All the Crooked Saints in SpecFic Buddy Reads

Jan 27, 2017 Justine rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook, 2017-read

4.5 stars

I loved it, but I don't think it will be for everyone.

In some ways this book is iconically Stiefvater, that is, character driven and dense with evocatively visual prose. But it also very much like her other books in that it is completely unlike her other books. After reading ten books by Maggie Stiefvater one thing I can always say with certainty is that the next story will be completely different from the last. And it is.

Narratively dense and rich with small stories interwoven to brin ...more

21 likes · Like · see review

Nov 22, 2017 Lata rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sf-f-h, x2017-read, auth-f, kids-and-ya

Beautiful.

16 likes · Like · see review

Nov 20, 2017 Lindsay rated it it was amazing

In a remote desert part of Colorado a family of saints perform miracles for the pilgrims that seek them out.

The Soria family can perform miracles, bringing forth people's internal darkness and making it explicit and able to be fought, but the rules around the miracles are perilous for both the saints and the pilgrims. At Bicho Raro the saint Daniel has broken one of the rules and wandered into the desert in an effort to protect the people he loves from his darkness. At the same time two new arri ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Emma rated it liked it

Beautiful writing with plenty of gems but it didn’t hang together well for me.

7 likes · Like · see review

Jun 23, 2020 Susy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: overdrive, fantasy, audio-finished

2.5 stars
It took me forever to get through the audiobook. Though I didn’t dislike it, I can’t say I liked it either, it just seemed to drag a bit, couldn’t hold my attention. I might have liked it better had I read it instead of listening to it. The narrator was alright though (3 stars).

“Very few people are ever healed by being told the truth instead of feeling the truth for themselves.”

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May 04, 2020 Di Maitland rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: magic, audiobook, fantasy, fabulous-writing, in-library, magical-realism, community, weird

This is an odd book. The story gets medium marks; intriguing enough. The writing gets top marks.

Written from a third-person omniscient point of view, the book is whimsical and almost poetic in it's gentle journey from start to finish. It's humorous, but in a fond-smile sort of way rather than a laugh-out-loud sort of way. It's charmingly repetitious and, at times, really quite weird.

Here was a thing Antonia wanted: to suck honey off a man's finger. Here was a thing she feared: that she would fo

This is an odd book. The story gets medium marks; intriguing enough. The writing gets top marks.

Written from a third-person omniscient point of view, the book is whimsical and almost poetic in it's gentle journey from start to finish. It's humorous, but in a fond-smile sort of way rather than a laugh-out-loud sort of way. It's charmingly repetitious and, at times, really quite weird.

Here was a thing Antonia wanted: to suck honey off a man's finger. Here was a thing she feared: that she would forget to shout at one of her family members and this family member's lack of care would lead to her house catching on fire

Here was a thing she wanted: to taste vanilla without crying. Here was a thing she feared: that the prettiest thing about her was her exterior.

Stiefvater's writing is made only better narrated in the dulcet, Spanish-accented tones of Thom Rivera. Highly recommend the audiobook.

All the Crooked Saints tells the story of the Sorias: an extended family of Mexican heritage who can perform miracles in there little town of Bicho Raro, Colorado. These miracles occur in two parts. First, the Soria Saint will make corporeal a pilgrim's inner darkness. Second, the pilgrim will make peace with or resolve this darkness and so perform the second miracle themselves. If the Sorias help the pilgrims to resolve their darkness, they risk falling to their own, much more dangerous, darkness.

The trouble is the pilgrims aren't resolving their darkness themselves and Bicho Raro is now full to bursting with semi-mute women, giant men, priests with coyote's heads and twins bound together by snakes. When Daniel Soria, the Saint of Bicho Raro, decides to do something about this and so falls to his own darkness, the community of Bicho Raro must pull together to save him, and maybe themselves too.

Set in 1962, everything seems a little bit simpler, more rustic, the landscape a little more barren, though very much alive - at times quite literally. Family relations amongst the Sorias are deep but realistic. Most of all, however, I think the book is a fascinating portrayal of what it can be like to fight mental health problems. The darkness inside that seems, to you, just like any other part of you. The need to identify and to fight that darkness and so find the light on the other side. Simplified, sure; but perhaps more instructive because of it.

Recommend for a gentle, introspective moment. ...more

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