Still Water Saints Analysis

In the book Still Water Saints, a novel by Alex Espinoza, Perla is a women who is a spiritual, loving, caring, and full of wisdom. She’s described as a women who helps a lot of people. She owns a botanica full of natural herbs for remedies for stress, pain, or any other health issues people may have. I imagine she works in a hidden small building with herbs on the shelves surrounding the whole store. I feel that she’s very traditional and her presence is warming and comforting. She genuinely cares for the people she helps treat by the way she cares for their needs and how she closed the shop for the boy who wets the bed for privacy. She takes pride in what she does and the way she describes preparing the remedies, is like it’s her purpose in

life. It makes me curious about the way the remedies work.
Rosa is a teenage girl that’s trying to deal with her insecurities with her weight. As she’s trying to follow her mother’s advice and make her happy, she’s unhappy. Rosa complies with her mom’s way of eating healthy, exercising, and drinking herbal tea every day to lose weight. I don’t agree with how her mother’s constantly putting her down and telling her that she won’t find a man because she’s fat. In my opinion there’s other ways of talking to your children when it concerns their health. The differences between Perla and Rosa’s mother is that, Perla is easy to talk to and nurturing. Perla is nice to Rosa and tells her that she’s okay with the way she looks and if she ever wanted to lose weight she can come back when she’s ready. As for Rosas mother, she is very set in her own ways and thinks she’s helping Rosa but in reality she’s just making her insecure.