Overview

Salt On Your Tongue: Women and the Sea is a book of essays that follows the pull of the ocean and asks what it has meant to women over time. We move through stories and history, through art and writing, and through the sea as a real place that can soothe and threaten in the same breath. Runcie keeps returning to how women are drawn to the waves, or kept near them without choice, and how the sea shapes the ways we tell our lives.

Writing & Voice

We found the writing clear and lyrical without getting foggy. The voice feels curious and steady. We liked how the book can shift from a vivid detail to a wider argument without losing pace. It reads like someone thinking out loud with purpose, and we stayed with it because the thinking keeps landing.

Content & Perspective

We read this as a wide look at a single obsession. We get a sense of the sea as work, risk, and longing, not just escape. We also see how stories about the sea can flatten women into symbols, and how Runcie pushes back by paying attention to what gets left out. The result feels personal and outward looking at the same time.

Themes

The book circles freedom and constraint, inheritance and loss, and the way place can shape who we think we are. We keep coming back to the sea as a boundary and a bridge, and to how belief and culture decide who gets to go out, who must stay back, and who is remembered. It is also a book about what it means to love something dangerous.

What Worked

• A strong through line that keeps the essays connected.
• Varied material that moves between story, history, and culture.
• A grounded voice that resists easy romance about the sea.

Minor Quibbles

• Some sections move quickly, and we wanted a little more time with a few ideas.
• A few transitions feel abrupt as the book shifts between subjects.

Final Thoughts

We liked how it refuses the postcard version of the ocean and keeps asking what the sea takes, as well as what it gives.

Rating: ★★★★½ / 5