Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

Wednesday, May 11, 2022--San Antonio

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia received very positive reviews, was listed as a novel of note by the Washington Post, and received the Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Award last year.  It is an interesting book, but it was not quite as good as I expected it to be.  Several times throughout the book, the wording caused confusion for me and I had to reread either to determine for sure who was saying what or what was actually being said.  Plus the ending came too fast for me--a very quick passage tying up details regarding 4 different characters rather than a tidy close.  The stories were interesting though--all eight main characters being women who faced very trying times in their lives.  Among the difficulties were workplace discrimination, dangers and other difficulties related to the civil war in Cuba, racial discrimination among Cubans both at the time of the revolution and today, spousal abuse, child molestation, drug abuse, trauma from seeing a parent killed, trying to get by in Castro's Cuba, dangers of gangs in Central America, child migration without a parent, immigration raids, border retention centers for families, deportation, etc.  I can't highly recommend the book, but it was interesting and is worth 3 1/2 stars out of 5.