Still Water Saints

Read this book as a required reading before meeting him during a conference designed to motivate community college students. Reread it out of sheer pleasure. I can say that the story and characters are very memorable and you can't walk away with it all sticking to you. No dislike and he can get you to become absorbed in this town and it's inhabitants with their stories that relate all to well. Reminds you that you may see people daily, but you have no idea of their struggle or journey.

I enjoyed and highly recommend this book. It was written very well and kept my interest. Sometimes it was a little hard to follow but in the end it all connected. I thought the characters were very real and very unusual.

I am lucky enough to attend the university where Alex Espinoza now teaches. I have not been lucky enough to attend one of his classes, yet, but was lucky enough to have him visit my current English class. He is as fascinating in person as his words are on the pages of his novel. Still Water Saints is a moving novel full of characters that readers will find some connection with. This is a must read.

Gripping. A tantalizing view into a world I knew nothing about. Alex Espinoza made me see the world differently. A welcomed new literal author to a world filled with commercialism. I want to go back to Agua Mansa. I wanted to stay but there was no more. I spoke to the author; he's humble and grateful about filling my world with awe. His answer, "Thank you so much for the kind words regarding my book; it is a big compliment when people react the way you do." This novel's not for the faint of heart; it is filled with elements that may shock you, but the way Alex raps the characters in a mantra of words you swear they are real folks, everyday people you knew nothing about, peppered with delightful insights into quirky lives not everyone's privileged to see. The Botánica Oshún's a place I want to visit. Teaming with worldly and unworldly oddities. The connection to the unworldly is always around us but we do not see it. Most of us walk this Earth in a fog, neglecting to fan the watery veil to see beyond. If I was a believer before, this cements my pathetic insight to something beyond biological--we've all experienced the warnings, the déjà vu, the "oh had I done it this way," the thought of someone close and the phone rings and it's them on the other end. Confess, we've all been touched by the supernatural and we were all dismissive, calling it `weird'. I was half way through, went to the market and then bought a candle. I lit it. It stayed lit until I finished the book. Every chapter took me into a different direction--a different life with a different viewpoint. He (Alex) switches from third person to first with such ease that it threw me the first few chapters. Then I understood why he did it. His motives were to make the reader become the character; to feel, taste, hear, smell the things that character did. I understood for the first time --if only briefly--what it was like to be a woman, a man, a junky, a girl, a transgender, a boy lost in a world desperate to get out of only to find there were more traps ahead. These traps that ensnare without conjecture, that thrive on repeatedly drowning those who are pure of heart and those who are not. I felt like a slave, yet I also felt like an artist, a caregiver, a thief, a prostitute, a mere mortal denied the right to know more about the spiritual: A believer that could see but was blind to his/her surroundings. I dare not say more for fear a curse may fall upon me. I better go buy another candle. Thanks Alex for the ride. I'm waiting for your next novel. And if you find it in your heart to go back to Agua Mansa, take me with you. Please.

Alex Espinoza is a true literary genius. Still Water Saints is an inspiring and thought provoking masterpiece. Highly recommended.