Thank you NetGalley and Pantheon Books for providing me a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Disclaimer: I’m a big mood reader (including, but not limited to topic, format, pace, and genre)- so please take my review with that in mind.

Quick Response-
I enjoyed this more as an audiobook - it could be due to a multitude of factors. Among them being: I was in an audiobook mood, the narrators added to the storytelling in a way I could never, it’s a story that’s meant to be told out loud, etc.

Plot-
We follow two sisters: Graciela and Consuelo as they are forced to journey (together and separately) from their childhood home to a big city and then to a new country. This is a story about the strength of a sister’s bond. And I’m not just talking biological relationships- the sisters are accompanied by the ghosts of their childhood friends who perished in a terrible attack.

Characters-
The characters are three dimensional, even the spirits of the childhood friends. I found myself rooting for, shaking my head at, and laughing with the females in this novel.

Writing Style-
The novel is told in third person, volleying between Graciela and Consuelo’s lives; with interludes from the spirits and their informative/humorous/relatable input.
Mostly medium pace - there were times I lost interest and would just play the book without listening to what was really going on. I do think it was longer than it needed to be, but at the same time, think the last 10-15% was kind of rushed. That being said, the overall book was a good experience.

How I Read the Book -
I started this book with a digital ARC, but found that it felt I was just taking longer than I normally do to read a book of this length. That started to affect how I approached the book - I would almost not even want to open it back up. I began reading this book after the publication date, so thinking it was a screen time issue, I snagged a copy at the library, only to find out I had the same issue where I would be reading slower than usual*. I waited until I could listen to an audio version before deciding to DNF, because usually I didn’t go through this much effort to continue reading a book. I’m glad I waited, I’m glad I was able to listen to the story of these young girls who became wise women.

Credit to the narrators: Alma Cuervo, Inés del Castillo, Elena Rey, E.A. Castillo, Gisela Chipe.

*I am not saying reading speed matters, but me reading slower than I normally do is an indicator for me that I’m not interested in a book. But I had this strong feeling that this book was going to be good.

Why I Read the Book-
I pretty much judged this book by the cover - in a good way. The title, combined with the cover art exuded a fierce and powerful feeling. After reading that this was going to be a new-to-me-setting (El Salvador) and a new-to-me-author nationality I requested an ARC right away. It’s important to me to read stories from different countries and written by authors from different nationalities. Essentially, I wanted to expand my reading experience. And I did.

Do I Like this book?-
I did like this book - I’m glad I read it.

Do I Recommend this Book?-
I recommend this book (especially in audio format) to everyone who is able to get ahold of it.

Trigger warnings-
Miscarriage, sexual assault, kidnapping, immigration/deportation threats, racism, eugenics, genocide.

From the very first page, I was hooked! This historical fiction/magical realism mash up proved there is nothing like a mother's love. Additionally, we follow two sisters on their journey. As a self-proclaimed life-learner, I appreciated this story for providing insights into cultural and historical events with an authentic feel, which allowed me to fully appreciate the girls' journey, culture, and triumph in the face of adversity.

Volcano Daughters did an excellent job of highlighting history I had never heard of and had no context for - the 1932 El Salvador Massacre. While I have no regrets over reading this book, it fell short in many ways. Most notably, the lack of author’s note and historical context didn’t do the story the full justice it deserved. Consuelo is real! Consuelo Suncín de Sandoval. And “the aviator” is the famous author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince. Consuelo was his muse for part of that famous story and he went mysteriously missing during one of his 1940s flight. “The Mexican” is her first husband, Ricardo Cárdenas. Claudia is also a real person and poet - Claudia Lars and really is the daughter of Peter Patrick Brannon.
The magical realism of this book made me assume that while the background setting was real, the characters were all fake and I was shocked to learn that was not the case.
Unfortunately, this story did feel like it lasted absolutely forever, the beginning had 2 million characters (a mix of people and ghosts) that were quite difficult to follow, and I really wish Graciela and Claudia had been more developed. It also really stretched my high school Spanish, with not always enough context given to understand the informal slang. But, as I said, I don’t regret reading this and learning more about El Salvador’s tumultuous history. Thanks to NetGalley for the DRC!

A magical realism and historical novel starting out in 1920s El Salvador, as two sisters were separated and then brought back together all while under the dictator's regime. Interspersed between the sisters' story is a chorus of the ghosts of their friends who add another layer to the story, although it took some time to get used to the narration. Overall, a gripping story of a terrible time in history, with well written prose. Readers who like magical realism will appreciate this one, although the tone is definitely on the darker side.

As a fan of historical fiction, I was eager to read this book. The story offers a powerful depiction of life in 1920s El Salvador, following two sisters torn apart by a dictator's cruelty. While the plot is compelling, rich with themes of resilience and survival, I found the reading experience challenging due to the untranslated Spanish phrases. This made it difficult to grasp key elements. Additionally, the chorus of ghostly voices that narrate parts of the story felt excessive and disrupted the flow. Despite these issues, Balibrera's writing is often lyrical and poetic, and I appreciate her storytelling.

This book was an emotional read for me. I appreciate books that stay with me after I've finished them, and this one definitely does that. I particularly enjoy books that center around women. While I'm not a fan of books with a lot of suffering, I appreciate that the women in this book are portrayed with strength. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I'm interested in reading more from this author.

This novel spans from 1914 to 1942 and follows the lives of Graciela and Consuelo, two sisters who were separated during childhood, each facing so many adversities and for different reasons are far from each other.

Part of this story takes place in El Salvador during the dictatorship of "El Gran Pendejo " portraying the injustices and massacres.
It was interesting to learn about this period, and the historical part is what I enjoyed more.
Unfortunately, even if I found the narration original with a touch of magical realism, the Greek chorus didn't work for me. Sometimes, the interventions of those voices didn't add something relevant to the plot and was pointless, and it made me lose interest several times.

The premise was so promising, but it didn't fulfill my expectations.
I appreciate when I find expressions or key language according to a specific group of people, but I found excessive the use of Spanish, which is my native language, but sometimes the use was unnecessary.

Despite the hard life that the two sisters experienced, I couldn't connect with these characters even if I'm an emotional person. I guess this book wasn't for me after all.

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this digital ARC.

I was so excited to read this and was heavily anticipating this being a 5 star reas. I think the author tried to do a lot and it didn't execute exactly as thought. It was somewhat of a struggle for me.

3.5

I was initially drawn to this stunning cover and then I saw that this was a historical fiction/magical realism narrative that follows two sisters during the rise of El Salvador's dictator and their flight from genocide. As someone who didn't know much about El Salvador's history, I found myself with an open Google tab up throughout this reading experience because I wanted to learn more about these people and events.

One thing that was really interesting about this is that the narrative has interlude commentary from friends of the sisters who are dead. I think once I understood that narrative structure, I found it really impactful but it did make the first 50 or so pages of this hard to get into.

Overall, I thought this story was compelling and emotional. Given that the story follows the rise of a genocidal dictator, there are some elements of this that are really hard to read but the prose was beautiful and the character voices felt fully realized. I found some elements of the plot and pacing a bit uneven, which is part of what keeps me from giving this a full 4 star, but I was really impressed by this debut and would be interested in seeing what else Balibrera writes.

This isn't the type of book I would normally pick up, but I'm so glad I took a chance and requested this one. It was both magical and moving, both fantastical and painfully realistic.

This story is beautifully written and has a compelling historic background. I enjoyed the beauty of the words and learning a little more about the struggles of Salvadorans, particularly the women.
There was a significant amount of Spanish used which I don't understand. It slowed my reading, and I missed out on a full understanding of many of the conversations. This may have kept me from getting into the story as much as I would have liked. Because of the beauty of the prose and the historic detail, I wouldn't hesitate to try reading another book by this author.
I would definitely recommend this title for any fan of Isabel Allende, as it is very much in her style of historic fiction with a touch of magic real.
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

📖 + 🎧: The Volcano Daughters-a standalone

✍️ By: Gina María Balibrera -debut author

📃 Page Count: 354 eBook

🗣️: Narrators: Gisela Chipe, Elena Rey, Alma Cuervo, E.A. Castillo, and Ines del Castillo voice the cast. Their voices fit the characters with standouts from Graciela and Consuelo. The reading style brought the text to life, and the author and narrator worked together perfectly. The pacing and flow allowed me to get lost in the story. The narrator paused and announced new chapters and there was a table of contents which helped me follow along with the e-book and audiobook

🏃🏾‍♀️‍➡️: Run Time: 12:26

🗓️ Publication Date: 8-20-24, Read 9-27-24


🙏🏾Thanks to NetGalley, Pantheon, and Gina Maria Balibrera for this ARC 💚! I voluntarily give my honest review, and all opinions are my own.

🌎Setting: Volcano Izalco, El Salvadore- + California + France 1923-1942

Genre: Women's Fic, Latino American Lit/Hispanic American Lit Fic

🌋Tropes: mythology, magical realism, found family, female friendship/sisterhood, surprise pregnancy

POV: multiple

⚠️TW: kidnapping, grief, miscarriage, WWII, genocide, SA-h, alcoholism, suicide attempt-h

💭Summary: Two sisters reunite through tragedy told by the victims themselves. Graciela and Consuelo never met until their father died, one sister becoming the oracle to the General and President of El Salvatore and the other a prisoner of war.

🚺Heroine: Graciela-grew up w/ volcano daughters until invited to the Capital w/ her mother to meet sister Consuelo. She's made an oracle for the General, taking her deceased father's place as fortune teller.

🚺Heroine: Consuelo-kidnapped as a child, raised by her father and stepmother

🎭Side cast:

•Lourdes, María, Cora and Lucia-all grew up w/ Graciela and their mothers in El Salvador

•Socorrito-Graciela and Consuelo's mother

• El Gran Pendejo/The General/Patrick Brannon- a dictator who commits genocide

• Perlita-German's wife, unable to have children

• German-Graciela and Consuelo's father

• Luis-Consuelo's boyfriend and an artist

• Hector-Cora's boyfriend

• Ninfa-Perlita's servant, becomes a mother figure to Graciela


🤔 My Thoughts: I had no idea about this time in history, but I'm glad I found it. The sisterhood, the struggle to survive, and the journey these women went on was epic. It's filled with Latino mythology, ghosts, and nightmares of the past. The found families and men of the moment kept the sisters occupied and helped them maintained a life after everything they endured.


Range of emotions: 😬🤔🙄
🌶️: Spice 3/5-a few scenes, nothing explicit
😭: Emotion 5/5
⭐️: Rating 4/5

I'm Salvadoran so as soon as I heard that the publisher had bought rights to this book, I was EXCITED!!! I've known that this book was coming for a while! LOL! I'm always on the hunt for Salvadoran books. Anyways...one of the first things I want readers to know is that this is NOT a fast read. This is a book that you want to take your time with. Believe me, its worth it!!! It's a beautiful story about Consuelo and Gracielita, two sisters of the indigineous community Pipil, who survived a genocide and get seperated. It's all told through the eyes of their four friends: Lourdes, Maria, Cora and Lucia. All four are ghosts since they were murdered during the massacre (this isn't a spoiler, they tell you from the first pages).

Also the finished copies have a list of all the characters to make it easier. I didn't have this in my ARC copy so I had to take notes but I love doing that and had to annotate so much!!! 😍It's always fun to see my thoughts when I go back.

One thing I kept thinking as I was reading this book was how much I wished I had this book when I was younger. I didn't know about the brutal genocide of 1932 until a few years ago. There's so much Salvadoran history in this book that I want to read more about it. I loved the mentions of Prudencia Ayala and Roque Dalton. I also loved all the folklore that was included specially about La Siguanaba and el Cadejo. If it was up to me this book would had been twice as long. I couldn't get enough.

I appreciated all the Salvadoran spanish that was used throughout the book. It made me feel like I was hearing the story from a family member! Although I guess my family uses the word Puchica differently...

I understood that the narrators were dead, but the premise of the whole book was so sad for the most part. Plus it was hard to get into, as I felt like I needed to whip out a Spanish to English fiction at times and the story didn’t need to be as long as it was, or maybe I just didn’t understand everything I read. I loved the scenery set up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to Pantheon for providing this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Overall Rating: 3.75 / 5 (rounded up to 4)

I would recommend this book to those that are fans of historical fiction told from a unique perspective, especially if you have a background on the politics and leadership of El Salvador.

Overall I found this to be a tough but fascinating and compelling read. At times I found myself stumbling over the decisions made for storytelling, having to backtrack when the perspectives swapped or when it wasn’t entirely clear to me when the timelines had changed. This could have been a me problem since I loved the actual prose and scathing look at El Salvador’s history. I also felt at times that this story bit off a bit more than it could chew, trying to fit in a lot of quips and commentary when some subjects were merely introduced but not necessarily explored as in-depth as I would have liked to see.

Despite all that, I still found myself sucked in to the story. While I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going in the beginning, I did find myself really rooting for Graciela and Consuelo as the plot focused in on how they’re trying to survive their tragic pasts. At times I do wish we had more interludes from the ghostly narrators, since the times they did come up did have me chuckling. They felt at times almost like they were saying exactly what I was thinking when the two girls would do something that wasn’t in their best interests.

I would definitely pick up another work by this author, I may just take some time for myself to do prior research on the subject matter to be sure that I can jump immediately into the story. I have definitely grown more and more curious through reading historical fiction and this book is no exception.

OMG OMG full disclosure I was so enamored with this that halfwaythrough I went ahead and bought the audiobook so I could listen while cleaning and fixing the washing machine. I just could not put it down but I also had a ton of chores. I love it so much. It is so sad and so magical. I absolutely reccomend this one.

It had interesting potetntial but it was very wordy and slowly paced. By the time I figured out who the main characters were, I was bored. I think this author is talented but this just wasn't for me.

I could not get into this book.

Though the premise promised a gripping story, the execution fell flat for me. There was an overwhelming amount of lengthy exposition and scene-setting right from the beginning, and the characters were impossible to understand and empathize with.

This ended up as a DNF. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read this e-arc.

I was hooked from the very start in this book! The premise that ghosts were telling the story intrigued me and I loved the usage of Spanish throughout the book as it made it more authentic to the story. This was a tale of loss, love, sisterhood and family and I think the author did a great job of keeping the book moving and keeping the themes relevant throughout. I think at some points it was a little lengthy, but overall I enjoyed the book.

A magical story from the start filled with so much heart and passion. The authenticity and boldness of the narrators drives the story forward with fun and spirited energy. The pages are lively, dramatic and captivating as you walk through each sisters' story and watch them navigate through all of the twists and turns their lives take.

The Spanish woven within the book is special and heart-warming for those who grew up in Spanish speaking cultures. I appreciated the details those words added to the overall story. This is a unique way to tell a story of sisterhood, love, loss, and pain.