R.F. Gammon's Reviews > All the Crooked Saints

This book is perfect and I will never stop loving it with all of my entire heart.

RE-READ #1: June 2018
I adore this book. I will not apologize for my love for it, nor for reading it twice in one year, nor of buying it on a whim for twenty bucks even though I probably should have waited for the paperback.

No, this book is a marvel.

If you have not read it, you should. If you have read it, re-read it. It is perfection.

GORGEOUS BEAUTIFUL PERFECTION.

Original Review:
I have a new bookish true love.

The characters...the setting..all of it just absolutely stole my heart.

I picked this book up at the library on a random trip a while back, wanting to fill my cart and maybe expand my horizons. I read The Scorpio Races a few months back, and although I loved the Irish-y setting, the water horses, and a couple of the characters, it just didn't resonate with me as much as it seems to have with most of my bookworm friends. So I'd pretty much decided that Maggie Stiefvater just wasn't an author for me.

But then I tried All the Crooked Saints. And man oh man, was I wrong.

LIKES
-BEATRIZZZZZ. I think she's sort of the main character--it's hard to say, since there's a loooot of POV characters--but in any event, I loved her so much. She and I are pretty much opposites--she is the girl without feelings, while I am the girl whose feelings explode out of me if I so much as sneeze. But she was still beautiful and wonderful and mmmm I loved it.
-Pete. My precious Pete-child. He was pure and kind and wonderful and really wanted to make a difference with what he had of his life. He's kicked out of the army because he has a hole in his heart, and decides that after his successes in school of helping those smaller than him, he wants to start a moving company. This is what brings him to Bicho Raro.
-Speaking of...Bicho Raro. The desert is alive. I have a sneaking suspicion the ranch is alive. Everything is sentient, and I adore sentient worlds. <3 The desert fell in love with Pete and he fell in love with it and I fell in love with it right along with him.
-PETE AND BEATRIZ. THAT IS ALL. (The elbow thing was so precious and adorable and honestly kind of relatable?)
-Joaquin and the radio station! The two go hand in hand, and I love that they did.
-Historical fantasy is just a really awesome genre.
-Daniel as a Saint and his backstory because oh GOSH I want to know more about that now.
-Antonia and Francisco made me so sad. I just wanted them to come back together. Their story was so sweet, and they definitely didn't deserve the angst that they had to go through for the story. Stiefvater is cruel to the babies, y'all.
-Tony and Marisita and the twins and all the other pilgrims. They had such diverse reasons for being there, and their hearts were so big, and the poor little things. They had to get rid of all their inner darkness ON THEIR OWN. Because there's a taboo on helping them. It's so sad.
-The Southwestern, Wild West, ranch-y, Mexican feel of all of it. I always forget how much I love Southwestern stuff, and then I'm surprised when I remember and discover something including it. Ahh, I love it.
-The writing. Something about the style--it was gorgeous. It was quirky. It was beautiful. I loved it.

DISLIKES
-Can I just say I loved almost everything?
-Okay, fine. I'll nitpick.
-The beginning was a little slow, and took me a little while to get used to. I was initially thinking that this book would get 3 stars, which rose up to 4 as I read and by the end had effortlessly snagged a 5-star. So it's definitely slow-burning, interesting in a book this short.
-Some of the spiritual stuff got a little weird--as a non-Catholic, I was a little uncomfortable with some of it, but it never strayed too far outside my comfort zone.

CONTENT:

Sexual: I'm pleased to say, almost none. I feel like there were some embraces and stuff, but nothing too drastic. There's a married couple no longer sleeping in the same house because they feel they have irreparable issues. There's a couple of romances between young adults, all pretty much clean--I don't even remember any kisses.

Language: Tony cusses a couple of times, but it's made very clear that that's just Tony. I think the total cussing is one s-word, a couple a-words, a couple d-words, and a couple of those with God's name. Really not much, which was lovely.

Drugs, etc.: Tony has a stash of marijuana in his car. He smokes a little bit but not much. There's a scene with some ranchers with guns who /might/ be drunk? I honestly don't recall.

This is a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved it. I'm so glad I read it, and 100% recommend. I don't think they're similar, but at some point I may have to try the Raven Cycle. Maybe since Stiefvater's work is obviously diverse in my calculations, I'll enjoy it. <3

5 glowing stars, and yes, read it!