Review: All the Crooked Saints

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm neither a Maggie Stiefvater super-stan nor an anti-fan, so when this latest book of hers erupted in a storm of controversy almost from the moment it was announced, I largely stayed out of it, hoping to reserve judgment till after I'd read the book. Well, I've read it - or, at least, I tried to. Because as much as I found myself relating to some of Stiefvater's heroes of this day, I also found this book grossly impenetrable, trying way too hard in a lot of departments up to and including imitating magical realism and its Latinx (specifically Mexican, in this case) cultural origins. Being white, I obviously have little to bring to the table when it comes to racial rep, but I think Stiefvater rendered the Soria family and their Catholic roots (as well as how aware they are of how they've strayed from them) as well as she could have, for what it's worth. Barring some research issues - I can't unsee the reactions from Latinx readers when they found out the book was set in a town whose name translated to "Rare Dick" - I feel like she wrote the book and its characters with more cultural sensitivity than when she wrote, say, Henry Cheng.

Still, though, persisting throughout the whole book is the feeling that Stiefvater decided to write a magical-realist story (or an imitation thereof, if you subscribe to the belief that magical realism must by definition originate, in content and creator both, in Latinx, African, or any other culture still feeling the repercussions of colonialism) not so much as an homage to the genre or to Mexican culture as an excuse to cut loose with her usual dreamy prose. That dreamy prose, not unlike in The Raven Cycle, here feels like it's an attempt to cover for thin characters and plots, to make the book seem more profound than it really is.

Don't get me wrong, the characters are often the book's greatest strength - some are kind of a saving grace for me, as I kept reading just to know if they would come out all right in the end - but only two or three really make much of an impression. Pete, of course, the guy who needs a miracle most of all because he's got a hole in his heart (and marijuana ain't gonna help much with that, is it?); Joaquin (no accent on his name? Or am I wrong?) bringing flashes of funny even as his whole "Diablo Diablo" pirate-radio persona feels like he's trying too hard to be edgy and rebellious; and Beatriz. She's a strange case for me, because the whole "chica sin sentimientos" thing she's got going on made me feel like Stiefvater coded her, unintentionally or not, as autistic. Coded, though not outright stated, and if so, reliant on some bad stereotypes which rub me, as an autistic reader, the wrong way. But I'm a little more willing to let it go than I am with, say, Adam, whom I still feel Stiefvater made canonically bi more to satisfy Pynch (and Blue/Gansey by extension) shippers than to believably write a queer boy figuring his sexuality out. Mostly because where I especially relate to Beatriz is her need to escape Bicho Raro.

Like I said, I'm not really devoted or opposed to Stiefvater and her work. This one, I'm sorry to say, isn't her best. It's on the bestseller list, of course, but really only because of both hype (from the usual Stiefvater stans) and anti-hype (from those who mistrust her for her poor track record with racial rep), and I don't think it lives up to either as much as you'd think it would. It's a beautiful book, to be sure, but it falls back on a lot of Stiefvater's biggest flaws as a writer too, being indulgent and ethereal to the point where it so often alienates me as a reader. I think next time I try a magical-realist book, I'll go for something a little more authentic.

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