A review by enchantingreads_rosyreviews
Saint by Sierra Simone

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Until the air itself is hung with soft glimmers, until it feels like the world is hung with stars. It is so simple a thing—fireflies in the cloister. And yet every time, I’m humbled by it. By the magic God so casually lets loose for us, by these sweet moments which are so freely given.

The revelation at the end of this book is WILD!!! Of course, I’m not going to spoil it, but I am reeling & I’m super excited to see where Sierra takes these characters in their additional stories. Now, back to this one: If Tyler is ‘Conflicted Bell’ & Sean is ‘Sad/Sappy Bell’ then Aiden is ‘Emotionally Broody Bell.’ It’s been 5 years since Sinner ended & this book takes us to Europe as Aiden visits overseas monasteries in Belgium, France & Ireland. But the love of his life, ya know, the guy he left without much of a word to become a monk? Yeah, he’s making the journey with Aiden. The pining in this book is off the charts.

Funny how I love you could be enough for any other couple in the world. The beginning of a happily ever after. But for us, it’s like vinegar instead of wine—it stings and it sours and it only makes us thirstier for something we can never ever have.

Elijah & Aiden break my heart with how much they love each other but keep creating distance between them. And their story is emotionally charged in a way the other stories haven’t explored: bringing their complicated history of secret crushes, being in love & then years apart to add an exciting layer to a Bell brother romance.

"... And most importantly, you don’t have to compete with God... you could never compete with God, because the two of you magnify each other in my heart. I know God and I feel God more keenly and more deeply because of you.” I find his hand and press it over my heart, over the invisible scapular I’ll always wear for him... “You bring me closer to God, Elijah,” I tell him softly. “Simply by existing.”

No surprise, another great performance from Jacob Morgan. But lemme talk about Sean Crisden for a second, okay? This is my first time hearing some of his work. More than any other book in the series, we get several chapters from the non-Bell POV in this one & Sean added a whole other level to the story. Elijah's voice comes in through his journal entries & article excerpts so we get a bit of emotional, second guessing Elijah as well as professional, observer Elijah. While Sean's role in the narration is small, he did a fantastic job & I really liked his performance.

There’s no instruction manual for falling in love with your best friend’s little brother. And there’s no manual for falling back in love with him when he’s a monk. There’s only the aching knowledge that you yourself are a kind of momentary prayer, uttered with reverence, spoken softly into the air, and then finished with a gentle and loving selah.

And, of course, Jacob knocks it out of the park. This time around, he had a lot more accents & character voices to manage, but he switched between them wonderfully & I was never confused or taken out of the story. The desperation, the quiet contemplation & observation (I mean, Aiden is becoming a monk after all), the spice, the challenging subject matter of depression & "end of life" ideation were all delivered with care. And the comedic moments definitely made me laugh because his timing is on point! So yeah, another Jacob Morgan performance & I'm still a fan... shocker!🥴

Also, side note, Aiden struggles with depression & I HAVE to give a round of applause to Ms. Sierra Simone for his description of depression. As someone who struggles with it myself & someone whose mother also struggles with it, I've seen it from the inside and the outside. Aiden's description is very valid & this is part of it:
That is the cruelest thing about depression: it is at the edge of speech, at the very edge of what words can shape and describe... I’d sink down onto my bed and find myself literally unable to move... and it wouldn’t even be that I didn’t want to go, because often I did. It was more like my pilot light would suddenly go out, and there would be nothing left to animate me, no heat or energy or life at all. Like being sunk into liquid concrete, sunk into a substance where even the slightest movement required superhuman effort. But how do you explain that to a disappointed boyfriend and not have it sound like I chose to stare at a wall instead of come to the thing you explicitly told me was important to you? You don’t. You can’t. I know because I tried.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings