What do readers think of Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia? Write your own review.

A book should be something to sit back and enjoy. Of Women and Salt is not such a book. It is exhausting to follow the author as she weaves together a story that will leave the reader wishing for an actual ending to the book.

There is a certain curiosity about reasons for people trying to find a new life in the US and this is what brought my interest to the book. Unfortunately, there were underlying stories that threw the reader into an abyss. It got harder and harder to pick up the book to finish.

Hopefully, the next book by Gabriela Garcia will be more of a treat and less like a sentence.

Of Woman and Salt is a series of stories that graphically depicts the struggles of women and their daughters against the brutalities of men and society and there is little subtlety. It spans 1866-2019 and bounces back and forth throughout the book. There are several characters in the story and I found some more compelling than others and I labored at times to wade through the other vignettes. I use the term “ vignette” intentionally as some of the best characters are presented in small, vibrant, memorable sketch like chapters. I lost interest in Jeanette and did not find much of her narrative as gripping as others in the book, unfortunately, her story is the most developed. I would have enjoyed a broader portrait of Maria Isabel, Dolores, and Carmen. I often found it distracting and awkward to keep track of the time period, other authors used this technique with more skill. Rita Woods, in Remembrance, floats back and forth throughout time but does it seamlessly.
The writing in Of Women and Salt varies. Gloria’s section reads in an almost free flowing poetic style, while other sections are written in a more traditional format. The links between the characters seems forced and Garcia didn’t develop the stories enough to make the women as knowable as I would have liked. I felt very unsatisfied when I finished the book. Many of the “secrets” never really erupted to the characters, and only the reader is privy to them and so there is no denouement, no grand awakening or reveal and therefore no transition in many of the relationships. There were too many tantalizing strings left not pulled.
Of Women and Salt provides starting points for discussion, particularly of the crisis at our border, and that may be it’s strongest attribute. For me it was more a series of vignettes strung together in a tenuous connection that left me wanting more than 204 pages could provide.

I had a tough time reading this book due to the many changes with characters. I started off enjoying it and then found myself putting it down and coming back to it days later. Mistake! I want to reread this in one sitting as one reviewer advised and give it another chance. I may find more cohesiveness and get the full picture. I do think the writing was good. The story, at the time of reading, was too scattered.

I was looking forward to reading this book. It discusses immigration, family relationships and the lives of the women within this story through the decades. Unfortunately, the story is not told in chronological order and becomes choppy when going from one chapter to the next, nor is there much information given about each woman within those chapters. One gets snippets, at best, about their individual circumstances and their connections to one another. There is a family tree included in the beginning of the story. Thank you for including that information sheet, I needed to view it at the start of every chapter just to get an inkling about which woman was speaking. Also, an entire mother/daughter relationship, not part of the family tree was added for a purpose I wasn't sure was needed, was it to tie together the neighbors? For me, the book was not cohesive enough to get a clear picture about each woman or their relationship to each other, nor a deeper understanding about immigration. I will be curious to see other reviews because this one was okay at best.

This is basically the story of Carmen and Jeanette and the stor(ies) that knocked into them; some stories of relatives but most particularly the non-relatives, Gloria and Ana. There is a nice circular construct to the story and all the women’s stories are interesting as the women find their strengths and are “more than they think they are”. Supposing “salt of the earth” implied in the title. I did not think that Maria Isabel’s story needed to be included. Her story could have been expanded as its own book. I also did not like the organization of the chapters. The books 204 pages where not expanded by the strategy.

I was glad a family tree was included so that characters could be identified within their respective relations. I liked that the name, location, and date was the introduction at the beginning of each chapter. I did find the story disjointed and I had some difficulty merging the characters within the chapter. This book could reflect the immigration of mothers and daughters from any country or area. I enjoyed this book, although I put it down often as it didn't hold my interest for long periods.

This novel traces the lives of nine women from 1866 to present day. It shows their struggles to survive under difficult circumstances. Due to the short length of this novel, I felt the characters were not fully developed. I wanted to know each one a little more. The interwoven storylines of various characters reveals the complex perspective of immigration status in America. Some came as political asylum seekers, others because of social upheaval. An important message in this story is how political and social conditions determine the fate of powerless people. Because this story calls our attention to current issues of immigration, I recommend reading Enrique's Journey the non-fiction by Sonia Nazario.

Thank you for opportunity to read an ARC of this book. Unfortunately I just couldn't connect with it. It was confusing at times and if I hadn't had to do this review I would not have finished it. There were some interesting parts, though, which is why I went with a 3....