Maggie Stiefvater

From bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater, a gripping tale of darkness, miracles, and family! Saints. Miracles. Family. Romance. Death. Redemption.

All the Crooked Saints

Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle. Here is a thing everyone fears: What it takes to get one. Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect. Maggie Stiefvater has been called 'a master storyteller' by USA Today and 'wildly imaginative' by Entertainment Weekly. Now, with All the Crooked Saints, she gives us the extraordinary story of an extraordinary family, a masterful tale of love, fear, darkness, and redemption.

Liz Griffin

Yasmin S.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, we have a sweet plot with interesting characters. The storyline is very creative, if a bit hard to get into and follow. On the other hand, we have a beautifully crafted book of analogies and descriptions. That is what got me through the book if I’m being entirely honest. Not the plot, but the writing. Maggie Stiefvater has the most intriguing and unique way of writing that really draws me in. I can’t wait to read more of her books in the future!!

Katie

menna

rtc

[Completed my Herbology exams for the OWLs Magical Readathon✨]

Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle. Here is a thing everyone fears: What it takes to get one. Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado, is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.

Jamieson

“Here's a thing everyone wanted: a miracle. 
Here's a thing everyone feared: what it takes to get one.”


Nestled within the rolling desert hills of Colorado is the small town of Bicho Raro, a town that's neither here nor there but attracts visitors of the strangest kind. It's here Maggie Stiefvater sets her odd but charming, All The Crooked Saints, her first foray into fiction since The Raven Boys ended. The Raven Boys is a favourite of mine, and I wanted this one to be too. But I don't think Maggie Stiefvater managed to recapture the magic. Where I found the writing of the Raven Boys beautiful and lyrical, here I found it slightly edged on overdone. Where I found the quirkiness of the Raven Boys endearing, I found it irritating here, and felt that the realism that grounded the characters was absent. The only thing I truly loved was the setting, again Maggie Stiefvater managed to capture something magical and whimsy about a rural American setting. 


  “Humans are as drawn to hope as owls are to miracles. It only takes the suggestion of it to stir them up, and the eagerness lingers for a while even when all traces of it are gone.”


Stiefvater introduces us to our central characters within the first chapter. Joaquin Soria, introduced as someone who wants to be famous but fears dying alone in the parched dust outside Bicho Raro. Beatriz Soria, who wanted to devote time to understanding how a butterfly was similar to a galaxy and feared being asked to do anything else. And Daniel Soria, who wanted to help someone he wasn't allowed to help but feared he would ruin his entire family for his private desire. At first I found this manner of introducing the characters interesting and lyrical, but the sentence quickly became overused and cliche. This is similar to the writing throughout the book. Stiefvater has talent but the organic beauty of her writing seemed lost here, for me the writing felt forced. There are sparks of brilliance, I think Stiefvater is a great writer and an interesting writer, and the strength of her writing carried this book through the rough patches, but she couldn't carry the style as flawlessly as she has done previously. 

Similarly, where The Raven Boys had characters who were incredibly compelling, the protagonists of All the Crooked Saints were not so. I liked them, but I didn't love them. Their quirkiness intrigued me, but there wasn't enough substance. Odd characters are fun, but they need some grounding in reality to seem real to me. I want something hard and truthful. For me, there wasn't enough of that. The Soria's felt almost like caricatures rather than real people. I also felt like there was an element of stereotyping and otherness in the depiction of the characters. The Soria's feel like typecasts and often the way the culture and folklore was incorporated felt like Stiefvater was fetishising the culture. Often, it felt as if Stiefvater was overusing iconography and language in order to make this book feel "ethnic" and it ended up feeling fetishised. It is very disappointing that the publishers didn't take the time to hire someone to make the Spanish included correct and grammatically coherent, that would have taken five seconds and would have made me feel less as if this is a book trying to profit off of depicting this culture of a quirky other. I will include links to ownvoices reviews at the end of this review. 


  “This is the way of our work: We cannot help but color it with the paint of our feelings, both good and bad.” 


While Stiefvater has proven in The Raven Cycle she has talent, a lot of it fell to the wayside here. The action, character development and coherence of the plot was lost in favour of portraying beautiful writing. But beautiful writing a book does not make, and the rambling nature of this book, as well as muddled character concepts and unsatisfying character development prevented me from loving this. I enjoyed reading it, but I found myself more and more unsatisfied as I neared the end. For me there was some nuggets of brilliance, but overall All the Crooked Saints fails to live up to the high expectations many of us have set for Stiefvater, and the problems I had with The Raven Cycle were, if anything, exacerbated rather than solved here. 

ownvoices reviews

Giselle, a Latinx reviewer (3 star review)

Laura Pohl on representation of in YA specifically related to ATCS

A twitter thread about this book, especially related to lack of nuance and translation issues

Fatma's goodreads review

Julia Lotz

Ich bin ein großer Fan von Maggie Stiefvater und ihrem schönen und unglaublich ruhigen und poetischen Schreibstil. Schon vor vielen Jahren habe ich mich in ihre Werwolf_Reihe verliebt, Rot wie das Meer ist ein toller Einzelband und die Raven Boys begleiten mich nun schon seit einer Weile. Wie Eulen in der Nacht ist ja schon seit einer Weile auf Englisch erschienen und ich habe mich sehr gefreut, die deutsche Ausgabe im Programm von Droemer Knaur gesehen zu haben. Ihre anderen Bücher sind als Jugendromane bei Loewe erschienen und die Tatsache, dass Wie Eulen in der Nacht nun bei einem Verlag erscheint, der Fantasyliteratur für Erwachsene publiziert, gab mir schon einen ersten Aufschluss darüber, dass die Geschichte anders sein könnte als das, was ich bisher gelesen habe. Wie Eulen in der Nacht würde ich dabei nicht als "Erwachsenen-Fantasy" bezeichnen. Ganz abgesehen davon, dass ich diese Bezeichnung ohnehin schwierig finde, ist das Buch eigentlich nur ein bisschen weniger jugendlich als Maggie Steifvaters andere Bücher, spricht aber ebenfalls ein All Age-Publikum an.

Das Buch spielt in den 60er Jahren auf einer Ranch nahe der mexikanischen Grenze. Dort lebt eine Familie, die ihre Ursprünge ebenfalls in Mexiko hat und die etwas besonderes kann: Wunder wirken. Aus diesem Grund kommen Pilger zu dieser Ranch, um sich ihre Dunkelheit, ihre Probleme durch ein Wunder beseitigen zu lassen. Das erste Wunder kann gewirkt werden, das zweite müssen die Pilger selbst wirken und da sie das nicht immer sofort schaffen, bleiben sie in der Zwischenzeit mit ihrem ersten Wunder, das sich immer ganz unterschiedlich manifestiert, auf der Ranch. Es ist den Mitgliedern der Familie, den Sorias, jedoch untersagt, den Pilgern bei der Bewältigung des zweiten Wunders zu helfen, was teilweise schon durch ein Gespräch entstehen kann. Deshalb gestatten sie den Pilgern nur, dort zu bleiben und ignorieren sie ansonsten. David Sorias jedoch verliebt sich in eine Pilgerin, hilft ihr und beschwört dadurch selbst seine Dunkelheit. Im Folge der Handlung versuchen die jungen Sorias – unerlaubterweise gemeinsam mit den Pilgern – ihm zu helfen.



Ich sollte eigentlich von Maggie Stiefvaters neuem Buch begeistert sein. Das bin ich jedoch nicht. Wie Eulen in der Nacht hat mich aus mehreren Gründen enttäuscht. Ich möchte das Buch nun weder verteufeln, noch es als schlecht betiteln. Maggie Stiefvater hat mich erneut mit ihrer Art zu schreiben verzaubern können nur leider konnte es die Geschichte nicht. Ich wusste ziemlich lange nicht, was genau das Thema ist, das ich euch einen Absatz weiter oben zusammengefasst habe. Das Buch wird darüber hinaus aus ganz unterschiedlichen Perspektiven erzählt, was das Verstehen eher erschwert hat.

Auch sonst wollte ich mich mit dem Buch nicht anfreunden. Es ist Fantasy mit einer Prise Mystery und doch erinnerte es mich an eines dieser viel zu häufig ausgezeichneten belletristischen Werke, die ich in meinen Litertaurseminaren an der Uni lesen musste und danach nie wieder sehen wollte. Es war zu abgespacet, zu sehr voll mit irgendwelchen fadenscheinigen Sätzen in die man alles und nichts hineininterpretieren könnte und deren Sinn man auch nur ansatzweise erahnt, wenn man lange Zeit darüber nachgrübelt. So sehr ich Wie Eulen in der Nacht lesen und lieben wollte, dieses Buch hat mir gezeigt, dass sich mich doch lieber Maggie Stiefvaters Jugendromanen zuwenden möchte.

Ashley Janssen

Clever, funny writing but perhaps too clever. Couldn't get into the story or characters.

ivan

** spoiler alert **
           With the audiobook, the story itself became alive. The whole Soria family, their individuality and their day to day occurrences seemed to happen right in front of you. It immerses you into their world and it has a charm that Maggie Stiefvater's work always has. It shows the many ties that people are bound to, as well as the binds they make difficult on their own.

The story itself is not full of action in terms of fighting armies, but there is that thrum of struggle that pulls the characters together, though they like to resist it. 

The romance part of the story is something undeniably tender and intimate. Francisco and Antonia rekindle their love for one another, and learn to forgive. Beatrice and Pete find something that didn't know they could have in the first place.

The story ends on a good note, where smiles are everywhere, and people are on the road to reach for what they want, having dealt with what they feared. And sometimes, a good ending is just what you need in trying times.

Allison Garrett

First off, I love Maggie Stiefvaterr and she is one author that I auto pick up. This book was no exeption to Stiefvater’s unique writing style. The way she portrays characters and writes details is unlike any author I’ve ever read. All the Crooked Saints is a stand-alone which I enjoyed since I mostly read series. Personally, I relate to Beatrice really well so I loved her character. I just don't know how Stiefvater is able to create such complex worlds and stories it truly amazes me. 

The Good: 
•	Writing style: As I mentioned, she writes like no other. You are truly transported to a different world every time you open one of her books. The obscure details that she writes into the story make the characters even more realistic. For example, in All the Crooked Saints she includes one thing each character loves and something they fear which I loved. 
•	Character development: The main characters literally must face their “darkness” and resolve their issues to survive. All of the Sorias were interesting and faced their demons in one form or another throughout the book 

The Bad:
•	Easy to put down: I stopped and started this book a few times. It was interesting, the plot line just didn’t really grip me from the start 

All in all, I gave All the Crooked Saints 4/5 stars for being a great novel, just a little too easy to put down.

nair

"Some need only one miracle; others might have two or three or four or five over the course of their lives. Happiness is the same way."

Leah Patton

Sooooooo good. I don't even know if I can write a good review because I loved it so much. However, review will come on theleafd.com

Amanda Kordeliski

If I were evaluating this book solely on the writing, it ranks a solid 5 stars. I do not think there are many writers as talented as Stiefvater when it comes to creating beautiful, lyrical text. It is always a treat to immerse myself in the words she writes and the stories she weaves. However, as a young adult book, I think this title will be a hard sell. The slightly different world the Soria family lives in with their miracles and darkness takes a long time to establish and the pacing is steady but slow throughout the book. I wouldn't be surprised if this book garners a Printz nod and I wouldn't dispute that it as a deserving title, but not likely to be one that flies off the shelves. A strong purchase for any teen collection but I would give this to teens after they fall in love with her writing through the likes of Shiver or The Raven Boys and they are sold on her magical ability to tell a story. If you adore  The Scorpio Races (which earned a Printz honor) you will also like All the Crooked Saints.

Erin Russell

4.75/5 stars. This is my VERY late first book of the year (1 down 39 to go). I started it month ago but have not been in the mood to read since, however I did enjoy what I had read. A couple days ago I decided to give it another go of it, I am so glad I did. It is such a delightful book, the characters are very flawed and so likable, the plot is simple but hectic. This book is so many things at once but it just works. It is a short read and a stand alone novel, but it pacts a lot of punch in a little package. I'm going to add more books of Maggie Stiefvater on to my reading list because of how much I loved this tale of hers.

Tori W.

As much as I love Maggie Stiefvater, I couldn't really get into this book and it took me 2 years and several restarts to finish it :/

Grace O'Callaghan

This was such a let down. Usually even if I didn’t particularly like the plot of one of Maggie’s books (cough, cough, Shiver) then I can still appreciate the characters and the writing, but I couldn’t even do that. Normally I love slow meandering stories, but this one felt almost pointless and a bit of a time waster.

We follow the story of the Soira family in Bicho Raro, Colorado during the ‘60s. Bicho Raro is no ordinary place. It’s a place where pilgrims go to receive miracles. It’s a story of love, loss, family, redemption and miracles. Sounds interesting, right? I thought so to, but that wasn’t the case.

As always I loved the atmosphere and Maggie’s writing style. It was however trying way too hard to be deep and philosophical when in fact it was a bit of a train wreck. 

I would have not finished this book if I’d been physically reading it. It was the slowest and most boring plot ever. I swear nothing happened. I literally just finished the book and I can’t even tell you what happened.

As for the characters, they were fine, but there were so many of them I couldn’t find it in myself to care about any of them. And because there are so many I confused them all up so I couldn’t even follow what was happening. I may have cared for them more if there was any plot that made things happen to them, but sadly there weren’t.

All in all this was a huge disappointment. If you like books where absolutely nothing happens then please read it. But I would not recommend this book to anyone. Please read The Raven Cycle or The Scorpio Races instead.

What a strange and mesmerizing book. So profound, artfully disguised in whimsy and religious folklore. Very different and yet wholly Stiefvater. I’m sure there is a lot of nuance I missed since I’m not a Spanish speaker. I found the demi-romantic/neurodivergent rep really meaningful.

Kaitee Tredway

A little miracle of a book. I love the simplicity of Maggie’s style and her frankness juxtaposed against the fantastic.

Naomi Verkleij

3.5/5. I find it difficult to rate this book. I've been in a terrible reading slump for the last few weeks, which I'm sure heavily influenced my experience of this book. Nonetheless, the book did capture me the way all Stiefvater's books do, and left me with this heavy, magical feeling that I love.

Ariel Himboi

When I first started this book I had no doubt in my mind- that Maggie being one of my favorite authors, that this book would be an all-time favorite. Her style of writing characters and an amazing storyline is close to impossible and unbelievable. The things this woman can do with her words could bring utter destruction. 

You get the idea that there are some really important, feely-feely themes to this book in which I thought would be taken a little lightly. I was horribly wrong as this book took my heart out of my chest, crushed it to pieces and kissed the ashes. This was an original, mesmorizing tale about three family members, Joaqin- or Diablo Diablo, a girl named Beatriz who cannot feel, and Daniel, a dark saint. Family and love are so important in this story it's hard not to take pieces of it personally. I found at the end of this book and especially at the epilogue, that there was a darkness inside of me that I knew all along. 

Maggie has a way of taking you on a specific journey that will leave you breathless. 

I found myself sitting on my back porch while unable to set the book down while simultaneiously wiping the tears out of my eyes. This story took me by complete surprise, especially since Maggie's writing is poetic and slightly weird in a way that you're drawn to its beauty. 

I can't coherently put together all of my thoughts at this vary moment but I can say that I have never been as touched in a book as I did by this one. This is a story I will read to my children, to my friends and family, and to spread a little bit of that magic from this story. 

This book showed me that everyone deserves a miracle, that darkness is temporary, a puzzle waiting to be solved. And thanks to Maggie I have found my own little miracle.

This is by far one of my favorite books of 2018 and I will gladly treasure it with all my heart. Maggie will continue to be an auto-buy, spectacular author who I will look forward to seeing more works from.

If you haven't already; pick up this book!

Laura Springall

RTC!

9 months later
Wow I'm bad at getting around the actually reviewing the books that I mark as RTC. WHOOPS.

Anyways. This book is.... difficult to describe. I didn't like it, but at the same time I always think fondly of it whenever I see it on my shelf. I found the characters to be odd, not necessarily in a good way, and yet I missed them after I finished it. I don't get it. Maggie Steifvater somehow managed to write a book that I wanted to DNF but couldn't bring myself to do it. I keep typing and erasing things because I'm having such a hard time deciding how to describe the experience of reading this book. It was so beautifully atmospheric. Stiefvater created a world so wonderfully magical and weird and cooky, but still somehow entirely believable. I felt oddly disconnected while reading this, but it also felt like I was right there watching it all in front of me. I really don't know how to describe it. I think the best way would be to say that I felt like an observer of this story, I wasn't part of it but I was there as witness. This story makes you feel like one of the owls calmly watching everything, not necessarily caring about what's going on, but just watching to see how things unfold. I would recommend All The Crooked Saints as more of a reading experience than something you read for the plot, it's left me at a complete loss for words.

Okay I liked the idea of the story, but that was about it. 

I just don't enjoy omnipresent narrators who speak as though they are the child of Lemony Snicket and Welcome to Night Vale. The book was too slow for me and too much extraneous, irrelevant detail.

Sorry Maggie, you just didn't win me over this time. 

Full review to come.



EDIT: Sorry guys, I honestly cbf writing another review for this book bc I just didn't enjoy it. BUT you can check out my full review over at my blog!

b.andherbooks

You can find the Sorias in the middle of the Colorado desert where you'll discover they deal in miracles. But here's the thing. Everyone wants a miracle but not everyone is ready to pay the price. 

A fantastic, stand alone from the queen Maggie Stiefvater. A novel imbued with magical realism, miracles, and darkness set in the 1960s desert, this is a perfect character study for those craving more of her completely unique writing style. 

This wouldn't be the first Stiefvater novel I would recommend (The Scorpio Races!!) but for her acolytes, a marvelous addition to her work!

Plus, I have to say, no one makes me fall in love faster and more deeply with characters, even "minor" ones, than Maggie. Tony was a particular favorite of mine in this story, especially how he resolves his darkness.

Southern Today Gone Tomorrow

All the Crooked Saints, written by Maggie Stiefvater, follows three cousins, one of whom is the Saint of Bicho Raro. Beatriz, Joaquin, and Daniel (the Saint) have lived with their families ways for many years: pilgrims come, receive their first miracle, and while they are figuring out how to make the second miracle occur, the Soria family are not allowed to get involved.

These are not normal miracles that help you out in life. These are miracles that are supposed to teach you about yourself. They do this by being odd. It is always raining on one girl, twins are connected by a poisonous snake wrapped around them both, a man becomes a giant, etc. These are people’s darkness, and if a Soria tries to help, their darkness will manifest, and it will be far worse than a normal person’s darkness.

Now to the review.

Writing out this summary reminds me why I was intreged by this novel. I have also read The Wolves of Mercy Falls series and The Raven Cycle by Stifvater and knew going into it that this novel would likely be lyrical and very verse sounding, third person, and at least a little odd.

Honestly, the writing and story just didn’t work for me. The writing felt choppy and repetitive, the story felt like a myth that honestly went on with two much detail (this could also be due to it being an audio book), and the various premises of the story – the miracles and darkness – just never made sense.

I don’t know who I would recommend this book to. Maybe if you enjoy reading old fashion myths? I have enjoyed her other books (see this review), but I just didn’t like this one.

The narrator was good, however I wish he wouldn’t have done the entire novel in a Spanish accent. It takes place in Colorado with a family who hasn’t lived in Mexico for over a hundred years. And when he did the characters’ accents, the generally didn’t have a Spanish accent.

I did enjoy that this is a novel truly written in third person, which is getting a bit harder to find in popular stories.

Sally Salinas

the story follows the Soria Family, mainly three cousins Beatriz, Joaquin and Daniel who performs miracles. Also, follows the pilgrims who flock to them. Its about knowing you fears and how to overcome them. I really love Maggie Stiefvater's writing and this was beautiful. Loved the Colorado desert, the Mexican heritage of the family. Great read!

Jeri

Actually, I had a dilemma about how to rate this book -- either 4, 4.5, or 5 -- along the way, but having finished it just now, I thought it deserving enough of a 5 because really, why wouldn't it? A lot of people have different opinions about this book but when generalized, it all comes down to the conlusion that this book is Maggie. The narration, the humour, the characters were all so Maggie that I fell in love with all of it instantly. It is simply amazing how she can balance all those characters in one story without me having to ask "hu dis" or "where'd u come from". I think this is one of Maggie's specialties, because even with The Raven Cycle, I loved all the characters SO. FIERCELY. and how they all came together. The Sorias, too, were lovable in their own ways, even the pilgrims. They had such distinct characteristics and personalities, all the while maintaining their realness or closeness to the reality of human beings. I had a moment of disappointment, I can't deny that, because I expected something more terrible, or at least more gripping, from something everyone was curious about, but other than that, I absolutely loved it.

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | 
  She had still been learning how to live with the hard truth that the most interesting parts of her thoughts usually got left behind when she tried to put them into words.


Review also found here

A quick recap to those who don't know me: this review may, perhaps, appear unfavorable. This is not directed towards Maggie Stiefvater in any way--I adore her writing and almost every book she has penned in her career thus far. Not everything is going to be my cup of tea. All the Crooked Saints, firstly, was not my cup of tea. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that I hated the novel because I didn't. It has her suggestion writing; detailed, haunting, full of that hypnotic prose that makes her stories so brilliant. But at its core, there was so much about it that simply did not strike a cord within me quite like other releases have in the past.

I had a similar problem with the conclusion to The Raven Cycle, which is one of my favourite YA series. What brought me down about All the Crooked Saints (aside from its obvious flaws and previously mentioned critiques from other bloggers, re: problematic) was that despite all its stellar prose and fascinating characters and unique worldbuilding, there was just a lot that didn't feel... there. This isn't to say that the story itself was empty. It was merely lackluster to me in all the points that really and truly mattered.

Did I have too many sincere, out of reach expectations that merely let me down? Perhaps. Perhaps that is what made the book less enjoyable. I felt like a good chunk of the story was at a standstill. Slowly, slowly, slowly unraveling without much development and it just wasn't at all something I fancied from the middle onward. There were so many parts of the narration that were good--I have a list of flaws but none of them extend to how easy it is to highlight passages for the future--it was just everything else that kept... ah, getting in the way and messing about with the pacing.

That being said, here are some of the things that I did genuinely enjoy in All the Crooked Saints.

 -The writing for the narration. Maggie Stiefvater just has prose goals, okay? I love her. It's a testament to how much I love her that I finished this book to begin with. Instead of succumbing to my frustration, I road it out because it still had some solid parts that gave me the chills. 
 -Pete, Beatriz, and the other inhabitants of Bicho Raro are fascinating. I liked that the characters were predominantly different that the other characters in her past publications (although I am sure some o you would disagree with me) and prove that her fantastical elements and parallels only extend to her writing; not her characters and worlds. I wish we had gotten more of Daniel.
 -Did I mention I love Beatriz? I may relate to her on some levels. On some levels, I probably do not. That's besides the point. I really did love her. 

Based on my lack of a list--and explanations--you can see that my feelings towards the book are luke-warm at best. For the most part, the novel didn't work for me because I was constantly feeling the loss of something. As if something from the book was missing, as if I had missed something, etc. 

That's not a good sign for a book and it's as simple as that. While All the Crooked Saints didn't do it for me, I think that a good chunk of diehard Stiefvater's fans will find appreciation in the story and it's a total must-have for them. Overall, it wasn't the worst book I've read all year but it is far from Maggie's best work and I found myself underwhelmed.

All the Crooked Saints

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