This story was perhaps the only one without that sense of mystery and I always felt like I was certain of where it was headed. This, of all the stories, felt the safest to me. One of the most enjoyable things about this collection is how it consistently kept me on my toes and kept me guessing at what was coming next. Cue Jenny (our heartbroken woman) watching Frankenstein and forming a devilish plan. It is the story of a woman going through heartbreak, burning her ex’s stuff and lamenting with her friends that they can’t just build the perfect man. That’s not to say it isn’t great, but more because it has such strong stories to compete. This, the third story in the collection, is perhaps my least favourite. The ending is surprisingly tender and left me with a real sense of melancholy which was hard to shake. It is joint with two other stories as being the longest in the collection and the extra length allows the story to be fleshed out. This story is very different to MANTIS and an interesting pace change for the second story of the collection. I won’t spoil the concept because it is so unique and enjoyable to discover it as you read. It feels like it was written in one, coffee drenched evening on the edge of hysteria. Next up is a story about sleep or more specifically, the lack of sleep. The ending is tremendous, if a little predictable, and it has all the beats I want from a good, scary story without in any way becoming cliché. We have all felt uncomfortable in our own skin, felt like we stand out for all the wrong reasons and Armfield presents these feelings in a vivid and unforgettable way. What I really like about this story is that the concept is so relatable. As the story unwinds and the main character attends a party, events take a turn for the gruesome.

She is compared to a leper and a burn victim in just the first couple of pages. The story is about a young woman who suffers terribly with her skin. In this story, notions of beauty, transformation and puberty are all explored through a darkly comic tale. The first story perfectly capturing the rest of the collection. The collection starts off as it means to go on. You might enjoy short story collections by reading the stories at random or reading them in order but either way this review should have what you are looking for. In this review, I will be touching upon each story, before giving my overall impression of the collection. ‘salt slow’ is the debut collection from Julia Armfield.

Salt slow julia armfield