Saint X Paperback – May 25, 2021

Alison Thomas is the gorgeous, somewhat snotty, and affluent 18 year old daughter of a Westchester, NY family on a Christmas vacation on the Caribbean island of Saint X (a fictional place for the purposes of this recently released novel). On the last night of the trip, Alison goes missing, and a few days later, her dead body is recovered. Two Saint X natives who worked for the high end resort where the Thomases stayed are held and then released for lack of evidence.How does such an event affect the lives of those upon whom it touches? That is the story of this novel.The story quickly flashes forward eighteen years, when Claire Thomas, the younger sister who was seven years old when Alison was killed, is now 25, lives and works in New York, and goes by her middle name, Emily, hops into a NYC cab and sees that her driver is Clive, one of the then young men who was arrested for and then released after the death of Alison. Thus begins the crux of the story as Emily tracks down and develops a relationship of sorts with Clive in an effort to find out THE TRUTH behind her older sister's death. She also needs to learn just exactly who her sister Alison was, and why her death has shaped who she, Emily, has become.The story is then told through both Emily's and, to a lesser extent, Clive's point of view, and author Alexis Schaitkin also offers snippets of points of view from some of the people who are a part of this story....the Saint X police chief, a news reporter, other vacationers at the resort at the time of the death, and a host of others. It's as really clever device, I thought. I also thought that the opening chapters, where Schaitkin describes the island and the people who inhabit it, both natives and vacationers, and what lies just below the shiny veneers of these tropical paradises, we're brilliant. It was what hooked me from the get-go on this book.The story also touches upon other topics - white privilege and tabloid journalism, among others - but the most intriguing is the existential question of timing of little events in a person's life when a seemingly minor decision can effect the entire course not only of that person's life, but the lives of countless others with whom they come in contact. It was those little moments that caused this book to stay with me after I finished it.There were parts of the story that dragged on a bit too long for me, and might have been a bit superfluous, but I still liked the book and would recommend "Saint X" to anyone.

Saint X is an imaginary Caribbean island with a native working-class population (black) and wealthy resort vacationers (white). The two collide and are invisible to each other. They all wear masks, hidden to others, hidden to themselves. There is another island, in this case, Manhattan that, in many ways is as imaginary as Saint X. A beautiful, engaging, manipulative, and reckless vacationing white 18-year-old girl is there with her family, including her 7-year-old sister. The older girl disappears and is found dead on a separate small island. Homicide is suspected and suspicion is laid at the feet of two island natives who worked at the resort. They are arrested and released. Years later, the young sister, now in her 20's and living in NYC, is obsessed with finding out how her sister died. What she finds is that nothing and no one is as they appear, not her sister, those she thinks were responsible, her parents, her sister's friends, herself. Everyone has secrets, everyone tells lies, everyone is guilty of something. Everyone sees what they want to see, what they are able to see, what they hope to see.Or, to put it simply, I loved the book.

This wasn’t really the book I thought it would be, based on all the publishing hype. Too bad, because it had a good premise. And it started off well. But none of the main characters were particularly likable. Or even relatable. And it was hard to follow them because just as I was becoming invested in one, the narrative switched to another character, and then another minor character, and another, until pages of nitty-gritty detail later, I no longer cared about the first character. (I don’t know why the marketing material describes it as Claire’s story, because it read like the author was more interested in telling Clive’s story.) The middle section dragged a bit for me - it felt like there was no story there. Instead, the author substituted descriptions of walks around NYC and a lot of repetitive scenes of stalking. Most of the meat is in the first 25% of the novel, which started off promisingly enough, it sagged through the middle, then picked up again at the 88% mark on my kindle. After all those inner dialogues, street tours, depressing descriptions of life on the fringes of society and minor characters that took up too much story-time only to disappear after one outing, I was looking forward to finally getting to the whodunit part. Let’s just say that the denouement was less than satisfying. The big “twist” felt a bit tacked on and Claire’s “change” at the end of the story felt jarring. She started off being super weird and everyone treated her like she was crazy, and then suddenly she was totally normal. In the end, I was left with mixed feelings.

When a teenage white girl goes missing on a tropical island, the immediate suspects are the black resort employees. Years later, the girl’s sister tries to understand what happened to her beloved older sister. Many lives are changed by one foolish act. A page Turner that delivers an ending you won’t expect

Great book! Kept me interested, and had very vivid, personable mini stories

A college-age girl vanishes from the luxury resort of a Caribbean island (the fictional Saint X) on the last night of her family’s vacation and is found dead some days later, but despite what seems to be a thorough investigation it cannot be established whether it was foul play that led to her death or an accident. The story traces her short life to her death and the aftermath mostly through her eyes of her much younger sister who as a grown up tries to understand her sister through her diaries and people that knew her in the hope that she can piece together what might have happened. A chance encounter with one of the local suspect years later in New York triggers a series of events that eventually bring her closer to the truth she is after.The story is also told through the different people that were involved in those events and their lives and I thought that its strength lies in that it succeeds to be an intelligent commentary about class and race without being patronising or offering neat solutions. A disclaimer here as I cannot judge how truthful the depiction of all the different characters feels to different readers but to me it did not feel forced and pretentious. For those who are after a more whodunit type of book, this is not it and it might feel long and overdrawn but to me it was obvious from the very start that the focus is on defining moments in people's lives and underlying random connections rather than uncovering a culprit.Oh .... no need to compare to "White Lotus", and not only because one is a book and the other is a tv series .... Saint X really goes beyond the satire of white privileged Americans, which admittedly White Lotus did superbly, and it will be a pity to either pass or compare it on that level only and just because the events that kick off the story take place in a resort. By the way, Saint X has already been adapted for a tv series ... I watched half of the first episode AFTER I finished reading the book and "switched off". I wholeheartedly recommend to read the book and then you decide whether you want to watch the series ... Somehow I feel that the decision to adapt for the screen, and the way it was done, has not been successful, and it will certainly not make you want to seek the book ....

Not very convincing. Long drawn.

I binge-read this in two days. This is just a great story, the characters are complex and lovable, the pace is perfect, I can't wait for this author's next novel!