BOOK OF THE MONTH
Saint X
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020, now a Hulu Original Series!
"'Saint X' is hypnotic. Schaitkin's characters...are so intelligent and distinctive it feels not just easy, but necessary, to follow them. I devoured [it] in a day."-Oyinkan Braithwaite, New York Times Book Review When you lose the person who is most essential to you, who do you become? Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning America's 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020 & named as one of Vogue's Best Books to Read This Winter, Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of February 2020, and O Magazine's 14 of the Best Books to Read This February! Hailed as a "marvel of a book" and "brilliant and unflinching," Alexis Schaitkin's stunning debut, Saint X, is a haunting portrait of grief, obsession, and the bond between two sisters never truly given the chance to know one another. Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison's body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men-employees at the resort-are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives. Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister. It is a moment that sets Claire on an obsessive pursuit of the truth-not only to find out what happened the night of Alison's death but also to answer the elusive question: Who exactly was her sister? At seven, Claire had been barely old enough to know her: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation. As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will reveal the truth, an unlikely attachment develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by the same tragedy. For readers of Emma Cline's The Girls and Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies, Saint X is a flawlessly drawn and deeply moving story that culminates in an emotionally powerful ending.
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Community Reviews
Honestly, this book was such a torture to get through. I started it in May, thinking I would be able to finish it on my plane ride to Japan...man was I wrong. I could not give this book more than a hour of my time a day...if that. I don't understand what the appeal of this book. It really didn't awe me in any way. If anything, this book is fucked up. The characters are all fucked up people. Together they make up a really lame and fucked up book.
If this book was trying to expose rich white people and their fucking white people problems then I guess this book did that. But in terms of its plot...this had no depth, no value, and no shock factor other than the added little bit at the end about two male friends who suddenly have a homosexual experience. And even that seems like a last plea for help from the author. The only reason I give it 2 stars instead of one is because of the way we find out how Alison dies. I think that was the only good thing about this book. Otherwise, this book was a big disappointment. I do not recommend it at all.
If this book was trying to expose rich white people and their fucking white people problems then I guess this book did that. But in terms of its plot...this had no depth, no value, and no shock factor other than the added little bit at the end about two male friends who suddenly have a homosexual experience. And even that seems like a last plea for help from the author. The only reason I give it 2 stars instead of one is because of the way we find out how Alison dies. I think that was the only good thing about this book. Otherwise, this book was a big disappointment. I do not recommend it at all.
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