House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig: A Book Review

Have you ever ordered a large Ultra Cheese Dominos pizza with one kilogram of cheese on it, and then proceeded to voraciously consume the whole thing by yourself in one sitting? No? Oh good. Because uh…*starts to sweat nervously*…neither have I. That would be a totally irresponsible thing for a responsible adult, such as myself, to do. And believe it or not, House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig has a lot in common with this COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL situation; it sounds like a wonderful idea in theory, but is decidedly less so in actual execution.

My Review of House of Salt and Sorrows

What I Liked

👑It’s a Twelve Dancing Princess Retelling!

It’s not a secret that I’m complete and utter trash for fairy tale retellings, especially lesser known ones such as The Twelve Dancing Princesses. So when I saw that House of Salt and Sorrows was exactly that… welp, I couldn’t reserve a copy at my library fast enough.

📖 RELATED POST: In Which I Continue To Gush About My Love Of Retellings

👻The Creepy Atmosphere!

The Brothers Grimm were the ones who originally collected and recorded The Twelve Dancing Princesses tale, and let me tell you, Erin Craig takes that GRIM part very seriously. House of Salt and Sorrows was a chilling read that combined both Gothic horror and Fairy Tale magic in an uniquely thrilling way. There were mysterious murders, haunting hallucinations, and gruesome ghosts (have you had enough of my appalling alliterations yet? Haha). And all of this was perfectly amplified by the atmospheric setting: a creepy Victorian-style manor situated high on the salty crags of an isolated island. Truly, the beginning half of this novel held such promise.

What I Liked Less

💛The Romance!

That being said, House of Salt and Sorrows was a disjointed blend of the macabre and the maudlin. One minute, there were walking corpses with broken necks and festering skin. The next, sweet (and eye-rollingly cringy) embraces between the heroine and her insipid love interest. The tone switched so often, it was like watching an Olympic Ping-Pong match. Not only that, but there was a pointless, half-heartedly fleshed out love triangle (UGH) and a romance that smelled far too much like insta-love for my liking (BLEH).

👥The Bland Characters!

In Erin Craig’s defense, she was at a bit of a disadvantage the instant she chose to write a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling. The reason? She has to somehow squeeze a whole twelve sisters into her story. With that many girls all jammed in there, it’s easy to simply cut and paste personalities. And in House of Salt and Sorrows, that’s exactly what happened. Craig resorted to grouping together many of the sisters and constantly referred to them as “The Triplets” or “The Graces.” This allowed them to degenerate into one giant mass of indistinguishable identities.

And our heroine – Annaleigh – isn’t much better. I found her to be as inspiring as a wet sandwich, with her characterization never evolving beyond the love she has for her sisters. But the Grand Prize Winner of the “I Have No Personality” Award must go to Cassius, the “mysterious” love interest whose entire drab existence revolves around wooing said wet sandwich. All in all, the author gave it a valiant effort, but the characters just didn’t work for me.

🏁The Ending!

Although I loved the creepy, atmospheric nature of the story’s setting, the fantasy elements were far less enthralling. The vague, fleeting mentions of gods and goddesses, tricksters and harbingers, felt largely unimportant to the narrative. Until they weren’t. The climax of the story and the mystery’s ultimate resolution felt rushed and undeveloped because of this weak worldbuilding. I wish that these fantasy elements would’ve been introduced to us sooner and in more detail, if they were going to end up being so vital to the plot. And don’t even get me started on the contrived nature of Cassius’s backstory. All that star mumbo-jumbo was just one big MEH for me.

The Final Verdict

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig is a dark fairy tale retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses that started out with such promise; it was hauntingly atmospheric and delightfully macabre. But all of that was ultimately spoiled for me in last third of the book, where poor plotting, lackluster characterization, and a cringe-worthy romance managed to wrestle away the spotlight.

TODAY'S WAFFLE RECIPE

House of Salt and Sorrows

From the Kitchen of: Erin A. Craig

Ingredients:

Published by Delacorte Press on August 6, 2019

Classified as Fantasy, Retellings, YA

Cover art by Vault49

Obtained as an eBook

Cook Time: 406 pages
Cooking Directions:

Get swept away in Erin A. Craig's mesmerizing House of Salt and Sorrows. As one by one her beautiful sisters mysteriously die on their isolated island estate, Annaleigh must unravel the curse that haunts her family. Be careful who you dance with. . . .

Four of Annaleigh Thaumas's eleven sisters have returned to the Salt, the brackish water that surrounds their lonely island home, their lives cut short, each more tragically than the last. Whispers throughout the Highmoor estate say the girls have been cursed by the gods.

When Annaleigh finds out that her sisters have been sneaking out to attend glittering midnight balls and dance until dawn, she's not sure whether to stop them--or join them. And when she begins to see a series of horrific, ghostly visions and more sisters die, she realizes she must solve the mystery--with the help of Cassius, a sea captain who knows much more about her than he should--and unravel the Thaumas curse before she descends into madness or . . . it claims her next.

CLICK HERE TO SEE CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS

Death of a loved one, grief, murder, blood, graphic depiction of childbirth, miscarriage/stillbirth

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