chlorine: black swan meets aapi month
- paigenherbooks
- Aug 8, 2024
- 6 min read
3/5
Wow - hello, long time no see. I missed you.
It’s been a crazy year (honestly should write a whole review on THAT) and sadly these reviews and honestly my hobbies have fallen to the backest back burner. August is my month where I’m re-starting, trying to get back into the groove of being an actual functioning person, so get ready. Today, in the year 2025 of our Lord, we’re reviewing the book I read for AAPI (American Asian Pacific Islander) in MAY.
A wee behind, but better late than never right??
Chlorine was gross. It was a lyrical masterpiece of prose that made my stomach churn multiple times while also giving such an exhaustive look of what it means to be a girl in the world. Touching on themes of girlhood, perfectionism and never reaching it, being misunderstood and used, as well as the connotations of growing up as an Asian-American and what that means. Chlorine will be a story I never forget but one I don’t think I’ll return to.
Synopsis: Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.
But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Ones that called sailors to their doom. Ones that dragged them down and drowned them. Ones that feasted on their flesh. Ones of the creature that she's always longed to become: mermaid.
The story of Chlorine is one that follows an unreliable narrator who at times - you almost can’t help but believe their delusion. Falling prey to the masterful way they are telling the story, crafting which words to insight confusion and mystique. Told from the perspective of her adult self Ren Yu seems like a normal girl (the most interesting girls always do). She’s an Asian-American highschooler who has a few friends, a seemingly loving family and loves swimming.
Ren also loves mermaids.
Ren loves mermaids so much that in a Black Swan level psychotic break, Ren is convinced she is a mermaid–this is what the story of Chlorine follows.
Jade Song can write one hell of a novel and Chlorine is nothing short if not a large metaphor for what it feels like to grow up as a girl (cue “girl, so confusing” by Charlie XCX) but also the nuances and pain points of growing up as an Asian-American girl. The complexities that come with not only having two cultures but feeling as if one is always on display and critiqued. The way in which Song showcases Ren sometimes rejecting that part of her, doing what the other kids at school (mostly white) want her to do – trying not to be “too weird” in regards to her music, her food choices, what she likes to do and her parents, you start to see this level of resentment.
Resentment towards her family for making her this way per se, and her classmates for not taking the time to even understand that part of her, this creates a deep feeling of “othering” within Ren which stems her downfall.
This feeling of not belonging to either “side” creates this thought process that perhaps she is different, not of this world, different. That she is so different that she is something else entirely. It’s the only way she can explain why she feels so misunderstood, why none of these “mere mortals” can begin to get on her level. It’s not because they are stupid highschoolers, or just crass idiots who don’t care about anyone else but themselves, no, it’s simply because she is a mermaid and they are not. She is something above them, something mystical, something they truly could never understand.
By feeding this notion of her “otherness” Ren starts to find herself. Letting things roll off her back, not taking judgements or snide remarks to heart because she is simply different. Song obviously uses this theme as a metaphor for how it feels to grow up with a rich identity in multiple cultures. To feel like you truly don’t belong anywhere fully and the crushing pain that can come with that. By rejecting both and paving her own way Ren is able to understand and honestly cope with her severe loneliness, it’s the only thing that makes her feel included in her identity, by being a totally different one.
Song also showcases the idea of perfectionism and being “enough” with Ren’s story. Ren is a swimmer – a damn good one too. Being the best swimmer is her only claim to the fame, the only thing she originally has on everyone else. The one thing she is desperately holding on to, though when she can’t compete at the exact same level and slightly fails, she unravels. Combine this with a slight concussion you have birthed one of the nastiest and gut turning scenes I have ever read (not counting American Psycho that book is DISGUSTING). Ren takes matters into her own hands, decides that to be perfect she must become perfect.
How does she do that?
By fulfilling her true identity, by growing into who she really is.
A mermaid.
A bathroom shower, a knife, and some stitches before a swim meet…I’ll let you fill in the rest. Though its disgusting and obviously psychotic theres this sense of ease and melancholy surrounding the scene. It’s the buildup of Ren finally feeling like herself, feeling that she finally belongs. That she can prove to everyone that she can do this, she can and is the best, that she is brave enough to show her true colors. Her very dark red stained colors. This feeling of pressure of not being enough is something every person can relate to. The feeling of being under water and not being able to come up for air–it begs the question of how far would you go to make your parents proud. How far would you go to become the best version of yourself. How far would you go?
The question is haunting as it is reflective.
Everyone knows I love a good raging feminist of a character. The type who eat boys for breakfast, a real Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body type and Chlorine delivered with Ren Yu. With her sharp wit and budding perfectionism combined with her distaste for mortal men and her increasingly alarming crush on her best friend Chlorine delivers an unreliable narrator served on a silver platter. I loved it. I always will. Seeing a story through such a jaded perspective that you know the main character has quite frankly lost their marbles and is el loco, but you are still rooting for them in some disfigured way.
Ren Yu isn’t inherently a bad or a good person but she is crazy. Mentally ill with a side of psychosis. Seeing the story through her eyes was hauntingly enjoyable. Getting to hear how insane she sounded but at the same time feeling such a deep sadness for her and how she was feeling is something that connected me to her. I remember being a teenage girl, how lonely it is, how it felt like I would do anything to fit in. How turning to books was my only escape and times constructing that I was something else entirely, something the people of my hometown just couldn’t understand. This chaining feeling of growing up of coming of age, of getting curves and your period, of liking boys but also being in love with your best friend, of hating your parents, but missing them at the same time is a swirling and nauseating feeling. One that feels like the only way to get rid of is to simply disappear.
Chlorine was nauseatingly good. Punchy prose, lyrical mysticism, one crazy female protagonist, and one of the most abrupt endings I’ve ever read she earned her 3 stars loud and proud. A novel that is so much more than a book about a girl who likes mermaids.
If you’re into asking your friends “wanna play mermaids” at the local pool, love a sapphic friendship, and can stand in depth descriptions of body horror, Chlorine is the novel for you.
Thank you for reading, I'll see you soon :)
xoxo,
paige
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