Reviews for Esperanza's Box Of Saints

The average rating for Esperanza's Box Of Saints based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-07-01 00:00:00 Scott Baguley "The bond between a mother and her child is the only real and purest bond in the world…" 'Ama H. Vanniarachchy Esperanza Diaz, a beautiful, deeply religious Mexican widow is mourning the unexpected death of daughter Blanca when an apparition of San Judas Tadeo - the patron saint of lost causes - appears in the grease of her oven's glass door. To Esperanza's astonishment, the greasy saint informs her that, despite what the authorities have said, Blanca is very much alive! Furnished with this earth-shattering nugget of information, Esperanza does what any sensible mother would do after listening to their oven door, she sets off for some of the seediest brothels in Mexico, imagining that her sweet Blanca might have been abducted and sold into prostitution. I cannot begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this captivating escapade. Indomitable Esperanza is as irresistible to the reader as she is to everyone she meets - even her Catholic priest, despite his life of abstinence, falls in love with her. And so will you. Esperanza's one-woman quest is as humorous as it is heroic. The unassailable love she has for her daughter is deeply affecting and transcends any thoughts she has for her own safety. You will find yourself rooting for her every step of the way. The story has a Gabriel García Márquez flavour to it, but I would term it as magical realism-lite, rather than full-blown magical realism. Whereas Márquez turns the leaf of reality upside down, so we can see what's on the other side, author María Amparo Escandón gently sprinkles her pixie dust onto the narrative so that real life becomes more enchanting than it actually is. Wonderful Esperanza is a walking paradox. On the one hand, she is wide-eyed and innocent; a small-town señora immersing herself into a perilous world that she knows nothing about. On the other, she is nobody's fool and knows how to secure an advantage. Her naivety is endearing, her optimism meritorious. The story is extravagant, rather than outlandish, and will certainly bring a big smile to your face. So, if you want a break from the tedium of those humdrum books you've recently wasted your time on, then grab this sparkling story with both hands and get into it without delay. You'll thank me for it. : )

Review # 2 was written on 2020-08-02 00:00:00 Monte Craft I loved this book too much to talk about it coherently, so if you want to read a real review, go to Kevin Ansbro's. In it, Kevin says you'll thank him for recommending this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kevin. And also thank you for telling me this book would remind me of my own Zelda McFigg. I'm not only flattered because I loved Escandón's writing but I'm so grateful that you noticed the ephemeral similarity. I love protagonist Esperanza's love for her "missing" daughter. I love the heroine's journey'so haphazard, sometimes hilarious, and always original. I love the language. I love the character. I love the masterful transitions between double-spaced sections'not an extra anything, and the way the plot moves forward with completely unexpected but absolutely organic shifts of first persons. I never knew where it was going and I loved being surprised. And most of all, I love that beneath what Kevin calls a "captivating escapade," there is real substance: what is reality, what is faith, are events magical or is there another reality that, when noticed, changes one's perspective and is therefore critically necessary? Anybody who has had what most people will call a psychic or supernatural or maybe even a spiritual experience that defies regular physics will understand what I'm talking about. And since I have had such an experience, although I'm not religious or nuts and don't talk to saints in dirty oven windows (the instigating event for Esperanza's journey), I deeply grok this story.