All the Crooked Saints

by Maggie Stiefvater

Here is a thing everyone wants:
A miracle.

Here is a thing everyone fears:
What it takes to get one.

Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape
of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls,
estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of
watchful desert stars.

At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all
have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart
of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz,
the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine
her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs
miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights
running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo.


They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro
are never quite what you expect.

Maggie Stiefvater has been called "a master storyteller" by USA Today
and "wildly imaginative" by Entertainment Weekly. Now, with
All the Crooked Saints, she gives us the extraordinary story of
an extraordinary family, a masterful tale of love, fear, darkness,
and redemption.

• ISBN13: 9781407164793
• Publish Date: 10 October 2017 (first published 5 October 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 28 March 2019
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Scholastic
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

All the Crooked Saints was such a rollercoaster ride for me. Going into it, I really wanted that same atmospheric magic I found in The Raven Boys but I was a bit hesitant because I’ve read quite a few “I was disappointed” reviews. After I got a little while in – maybe 20% – I decided I wasn’t crazy about the narrator.

Then, the Sorias swallowed me whole.

This novel is so utterly unique in that it is in many ways a familiar story, but embracing a sort of magic in the world that makes it feel completely fresh. It doesn’t have the gang of misfits and gushing love story many of Maggie’s fans have probably come to expect of her, but it’s complex and thrilling. All the Crooked Saints has the feel of perfect legends and folklore and so help me, I really liked it.

The Soria family does not really perform miracles – they help you perform your own miracle. Sometimes, these aren’t what we would expect. After all, they aren’t genies granting three wishes. The things that change our lives often start as something unwelcome that we twist and turn into some revealing and inspirational. In their own way, each of the Soria cousins do this. It’s easy to love Daniel, Beatriz, and Joaquin. Each one of them brings their own twist to the story’s challenge.

I think where All the Crooked Saints shines the brightest is in Maggie’s incredible world building. Bicho Raro is dusty and beautiful all at once. The desert comes to life under Maggie’s pen, and that’s what I really love about her writing. Her atmospheres and aesthetics feels so alive – they are characters of themselves. This is a YA novel set in Colorado in the 1960s, which is ambitious with the modern YA audience. As a result, a lot of people may have difficulty delving into the story because it can feel so far detached from ourselves.

I think my only gripe with this novel – other than the narrator, who I still didn’t love – was the pacing. The story has a very slow start, then it wraps up all at once. The beginning has such a slow, thrumming pace that there were moments before I fell in love with the oddities and the desert landscape that I thought about DNF-ing it. That pacing was ultimately not a killer for me, as once we got to know the pilgrims a little better, it was easier to fall into the aspects of their stories as well.

All the Crooked Saints turned out to be an incredible book filled with questions and colorful characters and a unique setting. Even though I was unsure at first, I ended up loving this book and it’s one I will definitely be adding my shelves.

[ibeforem]

Magical realism usually isn't my thing, but I enjoyed this more than I expected to. This is mostly the story of the Soria family, who invite travelers to their Colorado desert compound and then perform miracles. These aren't the traditional sort of miracles, because before one can be healed, they must work through their darkness, which often manifests itself in some strange physical abnormality. For example, turning one into a giant, and giving another a rain cloud that rains on her all of the time. But once the Saint's part is through, they are not allowed to interfere with the "pilgrims", lest their darkness rebound back onto them, with terrible consequences.

The book focuses on three cousins, Daniel, the current Saint, Beatriz, who struggles with emotions, and Joaquin, who dreams of one day being a DJ for more than their pirate radio station built in the back of a moving truck. We also follow a couple of the pilgrims that have come to town, including Pete, a boy who has come to town not in search of a miracle, but a job. When the darkness comes to one of them and they must leave, the rest of the family is torn between finding them and probably spreading the darkness to themselves and letting him be gone forever.

There is a lot of pain and healing in this book, and it's all beautifully written. I would pick up another Maggie Stiefvater book.

[ross91]

I love Stiefvater’s writing style, but the story wasn’t compelling enough

[verkaskodova]

Nejsem si tak docela jistá proč, ale se čtením knihy to bylo následovně:

- 5 stran útrpného mučení, týden naříkání, že to nemám šanci dočíst
- 100 stran během jednoho večera a pokřik, jak moc skvělý to je
-20 stran a dva týdny mučení a naříkání
- 120 stran během dvou večerů
- týden souvislého zírání na knížku s tím, že není absolutní chuť ani síla ji zvednout
- čtení The Cruel Prince, protože na to už prostě kašlete
- dočtení The Cruel Prince a plamenný projev, že když jste zvládli přečíst netvory jako je Cizinka, tak zvládnete i All the Crooked Saints
- 66 bývajících stran během jednoho večera a rozplývání se, kolik myšlenek tahle nádhera obsahuje

A stejně tomu nemůžu dát víc, než tři hvězdičky. Prostě to nejde, nejde, nejde. I když postavy byly naprosto super, i když bych si z knihy zarámovala přinejmenším 20 stránek, i když z knihy nemám vůbec špatné pocity. Bylo to utahaný a hotovo. Ne, když se do toho jednou vžijete, ale jinak příšerně.

[Kelly]

I'm completely disoriented. It's excessive and pretentious and I've come to the realisation that her books are just not for me.

[rohshey]

3.5

Before I say anything I just want to get it out there. The Writing, people. The Writing! It. Is. Glorious.

You know how sometimes you come across a book that makes you feel the respect and love the writer has for the language as it seems like every word has been picked very carefully and delicately by the writer and weaved into lush of sentences that take your breath away or leave you with a blushing smile after every turn of a page. This is that book. And I am not talking about the kind of writers who come across pretentious in the name of elegant/poetic writing. There's difference between using language as a tool to show off the writer's command over language hence letting the story take the backseat and using it as genuine mean to bring out the nuance in storytelling by applying simplest of words hence allowing the story to be the hero. All the crooked saints magnificently falls into the latter category. There's special corner in my heart for writers who show care for the importance of language in storytelling and Maggie Steifvatar, I welcome you to that special corner in my heart.

Now comes the actual critique of the story, so It’s a whimsical story in its darkness and light, but for me it was read from a distance. Even though I felt the urge to applaud Stiefvater for her facility and love of language. Some of her sentences would just stop me in my tracks. ‘Pete was from Oklahoma and had only loneliness as his second language’just works for me on so many levels. It was the overall narrative that just lost me at times. I just didn’t feel invested in anything. But that’s the trouble with fairy tales, isn’t it? At times, they just feel detached even when you are absorbed in the writing.

While this novel wasn’t for me, it was an interesting read. It’s unlike anything I had previously read, and it was a unique ride.

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Initial thoughts: No doubt, the prose was beautiful! However, for the audiobook, that wasn't always a good thing. With nearly every sentence sounding like a decoration, the plot and characters didn't get to shine as much as they should have. What I did like in terms of the narrating style was how pedantic, sometimes even sarcastic, it could be, all while retaining its poetic signature.

So, while I loved the narrator, I think the audiobook of All the Crooked Saints is best left for a re-read. In fact, I think I should re-read the print edition before I write my review proper because I'm afraid I might have missed crucial points. Too often the words ran ahead before I could grasp their meanings. Mind you, I listen to audiobooks all the time, sometimes even at 2.5x the original speed without missing out on the details.

[Stephanie]

This is a small, quiet book filled with big, beautiful things. Some of the best, sophisticated writing from Maggie Stiefvater to date.

[Linda]

All the Crooked Saints has a very different feel from other Stiefvater novels, even if there is still something very mystical and mythical going on.