Queen of America

Don’t tell my husband but, ever since reading “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” earlier this year, I have a major crush on Luis Alberto Urrea. I was so enthralled with that book that I immediately read his maybe autobiography “Nobody’s Son” and followed that up with the chilling “Devil’s Highway” (highly recommend). When I heard that a sequel to “Hummingbird” was due in late 2011, I went on a mad search for an ARC copy and did find one, which I just managed to finish as he is [...]

I'm not entirely sure where to start here, but I loved this book and devoured it, as I do all of Urrea's books. He's definitely become one of my favorite authors and one I can always recommend without hesitation. Queen of America is a sequel to the epic Hummingbird's Daughter, and they can definitely be read out-of-order, but I recommend reading them in order. The characters are all so colorful and so full of life that you'll want to get to know them in the first book. Urrea's storytelling is ma [...]

This review of Queen of America originally appeared in The Washington Independent Review of Books on January 12, 2012. Posted to on February 15, 2014, as the link is currently dead.Queen of America, the long-awaited sequel to 2006's The Hummingbird's Daughter, is the culmination of 26 years of research and writing by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Luis Alberto Urrea (The Devil's Highway: A True Story). Based on the life of his great-aunt Teresa “Teresita” Urrea, the Saint of Cabora, the novels chr [...]

Live, love and laugh along with the Queen of America and her menagerie of characters.As a first time reader of this authors work, I was quite surprised by Urrea's writing style. His Queen of America is definitely not what I expected, in fact it was better than I expected. The main character of this book, Teresita, on who the story is based, actually existed, although most of the book is fiction. Urrea has a pre-sequel to this book, which I have not yet read, however this did not affect my readin [...]

I've been waiting for this to come out for over a year! The prequel, "The Hummingbird's Daughter" is one of the best books I've ever read. And I have yet to find a Urrea book I dislike. Needless to say, I have high hopes for this.Post-reading: happy to report this book did not disappoint me. I loved watching Teresita become a wife & mother, and try to figure out her role in the U.S.

You may not have been wondering, as I had, what happened to Saint Teresita after the central figure of The Hummingbird’s Daughter saved her fleeing family from extermination by standing atop their train, arms outspread, hair flowing in the breeze, as it chugged through a narrow defile on its way from Mexico to Arizona, escaping attack only because the marauders feared for their very souls to assault the legendary young girl who offered herself in such a sacrificial pose. Then The Queen of Amer [...]

Dickensian in scope, this ribald novel is peopled by the humble and the haughty, the meek and the mighty--pilgrims, prostitutes, yeoman, warriors, cowboys, vaqueros, royalty, revolutionaries, financial exploiters, gamblers, tycoons, corrupt politicians, drunks, rogues, and outlaws. It's gritty, bawdy, tender, and tumultuous, and sometimes turgid, as it meanders down several long and winding paths. When it stalls at intervals, patience and the love of prose and colorful character will keep the re [...]

I love love love this book which I read slowly because I didn't want it to end. I bought it a couple years ago and have been hanging on to it to read at the "right" time. As someone who usually lives in Tucson (I bought it at the Festival of Books and had it signed by the author who is always so gracious) - this year while I am living in New Zealand seemed like the right time. The descriptions transported me back to the desert southwest, and the characters had me turning to to learn more about [...]

Luis Alberto Urrea has done it again.Urrea has released his new book, Queen of America (Little, Brown), the sequel to his brilliant 2005 novel, The Hummingbird’s Daughter. And while the tone of the books is different, the book is classic Urrea. In Daughter, Teresita Urrea (the author’s great aunt) discovered her healing powers, earning her the name “Saint of Cabora” and leading an uprising of Mexican revolutionaries that prompted her and her father to escape to the north. America describ [...]

ARC received through the First Reads program.I made a bit of a blunder when I received this book--I didn't immediately find a copy of The Hummingbird's Daughter to read first. As a result, I felt like I was plunked down in the middle of a story, and it took a bit of flailing around to find my place and grab hold of the narrative thread. Granted, I still have not read The Hummingbird's Daughter, so I can't be certain that's why I didn't enjoy Queen of America as much as I expected to.Teresita is [...]

I loved Luis Alberto Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North so when I found out about the opportunity to review Queen of America, I jumped.drey’s thoughts:Queen of America is a long and rambly story of Teresita Urrea – the Saint of Cabora – after she escapes Mexico and lands in the United States – and chronicles her journey from healer to wife to mother.As you follow along on her travels, you often forget that Teresita is only barely out of her teenage years. She learns that fame is fleeting [...]

The sequel has some of the same wonderful qualities as "Hummingbird's Daughter" but, for me, it is lacking a certain something to place it in the same league as the original. What Urrea repeated that I loved: the same sprawling, magical sentences that grip me (there is a passage about the blue horse that is simply perfect); brilliant secondary characters, like Segundo (although I felt there were less I cared passionately about this time around); Tomas, Tomas, Tomas! (I just love this man's flaws [...]

I didn't love this book as much as it's predecessor, The Hummingbird's Daughter, but it was still very good. It's just such a different book; where HBD was the epitome of magical realism, QoA is more historical fiction. Perhaps that difference is due to being set in the U.S. instead of Mexico, or to Teresita growing up, or to the increased historical material. The first third or so of QoA moves very slowly, reflective of how Teresita's life is just treading water at that point, trying to keep ah [...]

This is the second half of a fictionalized life of Teresita, the "Saint of Cabora." Teresita was given the gift of healing, and is sought after for her spiritual powers. People gather wherever she goes to have her give her blessing and mend their bodies. Rebels carry her picture with them to battle. Opposing assassins come to kill herd she is in her teens, a saint. This poses problems: teenage girls have lots of challenges already, but adding "sainthood" makes life even more complex, both for Te [...]

Luis Urrea has done it again. He has left me overwhelmed by another beautiful, lyrical, compelling story. It took me time to get through this one because his work needs to be savored. I loved the Hummingbird's Daughter so much I wasn't sure that he could live up to the expectations I had for this sequel but he surpassed them. Once again, lovely, moving and tender prose along side a magical, yet fully human cast of characters all wrapped up in masterful storytelling. It is thankfully, a very diff [...]

4 1/2 stars. The sequel to one of my favorite books last year, The Hummingbird's Daughter. To say it's not as strong in some ways is no discredit to Urrea, both because of the excellence of The Hummingbird's Daughter and because he is trying to stay true to history. The language here remains superb; how many times did scenes describing food make me hungry? The characters are well-drawn. The amount of research that went into this book must have been immense. I viscerally disliked that some of the [...]

Luis Alberto Urrea spent nearly 20 years researching his family history for his enchanting 2005 novel “The Hummingbird’s Daughter.” Out of old letters, historical documents and oral histories emerged the fantastical story of the author’s great-aunt Teresa, a Mexican saint and revolutionary who was the illegitimate daughter of Tomás Urrea, a wealthy landowner, and a Yaqui Indian woman known simply as Cayetana, or the Hummingbird. By the final wrenching pages of that novel, Teresita, as s [...]

Sequel to the Hummingbird's Daughter finds young Santa Teresita Urrea beaten and exiled to America for supposedly starting revolutions in Mexico. She must adapt to the confines of American cities and culture and is taken in by shysters and lovers in her journey across the U.S. with the "Consortium." Includes time spent at the World's Fair St. Louis. Sad and full of American dirt and history, the writing isn't as glorious as in Hummingbird, but echoes the turn-of-the-century growing pains of Amer [...]

Luis Alberto Urrea is one of my favorite authors, but this book lacks the great story telling and characters in Hummingbird's Daughter and Into the Beautiful North.Tomas Urrea, Teresita's father, was not a compelling character to me, he gets dull pretty quickly. The book seemed repetitive to me in spite of the historical setting of the US and Mexico at the turn of the century. I stopped reading it halfway through and plan to read more of Urrea's poetry and non fiction, life is too short to force [...]

I was so looking forward to this sequel, as I loved the Hummingbird's Daughter and recommend it frequently.This book was disappointing; Teresita is a shell of a character for the first half, and so many of the historical pieces feel inserted because they happened in real life, but not because they add very much to the story. Perhaps it has been too long since I first read the Hummingbird's Daughter (2009), but I feel it was a much better book. I really didn't get into this book until John Van Or [...]

a continuation of the factionalized but true story of "The saint of Cabora." I enjoyed learning the rest of this extraordinary woman's tale, all the more fascinating because she was a forbear of the writer, himself. It didn't have quite the compelling magic of the "Humming Bird's Daughter, however. All the same, I'll look forward to Urrea's next book.

It was a little bit of a chore to finish this off. It was a sequel to Hummingbird's Daughter which I really enjoyed, but half way through I was beginning to be tired of the Saint of Cabora.

Loved it! Beautifully written. A must read!

I cannot get enough of Luis Alberto Urrea - he is truly a master! His prose is gorgeous, detailed when necessary, simple and sparse when most needed. This is the second installment of a personal story for him, a family history of his great-great aunt who was a healer and who became a fabled "saint", St. Teresita of Cabora. I saw him read (if you can even call it that) while promoting the first installment of this history (The Hummingbird's Daughter). It was an unforgettable experience; really a [...]

In this sequel to The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Urrea continues the story of his ancestor Teresita Urrea, known as the Saint of Cabora. As a child, Teresita came out of a near-death experience with the power to heal people of their maladies. Mobbed by pilgrims seeking healing and revolutionaries inspired by her God-given gifts, she has now been exiled to the United States. With her are her father Tomas, his young mistress Gaby, their children, and his trusted friends Lauro Aguirre and Segundo. B [...]

Queen of America is the sequel to The Hummingbird's Daughter, which was a spectacular book. A magical realism take on the stories of Urrea's own ancestor. Queen of America picks up where the last book takes off, more or less, as Teresita and her father Tomas cross the border from Mexico to the United States.This isn't as strong a book as the first. And most of the first half lags considerably. Unlike with Hummingbird, I found myself putting it down. It picks up in the last third or so. The diffe [...]

Queen of America is a sequel to the epic Hummingbird's Daughter and I would recommend reading them in order. I listened to this book on audio read by the author. I have been listening to audio books for 10 years and this is the best narration I have ever listened to. The characters became so life like it seemed as if they stepped out of the book and performed their story in my living room. There are plenty of reviews to inform you what the books are about so all I'll say is both of these rate in [...]

4 stars. The follow up to The Hummingbird 's Daughter. Teresita has been kicked out of Mexico, along with her father, and they flee to Arizona hoping for a fresh start. But she is still besieged by pilgrims, pursued by assassins hired by the Mexican government, and has once again to flee. Teresita's journey will take her to turn-of-the-century San Francisco, St. Louis, and New York City, where she meets royalty, poets, beauty queens, and tycoons. But has she lost herself?

I love this authors passion, it just rolls of the page and splashes over me from head to toe. Fabulous series, he is the perfect author for me, committed, humorous, descriptive, oh SO descriptive and unpredictable, just sit back, dust off your chaps and hit that dusty trail to the unknown. I will miss them all

So well written! I want to read more books by this author. This was historical fiction at its best.