Arturo is a teenaged boy scratching out a meager existence in a Mexican border town run and terrorized by drug cartels. His friend Faustino reappears after a year out of contact and asks Arturo for a favor upon which all their fates depend. The rich imagery of religious and spiritual iconography, along with the vivid Freudian dreamscapes and the ritual of a card game (calavera) are painted in sharp relief against the barrenness, poverty and tragedy of Anapra in this dark thriller ostensibly written for theteen/YA market; but a bit more sophisticated than the genres usually provides. ( )

Saint Death is ostensibly a young adult novel. It has short chapters and short sentences. It has lots of (oft times too many) plot twists. The characters are largely young people sorting things out about life. None-the-less, the book is a good read for all ages. The challenges and choices the characters face are all too familiar to those who attend to the news. The background on Mexican culture and spirituality is fascinating and engaging. Yet, the message behind the book's painful tale is life affirming. And, the book is an easy, interesting, and quick read. Definitely worth a reader's time. ( )

I won this ARC in a GOODREADS giveaway - Saint Death (Hardcover) by Marcus Sedgwick - took me a while to finish this.. very dark and heavy themes wrapped in such a shiny covered book! ( )

Literary Merit: Good
Characterization: Good
Recommendation: Optional Purchase
Level: Grades 9-12

Arturo’s predictable daily struggle to scrape by working for a local mechanic and playing cards for a little extra cash is interrupted when his friend Faustino, who he has not seen for over a year, shows up asking for help. In the year since Arturo has seen him, Faustino has joined Los Libertadores one of the many gangs that run the city of Juarez, Mexico. Faustino has “borrowed” money from El Carnero, the boss of his gang, and must pay it back in twenty-four hours or face dire consequences. Faustino had been charged with holding $20,000 and had taken $1000 to pay a smuggler to take his girlfriend and child across the border into the US. He wants Arturo to gamble on a card game called calavera to win the money that he needs. Arturo knows how to play the game, but he has never played for stakes so high. He tries to refuse, but Faustino eventually convinces him that this is his only hope for survival.

I’m not sure why this is marketed as a YA novel. I don’t think the age of the characters is ever stated explicitly, but it is possible that they are teens put into a very adult situation. Putting character age aside, the style seems more adult literary fiction than YA. Though there are tense and suspenseful points in the plot, I had a feeling of dread at turning the page rather than anticipation that made me want to find out what happened next. The situation is so grim that you know from the outset there will be no happy ending for these characters. The book opens with the description of the body of a young girl floating in the Rio Grande and that sets a tone of despair and hopelessness that is carried throughout the book. The Mexican border city Juarez is dominated by gangs who are financed by the drug trade and more powerful than the police. Crime is rampant and the only way to earn a good living seems to be through working for one of the gangs. Arturo wants to be a good person and has no desire to be a part of the system that is responsible for the crime, violence and corruption that dominate the city, but there is no clear path to leading a prosperous life with integrity in Juarez. Faustino is a clear example of this. Joining a gang and engaging in criminal activity was the only option available to him to support his family, but it doesn’t lead them to happiness in the end. Unfortunately, this portrayal of the plight of people living in and around Juarez is probably very realistic, and the author rightly shines a light on the fact that the United States is complicit in creating this situation. Overall, this book wasn’t bad but I don’t see it having wide appeal for its intended audience. ( )

One of the greatest discoveries that our book club helped me make was Marcus Sedgwick. When we read “Midwinterblood” I was completely enthralled by it, it’s dark fantasy/horrorscape sucking me in and twisting me all around. When we went to ALA in 2014, one of my greatest moments was meeting Mr. Sedgwick at a book signing (and a coffee klatch!), and getting to talk a little bit about the movie “The Wicker Man” with him, as “Midwinterblood” definitely took influence from it (and I’m talking about the original “Wicker Man”, not the one with Nicholas Cage in a bear suit). So now I do my best to read any Marcus Sedgwick books that cross my path. While none have quite lived up to “Midwinterblood”, Sedgwick has become one of my favorite YA authors. And that brings me to his newest YA novel, “Saint Death”. And amazingly, I think it’s his darkest one yet.

I will admit that I was a little hesitant to pick this one up when I first heard about it. After all, the subject of life for Mexicans in the border towns, especially Juarez, is a difficult and painful one. American corporate interests and consumption of illegal drugs has led to massive poverty, and lots of gang warfare between various Cartels. So yeah, my teeth got set a little bit on edge when I found out that a British man was going to tell a story set with this backdrop. I’m still not totally certain if I think it’s his story to tell. BUT, that said, I think that Sedgwick did take it on a portray it in a sensitive and responsible way. It’s pretty clear that he did some massive research on his own, and asked for input from those who may be more familiar with the realities of this situation. And besides, “Saint Death” pulls no punches in postulating where some of the blame can be laid for the violence, corruption, and poverty that is seen in Juarez. American corporations exploit NAFTA to profit off of factories across the border that make them richer but barely pay anything to the workers, and the American consumption of illegal drugs fuels the Cartels. Throw in the topics of undocumented immigration and closed borders, as well as some climate change to boot, and you have yourself a very political book that makes it’s readers question how culpable they are through Capitalist ideals and the supposed free market.

But even without the frank and brutal politics, the characters in “Saint Death” really kept me interested and invested. Arturo and Faustino both make terrible decisions in this book, decisions that may have baffled and frustrated me. But at the same time, because of how well written they both were, I not only believed that they would make them, but I also understood exactly why they were making them. Though it’s Faustino whose choice to steal money to save his girlfriend and baby sets our story in motion, it’s ultimately Arturo whose story we follow. His journey to try to get one thousand dollars for his friend is a short one, and only takes place over a couple of days, but so much happens and he grows and changes so much you really see how his circumstances have completely changed him and the course of his entire life. Even if we spend a comparatively short time with Arturo, Sedgwick does a great job of getting you attached to him. I felt completely tensed up as he got deeper and deeper into Faustino’s mess, especially because of the impending sense of doom that lingers throughout the pages. In part this is because of the presence of Santa Muerte, a folk saint that the people in Arturo’s community have come to worship, including Faustino. While Arturo goes in not believing in Santa Muerte, she is in the pages, given her own perspective points and waxing about the human race as a whole. I loved this device, as it was a great way to tie in the global politics to Arturo’s story.

Finally, while I don’t want to spoil anything about this book and the places it goes, I need to address one thing in vaguest terms possible. Remember all those times I’ve said that I hate last minute twists that feel like a cheap way to try and shock the readers one last time? Well, this book did that. But it did it SO WELL that it achieved what those kind of twists are supposed to achieve! When I got to that quick and fleeting passage that changed SO MUCH, I literally gasped out loud and yelled "OH MY GOD!!". Now THAT is how you pull off the end page twist. I salute you, Mr. Sedgwick!

“Saint Death” is a difficult book to read, but I think that it’s a pretty important one. I’m impressed that Sedgwick trusts his YA readers to be able to take on these topics and think critically about them, and hope that more authors follow his lead. Just be sure to steel yourself for something very dark, as important as it may be. ( )