Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : Flatiron Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 30, 2021
Format:  Hardbook, Paperback, Audiobook and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
Genre:  Hispanic American Literature & Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION OF “OF WOMEN AND SALT” BY GABRIELA GARCIA

I got the book from my local library and read with the audiobook which I really enjoyed. This book has been on my TBR list for years. I was glad when I saw it at the library.

This book was a good read. I really enjoyed the writing. It was written with a tender, smart, hopeful voice that made the narrative easy to follow. All characters are different but strong at the same time. The women are faulty, but brave. Through different generational times, the women find weakness and strength within themselves and the family around them.

It felt depressing at times. The cycle of violence, self-doubt, and addiction is discussed in depth. However, it also made the read real. This allowed me to understand the characters with a kind perspective.

I recommend this book if you want to read about immigration and the reality of those leaving their country with the hope of a better life.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals―personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others―that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.

MY RATING:

My rating for this book is a solid 4.3

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bibliography:

Gabriela Garcia is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and a Steinbeck Fellowship from San Jose State University. Her fiction and poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Tin House, Zyzzyva, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Cuba and grew up in Miami. Of Women and Salt is her first novel.