Book Review: Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan — A Haunting, Generational Masterpiece I Can’t Stop Thinking About

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.

#atmosphericReads #bookRecommendations #BookReview #darkFiction #GenerationalTrauma #gothicFiction #JenniferGivhan #LatinaHorror #LatineLiterature #motherDaughterStories #PsychologicalHorror #SaltBones #supernaturalBooks

Why I’m Drawn to Emotional Horror (and Why It Stays With Me Long After the Last Page)

Lately, I’ve been realizing something about the stories I gravitate toward — they’re not always the ones that make me jump, but the ones that make me feel.

I’ve been reading a lot of what I like to call emotional horror — stories that linger, that haunt through empathy instead of monsters. Books where the scariest thing isn’t the ghost in the corner, but the grief we haven’t made peace with, or the silence between people who love each other but can’t quite say it.

The Kind of Horror That Hurts (in a Good Way)

I used to think horror was only about fear. But emotional horror taught me that fear wears many faces — guilt, loss, shame, regret. Those are the things that crawl under your skin and stay.

Books like Bochica have this beautiful tension — spiritual dread mixed with moral reflection. The haunting isn’t just supernatural; it’s internal. The Haunting of Hill House does the same thing — the house becomes a mirror of the characters’ loneliness. And of course, The Ordinary Bruja was born from that same place in me — where horror becomes a language for grief.

Emotional horror says:
“You’re not afraid of the dark — you’re afraid of what you’ll see when the lights come back on.”

Why These Stories Feel Like Home

I think I’m drawn to this genre because it mirrors the way I process emotions. When something hurts, I can’t always cry it out or talk it through. I write it. I build a world where the emotion has a name — even if that name is a ghost, or a curse, or a woman trying to survive herself.

That’s what I find so cathartic about emotional horror: it gives form to the things we can’t articulate. The sadness, the trauma, the yearning — they become characters. They become visible.

What I’m Reading Now: Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan

Right now, I’m reading Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan, and it’s the kind of book that feels written for readers like me — those who find beauty in the unsettling.

Givhan blends the lyrical with the eerie, the sacred with the profane. Her work has always lived between worlds — much like mine — exploring faith, trauma, womanhood, and the ghosts that never quite leave. Salt Bones isn’t traditional horror; it’s psychological, spiritual, and emotional all at once.

It’s about the hauntings we inherit — the ones tied to our families, our cultures, and our own bodies. It reminds me that horror doesn’t have to scream to be powerful. Sometimes it just breathes beside you while you read.

If you loved The Ordinary Bruja or stories that braid faith with fear and tenderness, Salt Bones belongs on your list.

The Ordinary Bruja Lives in That Space

Marisol’s story, at its core, is emotional horror wrapped in magical realism. It’s not about gore or shock — it’s about confronting what haunts you.
The ghosts in her world aren’t just spirits; they’re insecurities, inherited shame, grief passed down like an heirloom.

That’s why I think so many of us find solace in this kind of storytelling. It whispers, you’re not crazy for feeling deeply — you’re just haunted by being human.

What’s Next on My Reading List

Once I am done with Salt Bones I will be reading The Posession of Alba Diaz. You can follow along. Or if you want to sink into this same energy, here are a few books I recommend for your own emotional haunting session:

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson — the original “feel something and then question everything” horror classic.
• Bochica by James Montaño — a lyrical, haunting exploration of faith, power, and colonial echoes.
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia — lush, eerie, and feminist as hell.
• The Ordinary Bruja by Johanny Ortega — (yes, my own, because this one carries my ghosts, too).

My Takeaway

Maybe emotional horror is so powerful because it lets us face what we’ve buried.
Not to scare ourselves — but to recognize ourselves.

And when the book ends, when the ghosts quiet, what’s left isn’t fear.
It’s empathy.

#bookishSaturday #emotionalHorror #jenniferGivhan #magicalRealism #saltBones #whatImReading