Some stories don’t begin—they emerge, the way a shoreline slowly reveals itself at low tide. Salt in the Shape of Wings is one of those rare novels that feels like it was written with the rhythm of the ocean itself. Arden builds her world from fragments: broken shells, forgotten letters, unfinished conversations. Through them, she traces the life of a woman who grew up believing the sea was speaking to her—not in prophecy, but in patterns she never learned to ignore.
What captivated me was the book’s unusual structure. Instead of a straightforward narrative, the chapters flow like shifting currents. Some are only a page long, others linger with dense emotional weight, but each one feels like a small tide pulling you somewhere unexpected. The protagonist, Selene, isn’t trying to understand the sea; she’s trying to understand why she feels more at home in its unpredictability than in the predictable world she was born into.
Arden’s writing shines most when she blends memory with sensation. Salt appears everywhere—in her childhood, in her grief, in the people she loves and pushes away. It becomes a symbol of what remains after everything soft dissolves. The novel doesn’t chase answers; it collects impressions and lets them settle naturally, like sediment forming new ground.
The last quarter of the book surprised me with its emotional clarity. It shifts from wandering introspection to something sharper, almost brave. Selene begins to rebuild not by finding truth, but by accepting that some stories don’t resolve—they transform. I finished the book feeling strangely steadier, like I had been taught how to breathe a little deeper.
