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reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Love Ann Patchett’s writing and liked this book. Ending was frustrating! I’m not sure if we are supposed to hate Rose? She sucks. Could Cecilia also really not connect the dots? I’m usually cool with an ambiguous ending but this one felt very abrupt. Again, Rose sucks.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Abandonment
Minor: Death of parent
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Moderate: Miscarriage, Blood
Minor: Child death, Car accident, Death of parent
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Man, this was hard to rate. I loved each narrator, but didn't love it wholly. I didn't feel like Rose's character was consistent throughout the book, and that bugged me. It left me with more questions than answers, which, perhaps was the point. Sister Evangeline deserved her own section, telling us what was really happening since, of course, she knew.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Blood
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Minor: Car accident, Death of parent
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although The Patron Saint of Liars mainly takes place during the late 60s/early 70s in rural Kentucky at Catholic-run St. Elizabeth's Home for Unwed Mothers, the novel opens several decades earlier with the story behind the hotel out of which the home operates, built near a spring famous for its healing properties. The next three sections are narrated by three different characters: Rose Clinton, a pregnant woman who moves from California to Kentucky to have her baby at St. Elizabeth's, Wilson "Son" Abbott, the groundskeeper at St. Elizabeth's, and finally, Rose's daughter, Cecilia.
Not long after Rose's section opens, she gets married only to quickly realize that she has made a mistake. A devout Catholic, Rose does not consider divorce and instead copes by going on increasingly long drives along the California coast in an attempt to capture the freedom she longs for. When she becomes pregnant, Rose abandons her husband and her mother (a widow after Rose's father died in a car accident when Rose was very young) and drives cross-country to St. Elizabeth's, where she intends to stay until giving up the baby for adoption. However, once there, things change, and Rose ends up keeping the baby, whom she names Cecilia, and marrying Son . In the next two sections, narrated by Son and Cecilia respectively, the characters' motivations and histories are further fleshed out and we see the effects of Rose's actions on those she loves.
Patchett's characterization in Patron Saint is phenomenal: she doesn't hit us over the head with the novel's themes or characters' motivations, but in that subtlety lies depth and nuance. For example, I often didn't agree with or understand Rose's decisions but that didn't mean that I wasn't sympathetic. Rose is someone trapped by layers of circumstances-- her Catholic guilt and her internalized expectations on what women "should" do (marriage, children, etc) that conflict with her clear desire for solitude and freedom. And those circumstances have a ripple effect, hurting those who love her. At one point, Cecilia confronts her about her aloofness as a mother, and Rose replies, "I guess I always thought that just being here was enough. It's been so hard for me to stay sometimes. . . . All these years I thought I'd done a good job because I'd found a way to stay, but I guess if you didn't know those things to begin with, it wouldn't have looked like I was doing anything especially heroic." I was also happy to have Son and Cecilia take turns as narrators because seeing each of the characters through the others' eyes enriched the way I viewed all of them. For me, the end felt like a little bit of a letdown, but I still really enjoyed my reading experience overall because of how good a writer Ann Patchett is.
Before reading The Patron Saint of Liars (Patchett's debut novel), I had only read her two most recent novels (Tom Lake and The Dutch House), both of which I immensely enjoyed. It was an interesting experience to move so far back in the timeline of work, but the biggest takeaway for me was that it cemented my interest in reading a lot more of her work.
I think the layered characters whose actions are sometimes difficult to understand would make The Patron Saint of Liars a really good book club read-- there would be plenty to discuss!
Not long after Rose's section opens, she gets married only to quickly realize that she has made a mistake. A devout Catholic, Rose does not consider divorce and instead copes by going on increasingly long drives along the California coast in an attempt to capture the freedom she longs for. When she becomes pregnant, Rose abandons her husband and her mother (a widow after Rose's father died in a car accident when Rose was very young) and drives cross-country to St. Elizabeth's, where she intends to stay until giving up the baby for adoption. However, once there, things change, and Rose ends up keeping the baby, whom she names Cecilia, and
Patchett's characterization in Patron Saint is phenomenal: she doesn't hit us over the head with the novel's themes or characters' motivations, but in that subtlety lies depth and nuance. For example, I often didn't agree with or understand Rose's decisions but that didn't mean that I wasn't sympathetic. Rose is someone trapped by layers of circumstances-- her Catholic guilt and her internalized expectations on what women "should" do (marriage, children, etc) that conflict with her clear desire for solitude and freedom. And those circumstances have a ripple effect, hurting those who love her. At one point, Cecilia confronts her about her aloofness as a mother, and Rose replies, "I guess I always thought that just being here was enough. It's been so hard for me to stay sometimes. . . . All these years I thought I'd done a good job because I'd found a way to stay, but I guess if you didn't know those things to begin with, it wouldn't have looked like I was doing anything especially heroic." I was also happy to have Son and Cecilia take turns as narrators because seeing each of the characters through the others' eyes enriched the way I viewed all of them. For me, the end felt like a little bit of a letdown, but I still really enjoyed my reading experience overall because of how good a writer Ann Patchett is.
Before reading The Patron Saint of Liars (Patchett's debut novel), I had only read her two most recent novels (Tom Lake and The Dutch House), both of which I immensely enjoyed. It was an interesting experience to move so far back in the timeline of work, but the biggest takeaway for me was that it cemented my interest in reading a lot more of her work.
I think the layered characters whose actions are sometimes difficult to understand would make The Patron Saint of Liars a really good book club read-- there would be plenty to discuss!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Pregnancy
Moderate: Miscarriage, Abandonment
Minor: Car accident, Death of parent
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Pregnancy
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Car accident, Death of parent, War
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Abandonment
Minor: Child death, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail