Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Saint

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Saint by Sierra Simone

49 reviews

crimson27's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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emmabemba's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“No, most people don’t guess, do they? That sometimes the people who laugh the loudest and reach for life the hardest are the ones closest to darkness”.

This paragraph hit me hard because I’ve been there and I’ve felt what Aiden felt in this book. This book was quite hard to read yet it was so good. In “Saint”, we meet Aiden, Tyler and Sean’s brother, who decides to stop his relationship with Elijah, the man he’s been in love with since he was a teenager, to become a monk.

While reading the book, you’ll know why he decided to stop the relationship with Elijah, his commitment to finding God and spending time with Him, and also how he dealt with depression and suicide talk 🥺 So yeah, guys, that book is quite heavy and the topics in there can be confusing, disturbing and even thought-provoking.

I recommend reading this book with an open mind: I’m a Christian and there was a lot of interesting themes related to religion and I loved that Sierra Simone talked about that and described them clearly. But I know that this kind of book is not for everyone and it’s not entirely related to maturity; it’s much more than that.

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erintempleton's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

4.75

holy. (and i cannot stress this enough) fuck. why aren't more people talking about this?

we came for the smut, but we stayed for the tender-hearted, purpose-filled perspective on catholic monasticism??? not a sentence i ever thought would read, let alone write. how is it possible that a book with so much gay sex taught me so much about god and silence and alternatives to religious binaries? jfc, sierra simone knew her target audience (queer folks with Religious Trauma and mental health issues) and fired a full-on atomic bomb at them with this one. no survivors, millions dead, the dust has yet to settle.

there is something so healing about aiden's story with elijah, about two men who love each other so devotedly that it brings them closer to god and to healthier versions of themselves. growing up in the church and being told/shown that the faith is completely incompatible with open queerness has driven so many people away from god, so to read a book where sex and prayer are equally satisfying and worshipful, where faith is full-bodied and incarnate and substantial, that was kind of revolutionary to me. it's the kind of necessary heresy that makes everything else feel flimsy by comparison.

this book said, "find what makes you feel alive, and don't ever stop reaching for it," and that's the good sauce right there.

subtracting .25 stars because there were some questionable parts (i'm looking at you, rubber bouncing ball scene, and also at you, abandonment trope x3), but damn if everything else wasn't absolute perfection. it was funny and emotional and sexy and beautiful and completely okay with being controversial. i love it when a book surprises me, and this one definitely did.

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shamelesslyash's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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luna_98's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

i love elijah and aiden together but i do think there needs to be #justiceforjamie, iykyk

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I enjoyed the first two books in this series even though it made me question my morals the whole way through the whole series. But again, I'm going to tell for enjoying this book.

This book is based on Aiden Bell who we’ve met briefly in the previous two books. He is the other brother out of the Bell Brothers. He wants Elijah Iverson, but he can’t have Elijah because he is Sean’s best friend. He can’t have him because Aiden broke his heart five years ago because he’s now engaged to someone else – someone kind and dependable who deserves his whiskey eyes, his soft mouth, his fierce intellect. He can’t have Elijah because Aiden has chosen God instead. However, the Bell Brothers don’t have a great track record with vows. But Aiden is determined to do this monk thing right-to pledge himself to a cloistered life and spend the rest of his years in chastity and prayer. But now Elijah’s here. He is here and he’s going with Aiden on his European monastery road trip, and between the whispered confessions and the stolen kisses, Aiden’s vows are feeling flimsier by the day. And vows or not, Aiden knows in his heart that it would take more than a good day and a holy monk to resist Elijah. It would take a saint.

I liked that it wasn’t all smut and no story. I know there was a lot of smut in this book because of the context of a monk and his ex re-kindling and pushing the bounds of chastity. There was an actual complex story with actual characters with two very different family dynamics and very real trauma – Elijah battling his sexuality and his feelings with the catholic church and then the feelings of re-bounding with the ex and breaking off the engagement. Aiden’s story of having suicidal thoughts and then feeling guilty because that’s how his sister died, and then losing his mum to cancer before he could tell her, he was bisexual and in love and then seeing his ex and trying to decide between love and faith because he doesn’t trust himself to go back to the old Aiden. I think it’s interesting that we see this whole series from the Aiden's point of view and then having chapters from Elijah’s diary just made things more heartbreaking.

Even though we got snippets from Elijah’s notebook, I would have loved to have more POV from Elijah especially when he left Aiden. I would have loved to be inside his head and why he wanted to leave and how he was feeling about leaving.

I still feel like I need to go to church after reading this series. I think I will read more of Sierra’s work in the future.

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