A review by abbie_
A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I’ve seen a few people whose reviews I trust enjoying this book lately, and I’m happy to report that I very much enjoyed it too! It’s desperately sad, so perhaps enjoyed isn’t quite the right word, but it’s immersive and engaging, with characters you root for. I did find part two, with Nyamakeem’s point of view, stronger than part one. Part one jumps around a few different perspectives, and I felt like Gaafar’s style got stronger when she honed in one just one character for 100 pages or so. 

Nyamakeem’s section is set a few decades earlier than parts one and three, and it was really enlightening about Sudan at that time. I know it’s not the same as reading a nonfiction book, but good historical fiction should always teach you a little something, I find. This book does what all my favourite historical fiction does - takes the entire political backdrop of a time period and weaves it into the lives of women. I love it when the political is told through the personal, and A Mouthful of Salt pulls it off so well.