Overview

The Salt Flats follows a troubled couple, Martha and Finn, as they join a group retreat to The Salt Centre on the Bolivian salt flats in a bid to heal their marriage. The retreat’s spiritual rituals quickly take a darker turn, exposing buried fears, fractured minds and growing tensions.

Writing & Voice

We found Atalla’s writing vivid and unsettling, painting both the harsh, desolate landscape and the fragile inner states of her characters. Her prose shifts between psychological depth and surreal ritual, making the world feel eerie and immediate.

Content & Perspective

The narrative alternates between perspectives within the retreat group. As ceremonies, hallucinatory episodes and interpersonal conflicts intensify, characters confront personal demons and unspoken pasts. The wide, empty salt flats become a pressure cooker for fear, grief and disintegration.

Themes

The Salt Flats explores marriage strain, climate anxiety, spirituality and existential dread. It probes how hope can become delusion, how group dynamics unravel, and how far individuals will go to escape or confront inner turmoil.

What Worked

• Atmospheric setting in a haunting, vast landscape.
• Psychological intensity that deepens with each ritual.
• Complex character work anchored in human fear and hope.

Minor Quibbles

• The layered rituals can feel slow before tension builds.
• Some surreal moments blur clarity of events.

Final Thoughts

We found The Salt Flats disquieting and immersive, using ritual, landscape, and strained intimacy to expose how hope curdles into fear under collective pressure.

Rating: ★★★★★ / 5