All the Crooked Saints - Maggie Stiefvater

FrombestsellingauthorMaggieStiefvater,agrippingtaleofdarkness,miracles,andfamily.Saints.Miracles.Family.Romance.Death.Redemption.

Hereisathingeveryonewants:Amiracle.

Hereisathingeveryonefears:
Whatittakestogetone.

AnyvisitortoBichoRaro,Coloradoislikelytofindalandscapeofdarksaints,forbiddenlove,scientificdreams,miracle-madowls,estrangedaffections,oneortwoorphans,andaskyfullofwatchfuldesertstars.

AttheheartofthisplaceyouwillfindtheSoriafamily,whoallhavetheabilitytoperformunusualmiracles.Andattheheartofthisfamilyarethreecousinslongingtochangeitsfuture:Beatriz,thegirlwithoutfeelings,whowantsonlytobefreetoexamineherthoughts;Daniel,theSaintofBichoRaro,whoperformsmiraclesforeveryonebuthimself;andJoaquin,whospendshisnightsrunningarenegaderadiostationunderthenameDiabloDiablo.

Theyarealllookingforamiracle.ButthemiraclesofBichoRaroareneverquitewhatyouexpect."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."


This book was unfortunately and disappointingly boring to me. Maggie’s lyrical writing style is present throughout the book. The writing is truely drop dead gorgeous. I had to stop to re read many passages just because of how beautiful they where. But I never once felt fully immersed with this actual story. I have so many tabs of gorgeous passages filled with whimsical prose after whimsical prose, but the beautiful writing didn’t help me to actually care about these characters. This actually pains me to say, but I came very close to DNFing this book by the half way point, just because I was so uninterested with the main characters.

There definitely are better aspects. The imagery is really stunning. I absolutely adored the thing she wanted / thing she feared character intros: they were the highlights of the book for me.  There’s a very magical vibe to this book, otherworldly and a great example of magic realism. I enjoyed the scope of the Soria family and how positive and loving their dynamic was. Yet they still feel like a flawed, dynamic family. The trio of Soria cousins are great.  I do really love how Stiefvater plays with language and metaphor; it’s a lot of fun, and I’m sure you could annotate this for just her wordplay till the end of time.There are a lot of great ideas, the emotional execution was lacking however. 

Age Rating 13+. Nothing untoward.