“She mistook happiness for what it was – how we build lives out of the strings we hold. But we should have known deep down that she was lying to herself. She had said I knew the secret, what was really important in life, what made a person happy. If that was true, it didn’t make sense when she went back home and left all that ‘happiness’ behind.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: cigar factories, immigrants, detention centers, motherhood, different generations and family bonds.

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.

Wow, this was a very powerful debut novel – which makes it even more impressive!

This story follows multiple generations of women from the same family from 1866 to 2019, in Miami, Cuba and Mexico. The author discusses immigration and deportation, but also motherhood and family relationships – also, I think it’s important to tell you that there’s also mention of substance abuse, sexual abuse, violence and suicide.

The writing is great. There’s multiple timelines in this book, so you’ll be going back and forward frequently. Personally for me this wasn’t an issue, but I can see how other readers may be confused at times. The timelines didn’t confuse me, but keeping up with all the women confused me a lot. I admit it was a little hard to keep up with all of them and not mix them up. Fortunately for me, the author added a family tree in the beginning of the book, so I had to keep coming back to it so I could distinguish them.

I liked all the characters, but I connected to some better than with others. Still, I felt bad for all of them and how they went through their own traumatic experiences (addiction, deportation, political,…). 

I also like how atmospheric the book felt. Nineteenth century Cuba never seemed so close in time! My favorite chapters were the ones in the cigar factory, probably for that reason. It was interesting to see how the way women were treated, how they listen to “safe” books while working, and how the men didn’t want the women there.

This is a beautiful book and I definitely recommend it. At this point I feel like I want to reread this book somewhere in the future. I’m very excited to read more from this author.