The Book of Lost Saints
Written by Daniel José Older
Narrated by Sofia Quintero
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Daniel José Older
Daniel José Older is a New York Times bestselling author, editor, and composer. Shadowshaper, his first published young adult novel, received the International Latino Book Award and was also recognized as a New York Times Notable Book and NPR's Best Book of the Year. A bass player for the soul-jazz band Ghost Star, he also chronicles his thoughts on writing and his decade-long career as a New York City paramedic at ghoststar.net. He currently resides in Brooklyn.
More audiobooks from Daniel José Older
Shadowshaper (The Shadowshaper Cypher, Book 1) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flood City Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Book of Lost Saints
Related audiobooks
A Brief History of Seven Killings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cazadora: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dominicana: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Of Women and Salt: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Red Island House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perishing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5America's Dream: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Would Be Night in Caracas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bruja Born Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Thirty Names of Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Dreamer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Libertie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taste of Sugar Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea Monsters: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The House of Impossible Beauties: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Book of Adana Moreau Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five Wounds: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Velorio: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Cathedral: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Affairs of the Falcóns: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Labyrinth Lost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wayward Witch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lobizona: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beautiful Ones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chosen and the Beautiful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Family Life For You
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Regrets of Clover: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reminders of Him: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Joy Luck Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Let Her Stay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Idea of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After I Do: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Then She Was Gone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nineteen Steps: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winter Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evil Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regretting You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Commonwealth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mask of Sanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe in Another Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Racing in the Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home: the most moving and heartfelt novel you'll read this year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Time's Mouth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Minutes: A novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Found You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Humans: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forever, Interrupted: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before I Met You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Orchard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Book of Lost Saints
28 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Lost SaintsAuthor: Daniel Jose OlderPublisher: Imprint / Macmillan Publishing GroupPublishing Date: 2019Pgs: 325Dewey: F OLDDisposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX_________________________________________________REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:Marisol was a revolutionary in Cuba. Marisol vanished during the Cuban Revolution, disappearing with hardly a trace. Now, shaped by atrocities long-forgotten, her tenacious spirit visits her nephew, Ramón, in modern-day New Jersey. Her hope: that her presence will prompt him to unearth their painful family history.Ramón launches a haphazard investigation into the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search. Along the way, he falls in love, faces a run-in with a murderous gangster, and uncovers the lives of the lost saints who helped Marisol during her imprisonment.The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older is a haunting meditation on family, forgiveness, and the violent struggle to be free._________________________________________________Genre:Hispanic American LiteratureFictionGhostHauntedCubaPolitical FictionFamily DramaWhy this book:I will read anything and everything that I can find from Older._________________________________________________Favorite Character:Marisol and Ramon. Least Favorite Character:Guitierrez Sr. The old man is a scumbag. He knew things and let the family hang, the family that he was supposed to care about. Favorite Quote:Older can make images come alive pretty well. “On Wednesdays and Fridays, this basement club has an old Cha Cha Cha and dancing cats play and the viejitas come out and swing around the dance floor a couple of times, looking like they all crawled out of Colon Cemetery and have until midnight to hurry back into their graves or they'll turn to dust.”Hmm Moments:Roughly halfway through and I'm still not sure what this book is about. The ghost of Marisol is looking for something, something that Guitierez and Nilda are involved in.WTF Moments:Did Nilda report her older sister and her younger sister and get them both killed? No, not both of them. And, there are extreme extenuating circumstances, but it’s easy to get swept away in the emotion and flow of the story. The fall of the Teatro was inevitable. Cuba in that era and this, especially an underground gay rights concert in Havana, I mean, inevitably, the secret and the not-so-secret policia were going to kick in the doors. It’s who they are. It’s where they were. And it's horrible.The Sigh:So there it is. Hope that's not the Crux of the story? It explains how Nilda is today but it doesn't explain why she was the way she was back then, middle child syndrome, I guess.Juxtaposition:The way Older writes about Ramon’s big concert in the Teatro in Cuba, it's how I feel about his writing. He keeps a good rhythm, deep rhythm, and then stops, and then a lone saxophone cries in over the top, and stops, and, sometimes, it plays all the way through, and, sometimes, it doesn't, and then the rhythm comes back, and a back beat drops in, and it's just awesome.The Unexpected:Guess I never knew about the live broadcast executions on TV in post-revolution Cuba. Horrible. Barbaric. A sense of “you bastards have already won,” WITF were they doing? Ruling through terror, trying to keep a second revolution from sweeping away their first. And to hold the yanquis at bay. Predictability/Non-Predictability: I didn’t see the ending coming at all. Wonderful.Movies and Television:Absolutely, this could be an awesome movie, television, telenovella mini-series.Soundtrack:The soundtrack is Ramon DJing in our imaginations._________________________________________________Pacing:Great pacing.Last Page Sound:Holy s***! I was concerned with how the payoff was going to come in this book, and was afraid it was going to disappoint. But holy s*** that's good.The best book I read all year.Things I’d Like to See:An open Cuba that America can actually see, I almost typed again, but what I should say is for the first time. Author Assessment:First writer I’ve run across in a long time that I want to read everything written by them. Editorial Assessment:Well done._________________________________________________
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Many great passages and I really love the protagonist, but it feels like an MFA project and it was. I will read anything Older writes, and this is an ambitious book. Unsurprisingly, the music passages are phenomenal.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a fascinating mystery combined with a family saga. However, the novel's most interesting element is its unflinching look at the disillusionment and brutality of the failed Cuban counter-revolution, culminating in the Bay of Pigs debacle. Most Americans have little understanding of just how brutal this repression was and Older masterfully evokes it.The narrator is a bit unusual. She is Marisol, an aunt who supposedly died while attempting a breakout from the Isle of Pines prison. She inhabits her nephew, Ramon, a popular DJ living in New Jersey. Her agenda is obscure to begin with, but eventually, we come to understand that she needs him to solve the mystery of her disappearance. This seems pointless since she is already dead. However, Older addresses this problem by giving her the need to punish her sister, who turned her in to the Cuban police. The narrative, with its attendant rapid shifts between revolutionary Cuba and New Jersey, can be unsettling. However, Older manages to control it well enough to build suspense and maintain interest. The outcome is surprising, but set up well enough to be believable and definitely satisfying.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5cultural-exploration, historical-research, spirits, family-dynamics, Cuba, revolution, vindication, ***** Ramon's family says that the revolution in their homeland of Cuba is over and not to be spoken of since they are Americans now. The spirit of his aunt Marisol despises this attitude and wants everyone to know that she was murdered during that revolution. The author makes it all personal regardless of the reader's background. It is intense and moving with an urgency peculiar to those coming from a war zone. It needs to be read by the many.