Of Women and Salt is the debut novel by Gabriela Garcia. It follows generations of a family of Cuban women from cigar factories in Cuba to present day Miami, to Mexico and ICE detention centers. Garcia shows the hard choices immigrants must make while suffering abuses both self inflicted and inflicted by others. This book is also a meditation on mothers and daughters and families, the ones we are born into and the ones we find.

At times I found it incredibly moving and powerful, but overall it was too disjointed to have the impact I had hoped for. It left me feeling quite sad and disappointed. Garcia has a fresh new voice to watch and listen to and hopefully that will come through stronger in her next novel.