Book 1: Salt
Source: Christmas present I'm finally getting to
Life before Company was good; but Company came with guns and destroyed the city and built their own on the ruins, leaving the citizens to live in the rubble left. Hari lives in the destroyed city with his father Tarl, in Blood Burrow, where eating rats and crawling through slimy holes is an everyday occurrence. Then Company clerks come to collect workers, and Tarl is caught. When he tries to escape, he is branded as a worker meant for Deep Salt, the mine that no worker ever comes out of. Hari decides to follow to free Tarl before it is too late.
On the other side of the coin is Pearl, whose family is Company. She is fleeing from a forced marriage to a randy old goat with her maid Tealeaf, who is a Dweller and has taught her how to speak with her mind and control others, something Hari has also learned to do. The two meet accidentally as they flee the city and join forces (reluctantly at first). Together, they plan to reach Tealeaf's village and launch a rescue for Tarl.
This is a very cool book. The idea of Salt is absolutely freaky (especially the mutant rats that chase them through caves, gross!). I haven't yet read a book that involves the negative after-effects of imperialism, but it certainly echoes the ideas of European colonialism. White-skinned Company comes across the sea with guns to destroy the lives of the dark-skinned natives. Hari has to get over his natural instinct to kill anyone white-skinned, and Pearl has to get over belittling anyone who isn't Company. Both undergo significant development and mature as they continue along their journey. This was a story as much about coming of age as it was a story about a dystopian future. Even though the writing and plot itself seem simplistic at times (the world building, for instance, is very basic), there is plenty for you to think about. There is more to this story than initially meets the eye; I love that this book made me think about it after I read it.
Pearl and Hari were great lead characters. Their meeting was really rocky to begin with, but it wasn't all magically fixed once they realized they were working towards the same basic thing. Hari especially has a lot of emotional scarring from how he grew up, and they had to grapple with some big trust issues before they became loyal to each other. Tealeaf was the mediator and helped them learn how to live off the land (i.e. they would have died in a few days of starvation without her) and how to find themselves in such a miserable world.
It took a little while to adjust to the writing. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. I'm not totally fond of it, but I was able to adjust. It's appropriate in its seeming simplicity (for lack of a better word: basically, not really rich and luscious, but to-the-point), since their world is stripped to the bare essentials. Everything is focused on Hari's drive to find Tarl, and on sealing Salt and keeping the mysterious substance from the power of Company. I do like really sumptuous world building and story-telling, but this was a really refreshing read.
Overall, Salt is a bizarre and fascinating story. I liked the characters, and that the entire plot was driven by their drive for changing their world as much as possible. Pearl and Hari underwent significant development as they matured and came to care for each other. The story was well-paced. It wasn't my favorite read of all time, but I definitely enjoyed it.
Grade: 3.5/5
Book 2: Gool
Source: Also a Christmas present
As if Salt wasn't a freaky enough invention, the Gool is from a completely different world (literally). Hari and Pearl have built a life of peace for themselves and their children, a village made of people who hear the same voice that they do. This peace is ruined when they discover the Gool, a monstrous thing that attacks and eats anything that comes near. Hari is touched by it, and a piece wraps itself around his throat and begins to kill him slowly. Based on a story Tealeaf tells them, Xantee and Lo, Hari's children, and Duro, their friend, set out to the city from their parents' past to find books that might help them kill the Gool.
Like Salt, this book is fueled almost solely by the characters' drive to fix a life-or-death situation involving their father and by the need to fix a great wrong in the world. The plot of this story had a little more traveling in it than did Salt; it was a little less action, but it also helped flesh the world out a bit more. Once the action picked up, though, it was fast-paced until the end. I really liked how the story both continued the first book's story and also echoed it, without it being really overdone. I didn't feel like this was Salt retold with the kids.
What I liked about Salt, I also liked about Gool: the characters, their development, the pacing, the story itself. For some reason, though, I liked the writing style slightly less, maybe because the middle section of the story was less action-packed (again, it's not just a repeat of the first book). Still, it wasn't too hard to look past.
I can't think of an elegant way to describe the Gool, other than it is really freaking whacky. As if the thing itself wasn't crazy enough, the reason it exists is really nuts (it's really cool, once they piece the puzzle together). Then there's the icky part where they fight the thing…God, the visual images I got from the descriptions were disturbing. It was an absolutely fascinating scene, although I rushed through to get to the end (I couldn't help it) and I didn't sit and grapple with everything that happened in that scene-the ending is definitely something to reread and ponder over, which is cool.
Like Salt, the story is deceptively simple, especially at first. The issue echoed here is the harmful effect of men's hatred, and you can just stick with the story, or read it with this in mind and really think about it. I'll admit, I was in the first camp, mainly because I was too eager to reach the end to give the book the amount of thought it really deserves. This is a series that definitely merits rereading, and I feel like, every time I reread it, I'll get something else out of it.
Grade-3.5-very good, but the writing style isn't my favorite, so I can get annoyed at points
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