A review by seeceeread
The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade

Having children is terrifying, the way they become adults and go out into the world with cars and functioning reproductive systems and credit cards, the way, before they've developed any sense or fear, they are equipped to make adult-sized mistakes with adult-sized consequences.

As a young woman, Yolanda's life got a lot harder when she put out her husband, Anthony. His drug use was unacceptable and his confession of hidden love for her recently-deceased cousin was unintelligible. Their son, Amadeo, is this year's Jesus in the town's recreation of Christ's crucifixion; he asks for the nails in his hands in the hope for authentically being redeemed, transformed from sixteen years as a wayward father, an insatiable drunk, and a drain on his mother. He gets a trip to the emergency room. Angel's run away from her mother and her violent, frightening boyfriend. She's muddling through a teen parenting program as a high school dropout, where her teacher, Brianna, feels like a beacon of possibility.

The plot is a string of upheavals that threaten to strangle the cast: A baby is born. A grandmother gets rapidly growing brain tumors, then dies. A teen falls deeply in love with a peer who cannot accept her, or their queer lovemaking. They grapple with postpartum depression, self-harm, a secret affair (found out), bureaucratic injustice, homelessness, the fear of child removal, chiva addictions, and a car crash.

Quade's gorgeous sentences are somewhat incongruous, with the bleakness she depicts, but kept me reading: 

She didn't realize how long a night could be, how capacious and elastic.

He always assumed there was time, time to grow up, time to quit drinking, time to become the astonishing individual he's surely been on his way to becoming.

Careful characterization carries the book. We are treated to imperfect, impulsive and often remorseful people who are swimming in mistakes they do not know how to right. I'd love to read the author's short stories, one of which was expanded for this debut.