Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

Book Review

What is your favorite reading spot?

I personally love reading at the beach, which is where I read Of Women and Salt, Roxane Gay’s first selection for her new book club with Literati. For more information on Literati (my favorite book subscription service with 12+ book clubs to choose from), visit the Literati website.

For those of you that like to travel through books, Of Women and Salt is an excellent choice.

This short yet impactful book reads almost like a series of short stories as it explores the lives of several different women and their families. First we have Carmen and Jeanette, a mother and daughter of Cuban heritage living in Miami. As Jeanette struggles to maintain her sobriety, she takes in a young girl, named Ana, from El Salvador when Ana’s mother is detained by ICE. Parallel to Jeanette and Carmen’s stories, we’re taken inside a detainment center on the Texas-Mexico border as the story follows Gloria (Ana’s mother) and her journey to reunite with her daughter.

As the story alternates between timelines, narrators and countries, the reader is given an inside look at Cuban history and the complicated journey of Central American immigrants to the United States. While the beginning portion of the book felt a bit slow to me, I really enjoyed the parts of the story that focused on Jeanette and Ana. I especially found it fascinating to read about Ana’s experience attempting to cross the US border as an unaccompanied minor.

If you prefer historical fiction to nonfiction, I highly recommend this one to better understand the obstacles faced by Central American immigrants and undocumented Americans in search of a better life.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

TW: drug addiction, overdose, death of a loved one, deportation, domestic abuse