Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

38 reviews

writtenontheflyleaves's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

 Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia ❤️‍🔥
🌟🌟🌟✨
🏆 Winner of my personal Most Beautiful Book Cover Award

❤️‍🔥 The plot: From a cigar factory in 19th century Cuba to modern day Miami, through three generations of a Cuban family and one mother and daughter from El Salvador, Of Women and Salt explores mother-daughter relationships across time, over borders, and through the impossible hardships of addiction, upheaval, abuse, and racism.

You know when you meet someone you really like, and you hang out with them a few times and have a great time, then for no reason you can really discern it never goes anywhere? The kind of person you'll think about in a few years' time and think it's a shame you didn't get to know each other better, but also feel no great loss over? That was me with this book.

It really drew me in in the beginning. Maria Isabel was a fascinating character and I was really interested in the setting of 1866 Cuba. But then - as happens frequently throughout the novel - her narrative gets cut off as Garcia jumps to the next character. Mostly, I didn't feel like the proliferation of new characters and perspectives added much to one another on an emotional level, as Jeanette and her mother Carmen were the only ones you really spent enough time with to get to know. There were lots of points where it felt like short stories that had been stacked up together - individually, they were quite effective vignettes, but they didn't really have the strength to support a longer narrative.

One thing I did like, though, was how well Garcia demonstrated the proximity of the personal and the political. The personal crisis of Jeanette's addiction in the larger context of the opioid crisis; the ways in which border policies traumatise children and families. And while the different characters' perspectives didn't add much to each other in terms of making you feel for them, they did illuminate each woman's unique hypocrisy in a way that made them all feel more real.

I won't go into the ending except to say that it felt abrupt and a bit anticlimactic and I'm (appropriately) a little salty about it lol 

 ❤️‍🔥 Read if you like short stories, mother-daughter relationships, and multi-generational narratives like Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. 

🚫 Avoid if you hate short stories, or aren't able to read about addiction, sexual violence, or the immigration system right now (there are quite a few harrowing detention centre scenes) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual violence, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Trafficking, Violence, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Racism and Death of parent

emilyeehaw's review against another edition

emotional sad slow-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i think this would have been a higher rating if the writing wasn’t so slow-paced. i’d read 5 pages but it seemed like i should have read 25 in the time it took me.

overall though, i did enjoy the story. i liked the different perspectives from the women and how their stories were entangled together across decades and miles apart. lots of focus on modern day immigration issues and the historical aspect of the cuban revolution. definitely not a super light read but still managed to be readable and interesting with all the harder topics it covered. really enjoyed the focus on relationships between women, mothers and daughters especially, and how complicated and messy they can be. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence and War

qqjj's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Tried to do too much? There were soooo many themes touched on (immigration/asylum/deportation and differences between generations and country origins, political regimes, domestic violence, substance abuse and overdoses, mother-daughter relationships, and more), but didn't/couldn't explore them all thoroughly within this short book. All of these themes are intriguing to me in themselves, but all of them together seemed too much. It was also quite challenging to adjust to the jumping POVs and time/places of each chapter/vignette, the ordering and structure of which seemed haphazard, and never really allowed for the atmosphere of the settings to really shine through. Interested to see future directions of the author, but ultimately just okay for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Murder, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: War, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Incest, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Cancer, Addiction, Transphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Self harm, and Grief

rebeccamm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

There's a lot of narratives winding through this book, and I think it could have been better with fewer characters but more development of them. And wow, if I wasn't a misandrist already, this book would have made me one. Literally only one of the men has any redeeming qualities. The rest are actively evil, abusive narcissists. All the male characters are entirely one-dimensional, but the women don't fare too much better. 
I'm not sure if I liked this book or if I'm giving it a higher rating just because it tells a story we don't hear about enough.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Addiction

Minor: Death of parent, Cancer, Classism, Drug use, Incest, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and War

Sensitive readers may want to proceed with caution.

mamadonna's review against another edition

informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

An exploration of Salvadoran and Cuban women across generations and their immigration to the US.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, and Drug use

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Death of parent, Rape, War, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Incest, Sexism, and Sexual violence

lilymouse's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

If I could give this a hundred stars I would. This was a rollercoaster of emotions, and I honestly don't know how I feel other than in absolute awe of the beauty this book held.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Violence, Sexual harassment, Racism, Grief, Drug use, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Death, Colonisation, and Blood

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

bibeanenergy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

gut wrenching and beautiful

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Grief, Murder, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Physical abuse

sgmtz413's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, and Drug use

ladymirtazapine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Child death, Domestic abuse, Murder, War, Rape, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Violence, Trafficking, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Death, Confinement, and Alcoholism

alina_gets_lit's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

Trigger warning! Sexual assault, domestic abuse, death, and drugs/alcohol. Not super explicit but explicit enough that it could be triggering .

Gabriela Garcia is a great writer and I’ve highlighted so many quotes from this novel. Definitely an emotional one

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse and Drug abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence