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slymberis's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
omp's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This multi-generational tale of an alcoholic father, a teen mom, and an aging, ill family matriarch is everything that a true story of a growing, flawed family should be.
Reread as a book club selection. Again, the story felt realistic to me...messy circumstances, flawed decisions, characters with vulnerability that make mistakes. I want to see this on a screen.
Reread as a book club selection. Again, the story felt realistic to me...messy circumstances, flawed decisions, characters with vulnerability that make mistakes. I want to see this on a screen.
aleex's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
book_concierge's review
4.0
4.5****
Amadeo Padilla can never catch a break, but maybe now, finally, he’s on his way. He’s been chosen to play Jesus in the annual Good Friday procession, and he’s determined to give it his all. But on his big day, his fifteen-year-old daughter, Angel, shows up, hugely pregnant and needing shelter.
The opening chapter of this marvelous character-driven work was a short story in Quade’s collection, Night At the Fiestas. I admit that I could not imagine how she would turn that short story into a full-length novel, but she did a marvelous job of building on the idea to flesh out the characters.
What I wrote about the short-story collection holds true here as well: ”What Quade’s characters share is that desire to “be someone else” and/or somewhere else, but no real means of achieving that. They dream, but are somehow powerless to change their circumstances, falling back on old patterns of behavior, afraid to let go of their past to head into the future.”
Amadeo, his mother, Yolanda, and Angel all struggle with the unfairness of life. With limited education and few opportunities to succeed they stay stuck in a pattern of repeated mistakes. Yolanda has never stopped babying Amadeo, her youngest child and the prized son, whose father died too young. She has never allowed him to learn how to fail and, more importantly, how to recover from failure. He’s like a full-grown toddler in his approach to life. He’s dependent on his mother for shelter, food, gas and beer money. And he is powerless to help his own daughter, whom he’s barely seen since she was a tiny child.
Yolanda deals with her problems by denying they exist. She soldiers on, taking one exhausted (and exhausting) step after another, with no way out of her difficulties. She cannot bring herself to ask for help or to accept it if it’s offered … but who would offer since she doesn’t let anyone know there IS a problem.
And Angel, the poor kid, is genuinely trying her best to finish high school, get the right nutrition for her baby, ensure that the infant is cared for and nurtured to develop appropriately. I loved the scenes where she would talk to him to enrich him and encourage the development of language. But the reader cannot forget that she is still a child herself. And desperately seeking love wherever she can find it.
Quade gives us a marvelous cast of supporting characters as well, from Tio Tive (the family patriarch) to Brianna, who leads the program for teen mothers at Angel’s alternative school, to Angel’s mom, Marissa, all of them are fully realized and add to the dynamic of this family’s difficult relationships.
Despite how they infuriated me, and how often I wanted to just shake some sense into them, I wound up really loving these characters. Some of that was because Quade often gave the reader some hope for a change in circumstances (often short-lived hope, but hope nonetheless). One character sums it up best: Love is both a gift and a challenge.
Amadeo Padilla can never catch a break, but maybe now, finally, he’s on his way. He’s been chosen to play Jesus in the annual Good Friday procession, and he’s determined to give it his all. But on his big day, his fifteen-year-old daughter, Angel, shows up, hugely pregnant and needing shelter.
The opening chapter of this marvelous character-driven work was a short story in Quade’s collection, Night At the Fiestas. I admit that I could not imagine how she would turn that short story into a full-length novel, but she did a marvelous job of building on the idea to flesh out the characters.
What I wrote about the short-story collection holds true here as well: ”What Quade’s characters share is that desire to “be someone else” and/or somewhere else, but no real means of achieving that. They dream, but are somehow powerless to change their circumstances, falling back on old patterns of behavior, afraid to let go of their past to head into the future.”
Amadeo, his mother, Yolanda, and Angel all struggle with the unfairness of life. With limited education and few opportunities to succeed they stay stuck in a pattern of repeated mistakes. Yolanda has never stopped babying Amadeo, her youngest child and the prized son, whose father died too young. She has never allowed him to learn how to fail and, more importantly, how to recover from failure. He’s like a full-grown toddler in his approach to life. He’s dependent on his mother for shelter, food, gas and beer money. And he is powerless to help his own daughter, whom he’s barely seen since she was a tiny child.
Yolanda deals with her problems by denying they exist. She soldiers on, taking one exhausted (and exhausting) step after another, with no way out of her difficulties. She cannot bring herself to ask for help or to accept it if it’s offered … but who would offer since she doesn’t let anyone know there IS a problem.
And Angel, the poor kid, is genuinely trying her best to finish high school, get the right nutrition for her baby, ensure that the infant is cared for and nurtured to develop appropriately. I loved the scenes where she would talk to him to enrich him and encourage the development of language. But the reader cannot forget that she is still a child herself. And desperately seeking love wherever she can find it.
Quade gives us a marvelous cast of supporting characters as well, from Tio Tive (the family patriarch) to Brianna, who leads the program for teen mothers at Angel’s alternative school, to Angel’s mom, Marissa, all of them are fully realized and add to the dynamic of this family’s difficult relationships.
Despite how they infuriated me, and how often I wanted to just shake some sense into them, I wound up really loving these characters. Some of that was because Quade often gave the reader some hope for a change in circumstances (often short-lived hope, but hope nonetheless). One character sums it up best: Love is both a gift and a challenge.
mad_didas's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
dariush_dar's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0