Paradise Rot is not just a perfect book, but a living breathing being that swells and spreads and oozes with the ecosystem that blooms within its pages. Hval achieves this quality of being alive by creating a fully-realised atmosphere through highly sensory evocations that never come close to being overloaded. She manages this through simple but impactful imagery.

Beauty is central: even when the subject matter might be off-putting, the imagery is nothing short of engrossingly beautiful. Paradise Rot is a highly sensual book, about the sapphic awakening of its narrator. With her, nature awakens too.

And what makes Paradise Rot perfect (aside from Hval’s amazing writing and imagination) is the author’s understanding that decay is not an end of life, but a beginning of a different sort of life… which circles back to the centrality of beauty, because Hval sees the beauty in rot.

So much can be said about Paradise Rot for pages upon pages, praises for it are endless. Do yourself a favour and discover them for yourself <3