Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Of Women and Salt

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

2 reviews

readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

2.25

One hand I do think Garcia is a talented writer but the novel despite having perspectives for two Salvadorans a girl and a woman multiple times, the Salvadoran characters, the non white Latinos feel like props to the white Cuban women, including the black Cubans who exist largely for the white grandmother and cousin to accuse of theft or be surprised the other has a name. And while it is good to talk about the diversity of Cuba and the racism within it again the black Cuban characters seem to exist only for props or for reader presumed to not be black or non white Cubans. Thus the book feels like a book a white Cuban American or white cuban woman might get something out of but not meant for black cuban diaspora or not but instead for white gringos moreso. Similarly the Salvadoran characters don’t feel like they equally share the story even how prominent their povs are and the author even described in of their brown skins as “burnt” as if that’s not incredibly racist just because it’s burnt sugar. Which makes it unsurprising that that character Gloria perspective unfortunately comes of as patronizing and like the author isn’t aware how smart she is or Gloria doesn’t exist to be Gloria but for the author to share facts about US immigration that read clunky and almost copy and pasted from a nonfiction piece while the cuban family feels much more dynamic and lived in. Like Gloria live is one lived by many people but instead she feels like she exists for white peoples to read and feel bad about maybe even white and/or rich Mexicans but not for Salvadorans and Central Americans to read. This is always why I am unsurprised the blurbs for the book are almost entirely about the white Cuban characters.

I do really like the topics Garcia wanted to tackle, the relationships between women and cycles of abuse and I completely agree with the author that there is no “one” immigrant story in her short interview with Roxane Gay but I think she really needs to re-examine how she writes non white characters and characters her Mexican and Cuban family don’t fit into since those characters suffered the most. I do really like that she wrote about racism and classism in Mexico and the resentments between different Latino groups even if again that sometimes felt clunky. I especially loved the Cuban families divided less by borders and more by interpersonal issues and with very different and strong political opinions.

Content Warnings

rebeccamm's review against another edition

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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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