pdxpagemaster's profile picture

pdxpagemaster 's review for:

The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
4.0
challenging emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

This book is a wildly experimental text which follows stories and characters linked by themes more than plot and goes throughout the past, present, and future interchangeably.

Upon a mental health crisis, Velma receives spiritual healing and every life that is explored spirals out from this moment at the beginning of the novel.

It’s a really masterful work of poetic prose and seamlessly transitions across the different points of view that if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss the scene change.

This novel feels like one I want to study academically, where themes of acceptance and transformation are really present but I would like to be guided through it more with an expert and in conversation with others.