“Real suffering isn’t just about physical pain, but about not knowing when the pain will end, not knowing what the point of it all is.”
Author: Kirstin Valdez Quade
The Padilla family is full of drama. Cancer, alcoholism, unemployment, neglectful parents, teen pregnancy, and that’s all under one roof! Once we get to the extended family there’s domestic abuse, sexual objectification of a child, and more!
This is a well-written drama about a messed-up family manipulating and enabling each other. It’s realistic and raw. All the characters make realistic mistakes and you understand why they make these bad decisions. If you read this book you will likely nod and say “I know these people.” If you are like me you will say “I know these people, and there is a reason I don’t talk to them anymore.”
My biggest weakness in the writing is that this novel grew out of a great short story. You can tell that the original short story was about the events of Holy Week. Amadeo Padilla (unemployed, neglectful father, and family alcoholic) is playing Jesus in the church passion play. Amadeo sees this as a way to get his life back on track, to finally make things right with God and his family. despite this, after the dramatic events during the play, he just goes back to his old ways. While it is realistic, I just wish this had more plot significance. don’t misunderstand me: It is realistic, lots of self-sabotaging people want to “pray away” their problems rather than make life changes to fix their problems. it is just a huge part of the plot that disappears.
My biggest criticism of the writing is that everything just works out for them because we as readers want a happy ending. While I have no problem believing that this family of enablers would lie to the cops to cover up for each other as they do in the book, that’s the problem, These people make horrible, dangerous, abusive choices and try to dodge the consequences of those decisions.
Angel is a very believable teen mom. Putting on an act of maturity she doesn’t really have. Again, very well written, I thought I could root for her. Early on I thought she wouldn’t mention the father because she was raped by her mom’s boyfriend, but no, it turns out she was just playing the “it’s not yours” mind games with him. You little b%$^%! In the end, Angel magically works everything out with her baby daddy… even though there is no mention of putting his name on the birth certificate so that his paternal rights and responsibilities are recognized by law. Yeah, that’s not going to end well.
Maybe I’m just cynical, but I have no hope that any of them will actually make their lives better. They are reactive instead of proactive.
This is not a criticism of the writing! This book was very well written. Some people- especially those who have been through generational trauma- are reactive instead of proactive in life.
I wasn’t kidding in my into, I’ve known people just like this! I have had to cut ties with friends and family who act like this because their toxic self-destructive behavior was dragging me into the same behavior. My favorite character was the sister, setting boundaries and calling toxic behavior.
If you are lucky enough to have lived a charmed life and have no idea what generational trauma can do to a family, check this book out.
oddlibrarianout.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.