The Five Wounds – Kirstin Valdez Quade
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: [adapted from the dustjacket] It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and 33-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his 15-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption.
Expectation: A big-hearted family drama.
Reality: More depressing than hopeful, you want to root for the Padilla family, but sometimes they make it difficult.
Recommended For: Fans of multi-generational family dramas, like “A Place for Us” “Commonwealth” or “The Paper Palace.”
Why I Read It: My husband could not stop raving about it.
My Take:
In “The Five Wounds,” an impressive debut novel by Kirstin Valdez Quade, we follow a year in the life of the Padilla family as they experience a series of monumental changes that will drastically change their lives and relationships.
At the center is Yolanda, the matriarch and heart of the family who has been the glue keeping things together for far too long. Now the sole provider for her ne’er-do-well son, Amadeo, and his pregnant teenage daughter, Angel, she worries how her impending death from a brain tumor — something she keeps from her loved ones until it can no longer be hidden — will either make or break them.
For years, she has waited for Amadeo to find his calling and grow up, but he’s as aimless as ever, trying different careers and affiliations hoping one will stick. The one constant for him is alcohol and the therapy it offers. With Angel and her baby, Connor, he sees a second chance and opportunity to right wrongs, but he can’t get out of his own way.
Angel is excelling in her alternative school for teenage mothers, and she understands the choices she makes today will have long-lasting implications for herself and Connor. Still, she becomes enamored with a classmate and the shame and confusion that comes with it threatens to unravel all her progress.
From those brief descriptions, you get the gist of “Wounds” — a story about life and death, second chances and false starts. About rising to the occasion or letting it destroy you.
My husband devoured this novel during a beach vacation and practically demanded that I read it immediately. For that reason, I expected this to have more moments of levity and hope.
If that’s what you’re looking for, it is not this story. It starts with a simulated crucifixion — yes, a crucifixion — and that honestly sets the tone for the pain and torment these people will go through.
As an incredibly slow burn character study, you truly begin to feel like you know Amadeo and Angel, specifically, to the point I was frequently muttering “no, no, no” in response to their actions.
That should give you the clue that every single character is frustrating — yet Quade never vilifies them or plays up missteps for melodrama. While A LOT happens over the course of the year, it felt organic and plausible.
The last few chapters were tense and breathtaking, both in the literal sense (that car ride!) and in the way Quade wrapped up the story. For not having many works under her belt, she showed a mastery of giving the reader what they want — a little hope — while staying true to the tone.
Aside from the pacing, which dragged in a few places, my other complaint is that Quade bit off more than she could chew with ancillary characters that were given lots of page time before completely fading into the background.
Some of these people — like Briana, Angel’s teacher and Amadeo’s lover, and Marissa, Angel’s mom and Amadeo’s ex — were important to the overall story, so it was disappointing that their narratives felt incomplete.
Quade didn’t give everyone that entered the Padilla orbit a POV, so I can’t help but wonder if these two had story arcs cut to streamline a narrative that sometimes felt overly long.
Even with those criticisms, I’d still recommend this to fans of multi-generational family sagas. There were enough new ideas brought into common tropes to keep you engaged, many driven by the New Mexico setting.
Narrated by Gary Tiedmann, the audiobook was a solid but unremarkable effort. Writing this review a week after finishing the novel, there’s nothing that sticks out to me — good or bad — about his performance.
Rating (story): 4/5 stars
Rating (narration): 3/5 stars
Formats: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: April 22 – April 30, 2022
Multi-tasking: Good to go, but the devil is in the details. It’s easy to be lulled into complacency while listening as the big moments here are understated. Participate in activities where you can still pay close attention.
