First Line Friday #130
Today’s First Line Friday is a YA Fantasy novel, and quite fitting for today……
It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.
All The Crooked Saints
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Published: October 10, 2017
Reviewed By: Kim
Kim’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
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.
Kim’s Review:
Another Christmas book! And with a beautiful cover!
I’ll admit that this book started very slowly for me. To be fair, I was about 4 hours into an 8-hour flight thru the night, but it was still slow. I was even considering DNF-ing it, but I decided to stick with it. I am glad I did, but I also don’t think I’ll ever read this book again. It was definitely more on the philosophical side, but very vague. I had to try to clamp down on my inner shallowness to make sure I understood everything. I still don’t think I got it all, but by the time I finished, I was satisfied with the story and took a lot of good things from it.
It picked up about halfway thru. I liked the characters, I liked Stiefvater’s writing style, the setting was excellent, the imagination was beautiful. I liked the message that everyone has darkness inside them, nobody is perfect. There was a selflessness that came thru from the Soria family that I really loved. And if everyone could be like Pete Wyatt, I think most of the problems of the world wouldn’t exist! Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone. Definitely for the more advanced reader.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
