Chlorine by Jade Song is a horror fiction novel that mixes genres and timelines which ultimately makes you question what is real and what is imagined. The novel follows a young girl named Ren who is a competitive swimmer in her high school team and is fully convinced that she is a mermaid. After reading about mermaids and their lore as a child, she becomes convinced that she actually is one too and needs to figure out how to rejoin her roots. She has issues with her social life, a complicated relationship with her mother, and is battling potential feelings for her best friend, Cathy. We follow Ren throughout her childhood and adolescence, and follow her mental journey throughout her “discovery” of her true identity, a mermaid.
This novel is both a grotesque body horror novel and a contemporary coming-of-age story, with Ren as the central figure to both aspects. Song expertly flows between genres throughout the novel, and the story does not suffer from the conflicting clash of genre. The central question of the novel is whether or not Ren is actually a mermaid or if it is a figment of her imagination. Song leaves multiple clues within the text for the argument to go either way, even if it is never ultimately answered. Song uses both horror aspects and coming-of-age themes to explore this idea and discover what is actually happening.
Chlorine also explores the theme of insurmountable pressure laid upon young adults. The novel focuses on both pressures on young athletes by everyone around them and strong academic demand from parents who wish for their children to be the best that they can be, and even better than that. However, the central theme of the entire novel is identity and transformation. Song uses the metaphor of the “mermaid” to explore this. Ren is in a tumultuous time in her life where pressures seem to be amounting and every relationship around her seems to be breaking. She is unable to reconcile with the difficulties of every aspect of her life, but she seems to be resolute in her conviction that she doesn’t belong among the human world, and she needs to return to the ocean with the rest of the mermaid community.
While I admit that this book was a bit out of my comfort zone, it was an interesting and enjoyable exploration into this genre. It was accessible to read, even if the prose was not a typical style. This book is also very short but packs an impact with its limited pages. I also think that the shortness of the novel works in the story’s favor as it evokes a feeling of stress within the reader, mirroring what Ren is feeling throughout. If the book was longer, I think it would lose its ability to remain purposefully unclear about the truth of Ren’s situation. It would eventually become obvious whether Ren was correct or if the mermaid identity was just a delusion she took on.
However, I will say that the writing style will be a divisive factor of the novel. It is creative and sometimes nebulous, which sometimes worked for me and didn’t at other times. I also want to mention that those who are not a fan of body horror or graphic descriptions of violence, both physical and sexual, may not be a fan of the book. Even though it was a novel that I never saw myself picking up, I still recommend Chlorine if you want to branch out into more experimental books and explore a new style of novel.
