Of Love And Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez.
Márquez is an amazing writer in the genre of magical-realism. At 147 pages, the book is short read and dirty-beutiful look at love, religion, and this tangled-web world of ours.
Quote:
One morning, during a late rainstorm and under the sign of Sagittarius, Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles was born, premature and puny. She looked like a bleached tadpole, and the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck was strangling her.
“It’s a girl,” said the midwife. “But it won’t live.”
That was when Dominga de Adviento promised her saints that if they granted the girl the grace of life, her hair would not be cut until her wedding night. No sooner had she made the promise than the girl began to cry. Dominga de Adviento sang out in jubilation: “She will be a saint!” The Maruis, who saw her for the first time when she was bathed and dressed, was less prescient.
“She will be a whore,” he said. “If God gives her life and health.”
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From Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez