This book is unmistakably for women, and I don't mean this in a 'men can't read it' kind of way, just that it seems to speak in the ancient language of women, of things that are inherent and experienced and passed along, but at the same time unique. The themes reminded me a lot of Toni Morrison, not so much in style, but in substance-- the weight of ghosts, the chorus of just beyond the veil, the twisting of history by unjust hands, the mangling of bodies and womanhood, the burden of existing, the ache of loss and grief.

I really really enjoyed the style and writing, if not a little heavy handed at times. I think it's a beautiful debut and also an astounding historical narrative told with this mystical realism slant that makes it somewhat more bearable to witness atrocities and loss.

Top read of 2024 for me so far.

𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺𝘦𝘥, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘦𝘨𝘰. 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴.

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𝘞𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘐𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵. 𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴.

𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬:
Two Salvadoran sisters, separated in childhood, reunite under a dictator's brutal regime. They escape genocide, traveling the world separately. Their story, intertwined with ghostly voices of murdered friends, reimagines El Salvador's history and mythology.
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Wow, Gina. María. Balibrera. What a debut! The Volcano Daughters is a mesmerizing journey that captivated me from the start. There's something so unique and enthralling about the way Gina writes. Her lyrical prose weaves a heartrending tale of sisterhood, survival, and the echoes of forgotten souls.

The story of Graciela and Consuelo is both devastating and enchanting, exploring themes of identity, family, and resilience with poetic intensity.

I absolutely loved that we are told their story through the ghosts of their friends that have passed during La Matanza. Their chorus was both comical and filled with chisme yet at the same time it was hauntingly beautiful in a way I've never encountered in another story before.

The story itself is filled with so many heartwrenching and emotional moments. It explores a cruel man's rise to power, the tragic and traumatic aftermath of his political machinations, new beginnings, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.

Gina's passionate and evocative writing style brings El Salvador's history to vivid life in this debut. I know the carcajadas of these characters and their fantasmas will echo in my mind for a long time to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What to expect:
- Salvadoran history
- magical realism
- historical fiction
- sisterhood

Title: The Volcano Daughters
Author: Gina Maria Balibrera
Publisher: Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:
"The Volcano Daughters" by Gina Maria Balibrera

My Perception:

'The Volcano Daughter' was a fascinating historical and magical realism fiction about two El Salvador sisters [Consuelo & Graciela]. This heartbreaking story has a little bit of everything: revolution, corruption, dictatorship, terror, genocide, violence, grief, trauma, rawness, challenging reading, and then some joy and hope. I enjoyed seeing how the author delivered the different forms of history the vivid characters encountered, making the story compelling and exciting. The story was a little slow at times, but it made up its time by the time it finally was completed, explaining it all about the two sisters in the end.
Ultimately, one will get one unique story when it's all said and done.


Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

It took me a long while to finally get into this story but once I did, I truly loved it. As a mood reader and someone who reads incredibly fast, I knew this would be a book that I needed to slow down and consume at a much slower rate than I typically do and once I set that time aside I really fell into to story and gave it the attention it deserves.

This was a poetic masterpiece. The way the story of Consuelo and Graciela is told without a traditionally structured timeline is not only a bold choice but it also works in a way to have you feel every emotion. You laugh along with them, cry with them, and ultimately live their story alongside them.

This a book that will make you slump into your chair and hold it tight to your heart. Highly recommend for fans of magical realism and love to read about strong familial bonds, survival, community, love, and loss.

Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for my early copy of this phenomenal story.

The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera is an engrossing debut about two sisters and their flight from genocide—which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to San Francisco’s Cannery Row—each haunted along the way by the ghosts of their murdered friends, who are not yet done telling their stories.
A wonderfully written history and mythology of El Salvador.
This is truly an incredible and amazing story that had me hooked immediately.

Thank You NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

This book was heartbreaking from the start, but I was super invested in the sisters and their stories! I love books about women surviving what is thrown their way. This is a super unique read and I enjoyed learning about parts of history I didn’t know about before!

This book is an emotional journey that will leave you fully satisfied. It tells the story of two sisters from Izalco, El Salvador, whose lives resonate with those of many Latin American women. Though it’s fiction, it feels deeply real.

The story unfolds in a unique way: the ghosts of their chosen sisters, who died in a tragic event, serve as the narrators (more or less). It’s a blend of laughter, tears, and everything in between.

Although the pace is slow, every page is worth savoring. I recommend taking the time to read it carefully to connect deeply with the characters and their stories. A book that truly leaves a mark!

A huge thanks to NetGalley for providing an electronic copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Plot: ⭐⭐⭐ 3
Characters: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4
Relationships: ⭐⭐⭐3
World-building: ⭐⭐⭐⭐4
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 3.5

Este libro es un viaje emocional que no te dejará buscando más. Narra la vida de dos hermanas de Izalco, El Salvador, cuyas historias resuenan con las de muchas mujeres latinoamericanas. Aunque es ficción, se siente profundamente real.

La historia se despliega de una manera única: los fantasmas de sus hermanas elegidas, quienes murieron en un trágico evento, son las narradoras (más o menos). Es una mezcla de risas, lágrimas y todo lo que hay en medio.

Aunque el ritmo es pausado, cada página merece ser saboreada. Te recomiendo leerlo con tiempo y atención para conectar profundamente con los personajes y sus historias. ¡Un libro que realmente deja huella!

Un enorme agradecimiento a NetGalley por una copia electrónica de este libro a cambio de mi honesta reseña.

Trama: ⭐⭐⭐ 3
Personajes: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4
Relaciones: ⭐⭐⭐ 3
Construcción del mundo: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4
En general: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 3.5

This was a unique work of historical fiction centered on two sisters, Consuelo and Graciela, who hail from a small community on a Volcano in El Salvador but are torn apart by a cruel dictator and his whims. From covering the real life event of The Massacre to the Vichy regime and Nazi control of France during WWII, Gina Maria Balibrera crafts a sweeping tale of indigenous history, loss, sisterhood, and survivorship.

I found Part One of the book highly informative as it focused on a tragic portion of El Salvadoran history and political climate with which I was unfamiliar. I thought the author weaved Consuela's and Graciela’s storylines in an interesting and engaging way here as well. As the book progressed, I appreciated witnessing the growth Graciela undergoes as her brilliance, financial savviness, and resourcefulness shine through amidst all the hardships she faces once she flees her home country. On the contrary, Consuelo’s arc felt a bit underdeveloped and I would have liked to see greater depth in her character. This became even more evident with the ending, which I thought was rushed and detracted the focus from the sisters. Lastly, I found the narrative interjections somewhat disruptive to the flow of the story, although I acknowledge that they offered comedic relief in juxtaposition to the devastating circumstances surrounding the two women and their loved ones. I believe the story would have been just as, if not more, compelling for me without that particular narrative choice.

With all that being said, this was still an interesting novel that I recommend to readers who enjoy learning about a forgotten period in history, marginalized communities, language, and culture with elements of magical realism.

3.5 stars!

Thank you @netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage catalog for an e-ARC of The Volcano Daughters in exchange for my honest review.
#TheVolcanoDaughters #NetGalley

The lives of two sisters’ survival told before and after ‘La Matanza’, the genocidal massacre in El Salvador in 1932, through the ghosts of their deceased friends and sisters of heart who were massacred in the genocide. Mythology is woven throughout their stories and the ghost narrators leave their opinions as well. Creatively written, evoking emotions across the spectrum, The Volcano Daughters gives voice to those who can no longer tell their history and truth.

Set in El Salvador starting in the 1800's, the writing in the book was beautiful. The book spans the lives of two indigenous sisters who unwillingly work for the dictator. Once they are able to flee, their lives take separate paths. This wasn't the right book for me, perhaps because of the magical realism, but I'm sure many readers will really appreciate it.

I was intrigued to read and learn about the brutal history of a race massacre in El Salvador. The first half of the book wove language, culture, and politics to tell the story of Consuelo and Graciela, sisters taken from their volcano home to live on eggshells in the city.
The second half of the book fell apart for me. Wandering characters with wandering storylines didn't lend to depth or interest. The tone became erratic and included the ponderings of ghosts who forced action.
I'm glad I finished but struggled to get there.

This book follows two Indigenous women in El Salvador as they are forcibly taken from their community and navigate the rest of the world during their lives in the 1920s-1940s. It's a beautiful saga with unique points of view, as well as engrossing prose and story overall. I definitely recommend for fans of literary historical fiction. A huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of an eARC in exchange for my review!

The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera is an epic debut novel that spans decades in El Salvador and follows two sisters from a coffee plantation near a volcano to the capital, San Salvador. In a haunting and often gripping story, Balibrera shows how personal lives are impacted by and intertwined with history in this well-researched book. I loved the author’s use of fantasy and myth fused with history as well as incorporating four deceased women as guides. She takes us into a dark chapter of El Salvador’s history with a hatred and massacre of indigenous people. There are also scenes of El Salvador’s breathtaking beauty as well as the Golden Age of Hollywood and Paris during World War II in this epic debut. Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for the eARC. Recommended. I look forward to more from Gina Maria Balibrera after this powerful debut.

Perhaps the best way to summarize this novel is to just say, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Of course, this doesn’t span a century and the narrating ghosts make sure neither the MCs or you are ever alone. But I think you get the point: sweeping magical realism set in the jungles and towns of Latin America - in this case, El Salvador.

It takes about fifty pages to figure out the main characters: Consuelo and Graciela. We learn their story from their friends who are, um…dead. And that’s not a spoiler, since in the very first chapter, they tell us they’re dead, of some horrible political massacre. It’s set in a series of small towns, a coffee economy, on the side of a volcano. Eventually, it moves to California and Paris.

Tremendous description here. Wow, what a setting! The author conveys both the danger and beauty of the jungle. Also, the voices are quite poetic. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional f-bomb here, since the interactions between characters are emotional, meaningful, and full of love. Ghosts are meant to be haunting, and these girls are experts.

Now, if you love magic (and not the romantasy kind), you’ll be in heaven (or wherever the ghosts are). There are named spirits that actually show up and swirl around the main characters. The General does something bad, and gets chased by a spectral legend. The dead girls visit the living, right when they needed it. Very cool.

However…

This is meant to be read slowly. And that’s not what I do. I prefer to be entertained, told a story I can easily follow. The first fifty pages here did the opposite. It was hard to understand who the narrators were. The timeline flies all over. The claims to be dead threw me off. There’s basically no direction. Again, beautifully described, but if you want to follow what’s happening, you need to read paragraphs over and over. The narrator will be telling us about Socorrito, but then digress into a story about a spirit, and not come back to the original story. This made it the writing less like Gabriel García Márquez and more like Thomas Pynchon or David Foster Wallace And certainly not Isabel Allende. Things just didn’t connect. For me, at least.

It gets better when Consuelo and Graciela meet in the General's home. Better still when they escape. But even there, the lack of a linear plot wrought havoc on my attention span. I admit, I skimmed the ending.

Also, have your Spanish-English dictionary handy. I have a rusty grip on the language, and even I had to Google translate a few words. In fact, the author goes full phrases in the language without offering a translation. I can see those who don’t speak or understand the language getting rather annoyed.

But that’s how magical realism goes. Usually. 100 Years remains one of my favorites, but the plot there is more traditional. It’s meant to flit in and out of consciousness, back and forth through time, circling what’s real and what’s not. The author does a good job of taking us to her worlds, both real and imagined. Telling where, when, and why we’re there, however, was a shortcoming.

I recommend this: recognize that I’m the wrong person to review this kind of book. My opinions probably ignore the features that make this book great. I could pick out things I like, but saying it’s bad based on my aversion of the genre just isn’t fair.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

A saucy, searingly original debut about two sisters raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s brutal dictator, El Gran Pendejo, and their flight from genocide, which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to cannery row, each followed by a chorus of furies, the ghosts of their murdered friends, who aren’t yet done telling their stories.

There's a dictatorship, genocide, refugee resettlement in the States, and a little bit of magic. What a combo, right? So much happened in this book. It follows the story of two daughters who get separated at birth and reconnect multiple times. The first part of the book they are both in El Salvador and both have a connection to the dictator, the General. Eventually, the General goes after the girls village and murders everyone in it. The girls survive and then escape (separately) to the United States. The second part of the book is their journey after escaping El Salvador. The magical piece is all of their friends are haunting them throughout their lives and the story is from their perspective with their commentary as ghosts.

This book wasn't for me. It was very graphic and disturbing and was very long. I know this book is for some people based on reviews, but it wasn't for me. The Spanish cultural barrier was hard for me to overcome. There was a lot of Spanish words used throughout and I wish there was some translation for some words - I definitely missed the meaning of some parts because of the language barrier.

My rating: 2 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Pantheon for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Evocative and captivating!

This book is an excellent story woven through with Salvadoran mythology that continuously pulls you right in! It is a book that demands to be read, and you will want time to stop so you can simply keep reading. Written with lots of Spanglish moments, I couldn't help but enjoy the way this book was constructed. Told from the perspectives of four ghosts, whose personalities transcend the pages, the story molds into an unforgettable tale that paints the picture of political turmoil and genocide, and how that affects the lives of these girls as we follow Graciela and Consuelo.

The author truly created an incredible story, and it's hard to find the words to really describe how great this book is. This is the kind of book you'd want to keep on hand forever.

This is a tale of sisterhood, colonization, survival, immigration, war, corruption, hope, love, and El Salvadoran mythology woven into an epic story beautifully written. The Spanish interspersed in the writing was both powerful and, for someone who only knows bits of the language like me, complicated. This, along with the eloquent literary repetitiveness, resulted in it taking me a lot longer to read this book than my usual. I wanted it to end, but was really invested in the characters so wanted to see how their lives unfolded. This is definitely a work to read when you have time to put it down and process before picking it back up again. It is an important contribution to new perspectives on 20th century colonization and the reverberating destruction it has caused to indigenous peoples as a group and individuals.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor: Pantheon, Netgalley, and the author for early access to this powerful work.

Haunting. Devastating. Beautiful. Those are three words I'd use to describe "The Volcano Daughters".

You're transported back in time to the coffee plantations of El Salvador in the heart of volcano country. Through the voices of the dead, you're told the stories of Graciela and Consuelo, two sisters who were torn apart and brought back time and time again. At four years old, Consuelo was ripped from her village by her father and brought up in the capital. While she lived a luxurious life, Graciela was being raised to work. The death of their father brings Graciela to the capital where she's taken from her mother and forced to serve as the General's medium. Together, Graciela and Consuelo grow and plan an escape before tragedy stops them. Their lives get separated, but they're guided by the ghosts of their friends as they each seek out new lives.

Gina María Balibrera has illustrated the world in the 1920's and 30's through the eyes of Salvadorans, painting a picture of the challenges this culture faced. Weaved throughout is a message that we can look to our past to learn how to move forward in the future. Maybe we're not guided by the voices of the dead, but we can create a better world by telling these stories.

Balibrera's prose is beautiful and enchants you from the very first page. It immerses you into the emotions which run high throughout. Our characters face love and loss and grief. Consuelo and Graciela navigate those emotions differently as a result of their different upbringing, creating two vastly different, and equally enthralling, stories.

I'm so grateful to NetGalley and Pantheon for the opportunity to read an e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

The plot was very well thought out. I was impressed with how many historical events and variety of people within the story. The main characters were very interesting to read about. The writing was absolutely heart wrenching at times. I think the author’s style is very unique.

However, I could not stand the pace of the first part. It was way too slow for me. I almost quit reading at least two times. For me, part one felt too much like rambling and the main character really didn’t have the freedom to choose their actions. The magical realism aspects really didn’t come in to play until the later parts too.

Part two was infinitely more interesting where the main characters actually got to choose what to do. This is when I really started to care for the characters. Part three was a little bit difficult to get through emotionally, but I did enjoy how much the author included magical realism in this part. I enjoyed many aspects of the book, but overall, I’m not sure if the unique characteristics of the book outcompete the slow pacing and emotional toll.

Gina María Balibrera's sweeping, moving debut novel The Volcano Daughters follows two sisters, Consuelo and Graciela, through their tumultuous lives in El Salvador and beyond. The novel also uses a Greek chorus-style voice of four girls who didn't survive, and instead follow the two sisters on their journey. Balibrera's writing is beautiful and the narrative is ambitious, covering many years and places as the sisters flee El Salvador for safety and new lives while carrying the past with them. While the narrators often enrich the story, the jumps in style and perspective made it confusing to read at times and made this more challenging to get into. The novel also feels a bit too long and drags at point, and likely could have been tightened up and trimimed. Balibrera is clearly talented, though, so I'm curious what else she will write.