All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

“As I gradually restore Words Like Silver to its archive of reviews written between 2011 and 2024, I'll aim to first and foremost make my reading history explorable by publishing the blurbs and short reflections as books cross my mind, with the goal of eventually transferring and fleshing out the original WLS content. For now, please enjoy this brief spotlight.”

Here is a thing everyone wants: a miracle.

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

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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.

As always, Maggie Stiefvater writes a story that's lush and gracefully human. I love her intense attention to detail; she curates details in a way that creates pervasive atmosphere. Her writing is stunning, and her characters are complex.

Speaking generally, that's what I expect going into a story.

All the Crooked Saints was good. It felt less urgent than her others, and that lack of tension took me back a little bit. Her characters weren't as memorable, although they were distinct.

I did love the longing of the desert setting, which showed off Stiefvater's strengths. It felt the most whimsical out of any of Maggie Stiefvater's books, which I enjoyed. You definitely have to go into it as a bit of a sidetracked read rather than her "main" books — which are explosive and gorgeous — but I still liked it a lot.

One part that surprised me most was that it feels utterly timeless. It doesn't take place in modern times, and that only occurred to me about halfway through the book because it feels so universal. Also, I loved how Stiefvater played with parallel language.

I think because she's still in the spirit of The Raven Cycle, the characters could have used more development. They have definite specificity that is wholly unique to the way Stiefvater writes. Still, I didn't connect quite as well to them and they didn't feel as warm.

If you're a fan of atmosphere or folk tales, it has that same kind of quality. A bit of a self-contained nature and layers that you can read into, rather than an in-your-face narrative. It's rather slow, but that feels characteristic of its entire vibe: lazy and quiet. I can see it being hit-or-miss for most readers, but I love books that go out of their way to be different.