Does Salt Kiss by Sierra Simone live up to the BookTok hype?
There are a lot of books that we see getting hyped up on TikTok. And while the world of BookTok feels vast and full of promise, there are definitely some books that get hyped up more than others.
One book that I have seen hyped up exceptionally high on BookTok is Sierra Simone's Salt Kiss. It is the first book in a trilogy and I consistently see this book get four and five-star ratings, while also seeing multiple videos posted about it.
Whether people are talking about the spice level of this book or the story itself, it seems like there are a lot of people loving this book. And I admit that I wanted to love this book. I wanted to get so immersed in these characters that I was chomping at the bit to read the next one.
Sadly, this book just didn't do it for me the way it seemed to do it for BookTok.
Salt Kiss is an okay read that doesn't feel like it lives up to the hype it gets on Tik Tok
While I think this book had a lot of potential (and it clearly delivered for plenty of people), this is definitely one of those books that I struggled with. It felt like there was way too much dialogue that didn't actually add to the storyline.
Not only did it feel like too much "talking" was happening, but even the descriptions felt like they were too much at times. For me, it felt like a lot more showing than we needed. And the one main character, Tristan, was very hard for me to connect with as he felt like he had these moments of being overly dramatic that didn't make sense.
That being said, it did get better towards the end of the book, which is good. I think there was just too much that could have been cut out for this to live up to the hype it has received. And yet, I can understand why people enjoyed it.
There is no denying that the spicy scenes are well-written. And Sierra Simone is quite talented when it comes to creating interesting worlds and putting together a story. For me though, this one felt overly long at times, leading to me wanting to put it down more often than not. (And since it ended up taking me three months to finish the book, it is clear that I was able to put it down and walk away with ease.)
In the end, I pushed through because I wanted to see what came next. But at this point, I am struggling to decide if reading the second book is worth it, even with BookTok saying yes.