Five stars… and honestly I’m still processing…What did I just read?!

Jennifer Givhan didn’t just write a book. She cracked open the chest of generational trauma, held up the ribs, and asked us to look inside. Salt Bones is one of those rare reads that is dark, atmospheric, unsettling, and emotionally layered in a way only a Latina author rooted in culture, myth, and lived experience can deliver. I’m blown away. I really am.

I’ve been on a kick lately with horror and gothic-leaning stories by Latina authors, partly because that’s the atmosphere I live in while writing The Ordinary Bruja and the Las Cerradoras trilogy, and partly because these books always go beyond fear. They dig into identity, family wounds, unspoken truths, and the complicated ways we inherit stories that never belonged to us. Salt Bones carries that same DNA.

This book starts slow, but not in a way that feels wasted. It’s purposeful. Act One eases you into the mother-daughter dynamic, the family’s strange habits, the odd tension that doesn’t have a name yet. You aren’t sure why things feel “off” but you can sense something brewing under the surface. And then Act Two hits… and suddenly every quiet detail from the beginning clicks into place. I swear, I wanted to go back and reread the first half just to look at everything with new eyes.

The main character, Mal, wrecked me. She is one of the most complex, painfully human characters I’ve read in a while. And part of why she hit me so hard is because she mirrored pieces of myself… especially the parts I’ve worked so hard to heal. Her need for control, her desire to protect everyone at all costs, her inability to tell the truth until she can make it “pretty”… I know that woman. I’ve been that woman. Reading her was like holding up a mirror to the scars I’ve carried since childhood and the ways I tried to parent perfectly only to realize that perfection creates its own harm.

That’s what Givhan does so brilliantly here. She uses dark mythical beings, superstition, and supernatural elements as metaphors for trauma, guilt, and silence. The horror isn’t just the creatures in the shadows. It’s the generational secrets, the suffocating loyalty to elders, the way so many Latine families protect the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It’s painfully real. Painfully familiar.

And then, when the daughter goes missing, everything explodes. Skeletons fall out of multiple closets. Every assumption melts. Ma unravels the past thread by thread until the truth finally reveals itself… and the truth is devastating. Because Mal has spent her entire life carrying guilt that was never hers. A burden placed on her by the very people who claimed to love her. That part? That part felt so real it almost hurt to read.

What I love most is that the author doesn’t glorify the cycle. She shows it honestly, messily, culturally… but she also gives us a roadmap out. The ending, and especially the epilogue, is hopeful in the way sunlight feels after days of rain. Not “perfect bow on top” hopeful, but “realistic healing is possible” hopeful. Mal sets boundaries. She separates herself. She chooses a life where she can breathe. And it feels earned.

Thematically, this book has everything that makes me obsessed with Latina horror:
• complex mother-daughter dynamics
• generational silence and guilt
• supernatural myth woven into trauma
• culture as both comfort and curse
• atmospheric writing that lingers

When I tell you this book will stay with me… whew. I already know it will. It’s one of those novels that forces you to confront your past while imagining a healthier future. It’s dark in all the right places and tender where it counts.

If you love gothic, horror-adjacent stories filled with mythical elements, cultural nuance, morally messy families, and emotional depth, read this. Immediately. I need people to talk to about this book because I am still flabbergasted by what Jennifer Givhan pulled off.

This is an easy, unwavering, deeply felt 5 stars.