Devoted to Death
Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, 2nd Edition

This is a useful corrective to the rather hysterical media image of the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte as little more than a religion of death for narco-criminals. Instead, Professor Chesnut re-positions it as an understandable, almost pragmatic, response to poverty, uncertainty and the complexities of......more

The book is a slim 200 pages. It divides itself up into chapters based on the different coloured candles you can buy, and the different purposes they serve. Cute. Except maybe a more traditional, chronological format would have worked better. While there is a lot of information in here, the author r......more

The first English-language academy study of La Flaquita, R. Andrew Chesnut's Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint is an important corrective to the growing mischaracterization of Mexico's rapidly expanding new religious movement. Blamed for the most brutal acts in the unending drug war......more

This book is a great informative on Santa Muerte. I gave it 3 stars because the depth of the author’s research is evident, and his effort to look at the religion inclusively and impartially. As someone who had never come across Santa Muerte before (until being in the class I’m in now where I had to......more