Socorro Acioli

When his mother unexpectedly dies, Samuel treks across several Brazilian towns to find the grandmother and father he never knew. Instead of a warm welcome, he is banished to the woods where he takes shelter in the head section of a fallen statue of St. Anthony. But there he is plagued by the sounds of the town's women praying to St. Anthony; soon he hatches a plan with a local teen to make money by causing "miracles" to happen based on this insider information.

With its highly religious overtones, I was surprised to find I liked this book more than I thought I would. Acioli is a very talented writer whose prose flows smoothly and easily. The book is a quick read populated with lively characters and following an unlikely and unusual plot. There are, however, two big issues that I had with it:

- The women of the small town as well as those from neighboring towns are all obsessed with marriage. That's all. The "miracle" that every woman prays for is to find a man to marry. It's rather obnoxious.
- One woman who is a minor character was raped in the past. I felt this was an unnecessary violence to add to the book as it did not contribute to the plot at all, and the character's empathy for single mothers could have been easily arrived at another way (e.g., she herself could have been a single mother as a product of consensual sex instead).

The ending of the book felt a bit abrupt and open-ended, although enough loose threads were tied up for it to feel satisfactory enough.

I'm not sure that I would rush out to recommend this book as it is unusual, but if you're looking for something to read from a South American culture, this isn't a bad choice.… (mehr)