My skin was so dry and red it looked like cracked clay. I remember, when I was about thirteen, it flared up horribly on my face. For the majority of my early teen years, my eczema was so bad that I was ashamed to go out in public. This story immediately struck a nerve with me. The narrator undergoes the trials of Catholic girls’ school and dating boys for the first time. Armfield writes from the perspective of a young woman who has ‘problem skin’, similar to her grandmother’s. Even though I could talk for pages about each one, I thought I would dedicate a paragraph to each of my four favourites. There are nine stories in the collection. She is focused on the female body, exploring its power, ugliness, limitations and mortality. Instead, she explores the gruesome, dirty and intense aspects of being a woman.

Armfield strays away from conventional femininity and everything palatable and appealing to the male gaze. She seems to lean towards a gothic tone, perhaps even magic realism. I felt as though Julia Armfield took inspiration from Carol Ann Duffy and perhaps Angela Carter, as many of the stories are based on Greek myths or fairytales. Salt Slow is a collection of haunting short stories that explore womanhood – particularly sexuality, insanity and obsession. My obsession with the app seems to have finally come to some good use. I was recommended it – horror of all horrors – in a TikTok. Salt Slow by Julia Armfield has blown me away against these odds and is an instant classic in my mind. Not only that, I rarely love a book instantly – the first time around. You know that feeling when you stumble across a book so perfect that you feel like it was written especially for you and you should probably dedicate your life to it? Yeah, that doesn’t happen very often.