Reviews - Salt Bones | The StoryGraph

102 reviews for:

Salt Bones

Jennifer Givhan

4.07 AVERAGE

rvengelen's review against another edition

3.75

dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

giasbookhaven's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Wow. That was more intense than I expected. Lots to process. Full review to come soon.

7.7.2025 Update:

eArc Review:

Salt Bones is about a single mother living in the town El Valle close to the Salton Sea who's been haunted by La Siguanaba on and off since the disappearance of her sister, Elena over twenty years ago. When a coworker goes missing, Mal tries to keep it together but when her youngest disappears, Mal's desperate not to have history repeat itself.

La Siguanaba, a shapeshifting creature from South American folklore, is said to be an alluring horse-headed woman that roams the beaches and surrounding deserts that lures womanizers and drunk men into danger. In Salt Bones, Mal fears that La Siguanaba also comes for children and teenage girls.

Salt Bones is chilling, eclectic, haunting and raw. I had so many feelings when I finished this book. Lots of anger, rage, sadness and heartache. And it's one of those books where you wish the supernatural/folklore element of the story played a bigger role in the narrative. Because then you can shift blame onto this unnatural being or entity, rather than the human individuals you grow attached to. And most hauntingly, those who were closest to Mal and her girls.

I found Mal's character to be a really strong and proactive individual considering the circumstances. And her panic and worry when her youngest daughter went missing was completely valid. She grew up at the mercy and torment of her mother's cruel punishment and tongue. That treatment only got worse after her sister's disappearance. And for Mel to have lived through that once, I loved that she didn't take the chance Amaranta was off with some friends instead of frantically trying to track her down.

I want to say that I kinda liked her eldest daughter, Griselda but I feel I might be stretching to say that. There were a lot of details none of them knew before Amar's disappearance, but I found Gris's dissociation from her mother and the situation to be tactless and dumb. I know Mal's intention to tell the girls about Gus was interrupted by Amar's disappearance but even if Gris knew beforehand, I think she would have acted the same way.

It was as if she lived on her own pedestal that was above El Valle since she's been away at school. And next to Mal, I felt the most sorry for Amaranta. She kept a lot to herself and when she found her voice to share what she learned it put her in harm's way.

Two lessons I feel readers will take away from Salt Bones is that: the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. And the things we fear might be trying to warn up a greater evil.

Salt Bones also covers specific nuances regarding colonization, gentrification, environmental pollution white savior complex, animal cruelty, misogyny and toxic family traits. I focused on the main characters and their connections to the overall narrative because it's a character heavy story and I want to avoid spoilers. I recommend readers going into this book should check all the trigger warnings first.

Content Warnings

ashleyreads88's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

*I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book by Jennifer Givhan, and it won't be my last. I loved the mythology aspects (while I am not of Mexican or Indigenous descent), and I can still love, enjoy, and appreciate mythology. Salt Bones, at its core, is a thriller and family drama. The mythology aspects mixed with the thriller and family drama worked very well for the story. There were many twists in this book, and the biggest one I never saw coming. I loved the story and how it ended with everything tied together.

mad_about_books's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It took me a moment to settle into Salt Bones. Though I studied Spanish in high school, and grew up familiar with ‘Spanglish,’ in the Bronx, those days are long behind me. Thankfully, much of the blended Spanish and English is easy to grasp from context, and reading on Kindle allows for quick translations.

Salt Bones is a gripping mystery infused with magical realism, Latina and indigenous culture and environmental themes, all set in the Mexicali borderlands. Girls go missing in the town of El Valle, a once booming mecca of sun and sand, now a desolate beach littered with fish bones along the brackish Salton Sea.

Jennifer Givhan skillfully blends supernatural horror with the saga of two families—one white and powerful, the other brown and proud. The fates of the Calahan and Veracruz families become deeply intertwined through their children, Harlan and Griselda. Themes of mother-daughter relationships, loss, and the search for missing girls are central to the tale.

Mal’s older brother, Esteban—now calling himself Steve—is running for Senate, aligning himself with the influential Calahan clan. Her younger brother, Benny, works as a local police detective. History threatens to repeat itself when Mal's coworker vanishes without a trace. Mal becomes overprotective of her daughter, Amaranta, fearing she will be next.

The disappearances in El Valle stir up whispered legends—the horse-headed woman, La Siguanaba, who haunts Mal’s dreams, and the boogeyman, El Cucuy, whom townspeople blame for the missing girls. These figures, rooted in Latina and Indigenous lore, add a supernatural weight to Mal’s unraveling reality, making the novel feel like a descent into myth and terror.

Every character in Salt Bones harbors secrets, and within those secrets lie answers to mysteries both old and new—truths that could unravel everything.

candikat's review against another edition

5.0

Salt Bones is a riveting mystery of lost girls filled with folklore, generational trauma, family secrets, and class politics in the California desert. Billed as a retelling of the Persephone and Demeter myth, Givhan’s world- and character-building blended with magical realism incorporating the Mexicali myths of El Chupacabra and La Siguanaba creates a new myth. Givhan takes care to invest the reader in Mal and her family and when her youngest daughter Amar goes missing - just like Mal’s sister Elena 25 years earlier - it became impossible to stop reading before learning whether Amar would be another victim of what Mal has become convinced is a family curse and whether what is haunting them is a supernatural or human monster.

nataliealane's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

elliotta333's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

With the pacing and twists of a juicy telenovela and the emotional depth and poetic language any reader of Givhan’s will recognize, Salt Bones manages to speak to the important truth of missing women the media ignores while also being a fun and thrilling read.
The book follows Malamar, a butcher in the Salton Sea where she is haunted both by the disappearance of her sister and visions of the horse headed woman, La Siguanaba. When her youngest daughter disappears, Mal must race against the clock to find her. Whether the visions of the horse headed woman are there to harm or help her isn’t clear to Mal, all she knows is that her sister wasn’t the first woman to disappear in this toxic desert, and she isn’t going to let her daughter join the ranks of the unburied missing women. Mal must look closer at not only her friends and neighbors, but her own family and their resentments and secrets.
I laughed aloud and gasped in turn. Mal and her daughters are a pleasure to follow, even as you want to shout for them to run the other way. I loved the elements of magical realism. The images of La Siguanaba will continue to haunt me. This story has teeth, and I don’t just mean that metaphorically.
Anyone who loves multi-generational sagas and a good mystery should give this read.
I was given an advanced reader’s copy in return for my honest feedback.

wildflowergirl11's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thanks to the author and publisher for an ARC of Salt Bones - complete with some fun book
Inspired goodies.

It took me several Chapters to get into this and keep track of all the characters but once I was in, I was invested. This book had such unique characters and story lines - I loved the mythology and folklore. And the chapters where Mar is searching for her missing daughter were so well written; I could feel her pain and panic.

Really enjoyed this unique book and looking forward to reading other books by this author!

ryuutchi's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jenngivhan's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Dear Reader,

I grew up in the desert borderlands of Southern California, beside a toxic river that flowed to a deadly sea. Throughout my girlhood, I’d run through the dirt lot, past the date palms, beyond the horse pens, a bit further than the park, straight for the river, teeming with highlighter-yellow fish, glowing with poisons, where I’d dip my toes in anyway, daring the monsters in the molecules.

Seven years ago, when my children and I returned to my hometown, my comadre barbecued carne asada and told me that the Salton Sea had been drying up and releasing its toxic, wind-swept dust, threatening to transform El Valle into a wasteland within the next decade. We’ll all have to leave, she said. It’ll be a ghost town.

Our Ancestors knew the sea had been rising and falling for millennia. We followed the water. It had always been set to return. And would vanish again.

This drying, though, was different. In the hundred and twenty years since white settlers had created laws banning Native and Mexican people from buying our own land, they had also taken the water rights, creating a billion-dollar farming industry—money most people in El Valle never saw—and beginning a water war with the rest of the state. The big, coastal cities had siphoned the Colorado River water from our farming community, then allowed the runoff to burst through the 19th-century canals, creating a man-made lake—the “Salton Sink.” Now, the water’s inevitable evaporation was leaving a death trap of pesticide-laden dust behind. And no one was doing anything.

It was clear that the time had come to dust off an unfinished story, “Salt Bones,” a tale of siblings growing up on the so-called accidental sea in the desert—a place that had both uplifted and torn apart their family. For years, I had struggled to find my way into that story, and when my comadre shared the grim news of the Salton Sea’s fate, I retrieved these “Salt Bones” from a drawer and embarked on a journey of research and discovery.

I immersed myself in everything I could find about my predominantly Mexican farming community and the primarily white, wealthy elite who arrived after the late 1800s railroad boom, dividing the land through racist laws and practices. Despite the billions of dollars this land generates for California annually through agriculture, its people endure some of the highest poverty rates in the country.

And yet, so few people have any idea where the Valley is or how the Salton Sea and the politics surrounding it threaten to destroy not only their precious winter salad bars but an entire people and way of life.

The possibility that everyone and everything I’ve loved since girlhood could disappear and Americans would only notice that they had to eat canned vegetables during the winter ignited a fire within me. I felt a profound responsibility to live up to the high praise bestowed upon my work by El Maestro, Luis Alberto Urrea, who had called my first novel “the Great Mexicali novel.” I needed to speak up for my homeland again.

Over the past seven years, I’ve poured my heart and soul into rewriting this novel, a twisty murder mystery that takes readers on a haunted and at times harrowing journey. And yet, always, I’ve focused on the women. Like this place, ignored, forgotten, buried, disappeared, so too the women and girls, mothers and daughters. Our salt. Our bones.

I hope that within these pages, you will fall in love with El Valle and its inhabitants and realize, as Malamar does, that you can love and work for the well-being of a place even from afar.

All light in the darkness,

Jenn Givhan

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