In House of Salt and Sorrows, Annaleigh lives with her sisters, her father, and her stepmother in a remote manor by the sea. Once there were twelve sisters, but four have died recently. As Annaleigh becomes suspicious and starts digging around, she realizes that all is not as it seems.
This book starts off so promisingly. The story had me hooked immediately, and the first 50 pages whizzed by. The premise is so fascinating that I was sure it would pay off. But then the forward pace of the story slowed down... to a crawl. Every time I tried to read some more, my mind would wander off, and I'd catch myself daydreaming about something else. It's not that nothing is happening, but rather so much mundane or seemingly irrelevant things are going on that it's hard to figure out where the story was going. And it remained this way for the next 200 pages.
I think this was a case where the author was trying to fit in the fairy tale of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", but it wasn't necessary to the story and added too much fluff in the middle. As a result, this story was more complicated than it needed to be. Thankfully it finally started coming together in the last 150 pages. The ending felt sufficiently good and enjoyable, though not as memorable as I was hoping for.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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