Ooooow. The first few chapters are great. The rest of the book is so wordy and slow, when something significant happens it has taken so long it ends up anticlimactic. Could have been cut in half and been a great book. I forced myself to finish because I wanted to know, but found myself begging for it to be over.

I don’t care for present tense books in general but from page 1 to page 30 when I gave up, the way the parents went unnamed drove me crazy. Add that to the awkward verb tense, and the thing just lost my interest.

This book is a beautifully written story about all of the people impacted by the death of a young girl. The core story seems like a premise for another murder mystery. A teenager is found dead at a luxury resort, and decades later, her sister seeks to find out what happened. But this book is so much more than a murder mystery. It’s told from the perspective of many of the people who were present at the resort when the young girl was found and how this event impacted their lives. From her sister, to the accused, to guests who were simply at the resort at the time of her death. While is it a story about a young woman’s search for the truth, it is also one about finding closure and peace to traumas of the past.

I have been seeing this book ALL over social media and it has been getting rave reviews so of course I had to request a copy. When I started to read the book I had a hard time focusing and since it was an anticipated read I decided to check out the audio book instead. I was able to enjoy the story better with the audio but I felt the book was overly descriptive and wordy. The chapters were so long and I would lose focus a lot while listening. Then we have all of these different points of views that in my opinion not all were needed. This book is billed as a thriller and it didn't give off a thriller vibe at all. It was VERY slow going. Then we finally get to the reasoning behind Allison's murder I found that to lackluster and anti-climatic. I had a lot of hope for this book and sadly it didn't work out in my favor.

The start of this book was great and then it just slowed down page after page. Struggled to make it through. It was so wordy, the entire novel could have been edited in half and still retained the plot and the point of it all.

I was hooked till almost the end...terrible.

When I began reading Saint X I was caught up in the underlying mystery of Allison, the sister who has gone missing. But quickly you realize that this novel is much more than that. It’s a haunting and beautiful commentary on who we are when the person we are closest with is no loner with us. Following the characters of Claire/Emily and Clive the author shows what happened to their lives over the years since the island’s tragedy. Schaitkin is masterful with her descriptions of the setting and the characters and you begin to really forget about the mystery and focus on their needs and lives. Some folks have said this novel is a thriller. It is not. It’s so much more than that. You’ll savor each page and won’t want to rip through this. Book clubs will have a ton to discuss. Mine will be reading it in March. Can’t wait.