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

This is a difficult review to write. On one hand I loved the writing and some of the characters, but on the other hand I found it somewhat confusing and draggy. The beginning of the book with the storyline of Maria Isabel was wonderful and I was very excited to keep reading. Unfortunately the one character that was a thread through out the book (Jeanette) was confusing and I had no interest in reading. The book had too many characters to keep track of in such a short novel.The multiple narratives did not work for me in this book. I started out loving it, but just wanted it to end by the middle of it. I always finish books that I review so I was glad this was a short one.

Pretty good yarn of a Cuban-American saga, but a gritty story, requiring endurance from the reader as the characters make their way from one misery to another, struggling to improve their lot in life and surviving by sweat of brow and sturdiness of soul in a climate that makes everyone hot and uncomfortable. No rags-to-riches people here, but, reader, persevere, there is an interesting, unexpected and satisfying conclusion and some Cuban revolutionary history too.

Overall, I found the book confusing. The time changes back and forth and from woman to woman with little cohesiveness made me feel like this book may have been better done as a collection of short stories.
I felt her description of present day Miami and Cuba fascinating and would have liked more insight into that. Also, I'm not sure how the Salvadoran immigration experience fit into the Cuban immigration story.
I did feel the last chapter was excellent and finally presented depth of character to Carmen. Even at the end of the book, I was wanting more depth from Jeanette's character.

Very disappointed with the story. It didn't pull me in at all and I have read so many other novels about the subject that did pull me in. I share this book with a friend hoping she would give me a different outlook. Unfortunately, she didn't like it either. Too short, too quick, not enough detail describing the story.

The author tried to address too many current issues. It was confusing the way the chapters went back and forth in dates and characters. Having visited Cuba I was hopeful there would be more descriptive passages.

I feel really badly about having asked for this book - I spent 7 years of my teen years living in Cuba so I was looking forward to seeing what this author had to say. It was most disappointing and disjointed and seemed to go nowhere, but I kept reading thinking there had to be a theme of some sort. Her descriptions of life in Cuba were quite accurate to a point. She was quick to tell horrible tales of the Batista era, but had little to say of what happened afterwards when things got even worse under Castro.
Parts were very vague - how is anyone to know who Cecilia Valdez is? The ending was sweet but by then I really didn't care how it ended.
I dislike having to write such a negative review, but there was truly nothing I liked about this book - not even the writing.