Saint X

Books | Fiction / Family Life / Siblings

3.3

(217)

Alexis Schaitkin

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020, now a Hulu Original Series!"'Saint X' is hypnotic. Schaitkin's characters...are so intelligent and distinctive it feels not just easy, but necessary, to follow them. I devoured [it] in a day."–Oyinkan Braithwaite, New York Times Book ReviewWhen you lose the person who is most essential to you, who do you become? Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning America's 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020 & named as one of Vogue's Best Books to Read This Winter, Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of February 2020, and O Magazine's 14 of the Best Books to Read This February!Hailed as a “marvel of a book” and “brilliant and unflinching,” Alexis Schaitkin’s stunning debut, Saint X, is a haunting portrait of grief, obsession, and the bond between two sisters never truly given the chance to know one another.Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men–employees at the resort–are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister. It is a moment that sets Claire on an obsessive pursuit of the truth–not only to find out what happened the night of Alison’s death but also to answer the elusive question: Who exactly was her sister? At seven, Claire had been barely old enough to know her: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation.As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will reveal the truth, an unlikely attachment develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by the same tragedy.For readers of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, Saint X is a flawlessly drawn and deeply moving story that culminates in an emotionally powerful ending.

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More Details:

Author

Alexis Schaitkin

Pages

320

Publisher

Celadon Books

Published Date

2020-02-18

ISBN

1250219582 9781250219589

Ratings

Google: 3

Community ReviewsSee all

"Interesting book to read and really have some good perspectives on how many people view the same event differently. Very on point for me as I am the parent of a teenager and we often get frustrated with each other as we see things differently as well. I was a little bit weary after seeing some of the reviews focus on the white privilege of many of the characters of this book, but by the end of the story, you can easily see this as another thing that is in the eye of the beholder. Great book for groups as there is so much to discuss."

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Sheli Wilburn

"Good psychological thriller. Loosely follows the Natolee Halloway story. "

Mary

"Dnf so didn’t rate. Probably a slow burn book but wayyyy to slow for me. I’m over halfway through the book and I haven’t learned anything new about the sisters murder. She just follows him around every chapter. It will Flash back to his childhood but still haven’t learned anything about that night. I was so excited. Maybe I’ll go back one day and finish."

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Elizabeth Hart

"Thanks to Libro.fm and Celadon Books for letting me have a chance to read and review this book. So, this one was okay, I was hoping for something more than what I got from this story. I've had a hard time trying to think and figure out how to review this one. On the one hand, it has promise and sounded interesting and it was hard for me to stop reading until the end because I wanted to know what happened to Alison, the sister who goes missing and dies, but on the other hand, it seemed to be a bit long in places and I wanted to skip to the end sometimes. It also threw in some parts in the story at the end that I wasn't expecting and I didn't really like the ending and what happened when we find out what the real story was about the night Alison died. There was more than one layer to the story you could've gotten out of it, but it was a bit disappointing to me in the end. The characters were kind of annoying and it was a bit weird in places, which granted some of that is to be expected, but some of it was a bit much, in my opinion. Also, in my opinion, it was a bit much with some of the profanity and language as well. "

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Annette W

"I read it in a day. Unexpected ending, great character development arc. "

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Laura Goodman

"Just stayed up all night to finish this. What a story! What a get-away! Murder mystery; self-discovery; brilliant story telling; imagery magically mastered -- and talk about the perfect portrayal of white privledge!!! yes, tragic, but spectacularly redemptive!"

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Deborah Armstrong

"I loved this book. This isn't a murder mystery, it is a story of those who were left behind after the death of a girl on the island of Saint X. Watching Claire insert herself into one of the suspects life is almost cringe worthy - her obsession was at really unhealthy levels. Some of my favorite parts were the "confessionals" at the end of each chapter from people surrounding Alison in the days leading up to her death."

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"I couldn’t finish it. I was so bored and with all of he detail that it became impossible to finish. One character “watched” another for what felt like most of the book. The plot sounded interesting but the writing could not support it. Never found out who did it but just don’t care."

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Karen DeBellis

"This book is so beautifully descriptive and captivating, I loved every word and I was hooked until the end"

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kandace forsyth

"A different type of murder mystery book that felt real and not over glamorized."

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Chandler Ackerman

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