Kindle
$9.99
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
$17.06
Paperback
$11.89
Buy new:
-37% $17.06
FREE delivery Wednesday, May 15 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: TheBookwormBooks
$17.06 with 37 percent savings
List Price: $26.95

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Wednesday, May 15 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$17.06 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$17.06
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$8.32
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
This item shows wear including some highlighting or writing. This item shows wear including some highlighting or writing. See less
FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$17.06 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$17.06
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

The Five Wounds: A Novel Hardcover – March 30, 2021

by Kirstin Valdez Quade (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,071 ratings
Goodreads Choice Award nominee
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$17.06","priceAmount":17.06,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"06","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2B0PWDw2Rv5EWzAajUv4hT3lsNCP05A3XRwntwXsjw6coaCUnPdQGt10DpB%2BJiXfsn1ftwchDNHadfpASnyPmaUF8Xs%2BDL5l9JPGF8xN1VQnEpBSoKvll%2FpbyLwKiLpNYlycRNoR3UvlWROcUKJdJDzmPNOWkLwN3yMltTsZE3EUzWPleDR4OG5FPo4wWuWRQ","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$8.32","priceAmount":8.32,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"8","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"32","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2B0PWDw2Rv5EWzAajUv4hT3lsNCP05A3XY1w6vG%2BdfoKKzdybrZyvJr73FBNrDQsUtTop86lShj6egZYKegZA3ssKwAWh%2BPhr%2BQzE5JHXQj3V24MrcRcYUCRWwAdOUwUEDeRYc2Nie8kmaZxPyY2jDPxqcMYRTlfAYLjlzgbgrcRV2mHCie4nUSzBI2umH1G%2B","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Winner of The Center for Fiction's 2021 First Novel Prize
Shortlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and Library Journal Best Book of the Year in Fiction • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fictional Family of the Year • A Booklist Top Ten Book-Group Book of the Year • A Goodreads Choice Awards Best Debut Novel Nominee

From an award-winning storyteller comes a stunning debut novel about a New Mexican family’s extraordinary year of love and sacrifice.

It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-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 fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.

Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.

The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    432 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    March 30, 2021
  5. Dimensions
    6.3 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393242838
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393242836
  8. See all details
Next page
Books with Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Frequently bought together

The Five Wounds: A Novel
$17.06
Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by TheBookwormBooks and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel
$15.37
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A novel
$14.71
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

From the Publisher

Yiyun Li, author of Must I Go, calls The Five Wounds "unputdownable."

Luis Alberto Urrea, author of House of Broken Angels, says The Five Wounds is "bracing and wise."

Karen Russell says Kirstin Valdez Quade "writes with exquisite precision."

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade is an Amazon Best Book of 2021 (Top 100)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of April 2021: Kirstin Valdez Quade treats us to the crackling inner life and logic of each member of the Padilla family as they scrape by in a small New Mexico town: an unemployed father trying to start up a windshield repair business; his weary ex; their pregnant, hopeful teenage daughter; a handful of tios; and the paternal grandmother who holds them together while carrying her own secret. What’s thrilling and poignant is how fully absorbed they all are by the details of their own lives. Reflecting sourly on how good Jesus actually had it, Amadeo, the dad, muses that, “[r]eal suffering isn’t just about physical pain, but about not knowing when the pain will end, not knowing what the point of all of it is.” This dazzling cross-generational portrait admits the eloquence in how we disappoint ourselves and the ones we love. —Katy Ball

Review

"Masterly... Quade has created a world bristling with compassion and humanity. The characters and the challenges they face are wholly realized and moving; their journeys span a wide spectrum of emotion and it is impossible not to root for [them]."
― Alexandra Chang, New York Times Book Review

"[A] fine-grained domestic saga... Quade is masterful with [her characters'] fragility... [A] big-hearted novel."
― Mark Athitakis, USA Today

"Gorgeously textured... [Quade's] sinewy sentences and emotional daring astound... Quade glides elegantly across a silken tightrope between comedy and tragedy, twists of fate that buoy her narrative to its resonant conclusion. The Five Wounds is destined to be one of this year's most celebrated works of fiction."
― Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel hooked me on page one... It's a wholehearted, radiant, and darkly funny exploration of family, faith, and forgiveness."
― Arianna Rebolini, Buzzfeed

"A gorgeously written, epic tale of one Latinx family's via dolorosa."
― O Magazine

"With beautifully layered relationships and an honest yet profoundly empathetic picture of a rural community―where the families proudly trace their roots back to the Spanish conquistadors while struggling with poverty and a deadly drug epidemic―this novel is a brilliant meditation on love and redemption. Perfectly rendered characters anchor a novel built around a fierce, flawed, and loving family."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Penetrating... The well-developed characters convey palpable emotion as Amadeo's failures as a father, partner, entrepreneur, and even as Jesus translate into fits of rage and frustration. Quade's rendering of a singular community is pitch perfect."
― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Profoundly affecting... Expertly crafted, this story of family and community introduces us to often needy characters for whom readers come to care deeply. Highly recommended."
― Library Journal (starred review)

"Quade ably delivers a story that is nuanced and authentic without a whiff of melodrama... [A] generous tale of characters who understand the inevitability of fate but try to forge ahead anyway in the hope of breaking free."
― Booklist (starred review)

"A masterful novel of family, faith, doubt. Quade's storytelling gift is her ability to capture the mysterious pulse of belief and ground them in visceral ritual on the page."
― Millions

"In this cruel and divisive era, Kirstin Valdez Quade has brought healing and regeneration with The Five Wounds. It is bracing and wise, and it breaks us in the best ways. Then builds us back up again. It should find many grateful readers."
― Luis Alberto Urrea, author of House of Broken Angels

"Kirstin Valdez Quade writes with exquisite precision about the fragility and resilience of the Padilla family…I loved The Five Wounds, which reminded me that growing pains are not confined to adolescence and that people can be newborn at any age. Even its most excruciating moments are charged with a luminous compassion."
― Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other Stories

"The characters in this engrossing novel are created in luminous and memorable detail. Just as the pacing is perfect, so too are the tact and care with which each scene is made. Kirstin Valdez Quade, by concentrating on the truth of small moments, has brought a whole world into focus."
― Colm Tóibín, author of House of Names

"With deep empathy, fierce intelligence, and subtle wit, Kirstin Valdez Quade has crafted an indelible portrait of a family living in precarity. The characters in The Five Wounds are so vivid, their grasping efforts toward love and redemption so finely wrought, and each page full of such immaculate prose, that I read this novel with ever-increasing breathless urgency."
― Phil Klay, author of Missionaries

"You hold in your hands a small, complete universe vibrating with joy and grief, humor and absurdity and delight. All the fabulous mess of humanity is, somehow, in these pages. The Five Wounds is bighearted, tender, wise, and shot through with moments of pure grace."
― C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (March 30, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393242838
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393242836
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.4 x 9.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,071 ratings

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
2,071 global ratings
This book is seriously BEAUTIFUL
5 Stars
This book is seriously BEAUTIFUL
This is SUCH (can’t stress this enough) a beautiful book about a flawed, loving family that I’ve completely fallen in love with.The book starts out during Holy Week in Las Penas, New Mexico where Amadeo (the family’s perpetual alcoholic screw-up) has been given the honor of playing Jesus during the reenactment his family has been participating in for generations. Then his 15 year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant and alone. Also Amadeo’s mother has been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor (well hey there, trigger warning) and doesn’t know how she will break the news.So yeah, the description sounds kinda depressing. This fam has a lot to contend with in this book. However, while there are heavy times, this book is filled with encouraging moments, funny times, and so much love. Don’t let all the issues in the synopsis keep you from reading.I completely loved these characters. It was like no matter how badly they messed up, I was right there rooting for them to succeed. You know I enjoy a character-driven book, but this one takes it to another level. It’s seriously a testament to the way that Quade tenderly wrote these characters.Also, can we start a petition to get Quade to write a sequel? Where do I sign?? I need more of these characters in my life.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

GreenHazed
5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, raw, captivating
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024
Verified Purchase
This book is an emotional, tough read. This is not a fairytale, and not a book to read. If you’re looking for a feel-good story. But the characters are incredibly well developed, well written, and exceptionally believable. Give up all expectations of what will happen and open yourself up to the story. I promise, you’ll be glad you did.
Helpful
 Report
Corina
4.0 out of 5 stars truly sad novel
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2021
Verified Purchase
What makes this novel so difficult to read, is how realistically painful life can be. At times I would find myself setting the book aside because I couldn't deal with the lives of these characters. The story centers around the Padilla family. Yolanda, the matriarch, is a woman in her fifties. Yolanda is the heart and soul of this family. She works her job, keeps her house, and tries to find a little happiness. She is such a lovely character filled with so much strength. When she is dealt a devastating blow she deals with it on her own and keeps it a secret. Yolanda's son, Amadeo, is a loser. Amadeo he is a thirty-three year old alcoholic who has not never held a steady job. He pretty much lives off his mother, lives in her house without lifting a hand in helping out around the house. Amadeo has never taken responsibility for anything in his life not even Angel, the daughter he fathered when he was sixteen. What saved Amadeo for me as a character is that he has the biggest heart. He is a loser but he knows he's a loser. He wants to change but can't or doesn't know how. Angel, Amadeo's daughter, has found herself pregnant at sixteen. She has dropped out of school and is for the first time living with her father. Angel wants a better life for herself and her child. She is the hardest character in the novel to like. She is a self-centered teenager who thinks the world should revolve around her. Angel is also a fighter and is trying to do something about the vicious cycle of being an unwed teenage mother. All three characters make truly bad decisions in this novel which come back to haunt them. Their lives are so extremely sad that you want to go over to the Padilla household and help out. The only reason that I did not give this novel 5 stars is because it was such a sad novel.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Cinthia
5.0 out of 5 stars It’s just so good.
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2023
Verified Purchase
The writing is fantastic. The story immerses you like you’re reading about your own distant family. I’ve recently forced myself to get back into reading and this book really helped me dig in. Thank you Kristin.
Helpful
 Report
MissGrace
3.0 out of 5 stars Meh
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
Bought this because my rented version had to be returned. It won awards, etc. so I thought it must be a great book, but it turned out not to be the type of story for my reading enjoyment. Other peoples sad lives and mistakes. Sure there are lessons to be learned, but Im old enough to have seen life up close and that’s enough.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
D. K. Bagshaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Five wounds deserves five stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
Set in a small town in New Mexico, this story has universal significance. I found it a unique study of common characters bungling along with their highs and lows, their dream and short fallings. Each chapter is told from another person's viewpoint, focusing on their reactions to other people and their internal dialogue. Then about half-way through, unlikely new relationships suddenly occur and the book intensifies. I began caring about the characters and realized they were doing the best they could.

I don't agree with others that the book was sad -- except maybe the beginning. The middle was exciting. The ending was good, realistic, and hopeful. The author has a profound understanding of human dynamics, and the effects of drinking and using upon individuals and the ones who love them. It all rang exceptionally true for me. It never got heavy-handed. Her treatment of religion was effective. I seldom give a five-star rating, but this one gets it.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Patricia Ibarra
4.0 out of 5 stars Determination not to give up
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2023
Verified Purchase
This is the story of the Padilla family of Latino origin but who have lived for several generations in the United States. Amadeo has never done anything worthwhile in his life and decides to play the role of Jesus in the Holy Week representation, and even asks to have his hands nailed to the cross, believing that it is something he will be admired for. On precisely that busy week, he saw his pregnant teenage daughter on his doorstep, determined to live with him because she fought with his mother. Yolanda is the grandmother that maintains the family together. The writer takes us into the story of many people considered a minority: financial issues, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, hopelessness, and all throughout the novel I always had a feeling of doom. It is so difficult to imagine all the hurdles that people have to overcome and not give up. A great story.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Frances D
5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific in its humanity. Not a summer beach read.
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2021
Verified Purchase
The Five Wounds is not light reading, but it is a beautifully written, moving story centered on four generations of the Padilla family in a small dying town near Española, New Mexico. Yolanda Padilla, the family matron, doesn’t tell her family about her serious illness as she caters to her alcoholic son Amadeo and her pregnant teenage granddaughter Angel, who are too absorbed in their own lives to notice that Yolanda is failing. Soon they are joined by Angel’s newborn son, Conor. The family members struggle to do good, to deal with their own pain, and to overcome their weaknesses. Valdez Quade does a great job of depicting culture that is a mix of modern and old New Mexico Hispanic traditions, the efforts of the family members to get by and to improve their lives in a small, depressed New Mexico community, despite teen-aged pregnancy, divorce and alcoholism. She is a master of human foible, and she manages an uplifting and hopeful ending to a difficult story. Meanwhile, there is the writing. Here are a few examples. She describes a farm “irrigated by acequias, the straight green rows defiant in the face of discount Walmart food.” The dog “gets to her feet, grinning her frilled black-edged lips and wagging her tail nub.” On Easter Sunday “children and adults alike returned to their homes to glut themselves on Peeps and cheap grainy jelly beans. The austerity of Lent is past, the countless lapses and broken promises forgiven, Christ’s sacrifice forgotten.”
22 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Maggie Hyam
5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
Ι loved this book, a family story set in New Mexico. Lots of emotions and observations of a family struggling to make a living and bring up and look after their family. This book set in New Mexico presents the difficult environment that young people are sometimes born into and how they struggle to cope.
Report