A little slow moving but really interesting concept for a novel. The descriptions of Avila were well written, and something about a woman who is not yet old enough to be a widow experiencing widowhood really spoke to me in the author's writing. I'm not sure this book is for everyone as it takes some time to get into and probably could have been trimmed down somewhat, but all in all it's a title worth reading.

Thank you to the published and NetGalley for providing me with an anticipated copy of this book.

To get me drawn to this book, all I had to read about it were two key words: grief and levitation. I hoped that, in light of my experience with grief (not levitation, alas), it would have helped me cope with something like what the main character of this book, Tere, goes through after losing her beloved husband to a stroke.

What I liked in this book was the characters: all of them, except for the noisy neighbour in Avila, are well detailed even when they make but a brief appareance, and all serve a purpose in Tere's journey toward an explanation as for why, suddenly, she has started levitating at unannouced times, starting in her garden. Tere herself is awesome: a woman in her sixties, a scholar, a teacher, with an open mind and heart towards subjects and people, and a fierce feminist attitude that make her a strong character but not a perfect one. She has flaws, doubts, prejudices that she herself recognizes and works on in order to get rid of or, mainly regarding the Catholic church, to transform them in verified truths.
I also loved the fact that, for once, we have an old protagonist: someone who has to fight with what people expect from her judging by her age, a factor that adds to all the others that women have to live with for their whole life. It was liberating and refreshing to see a woman clinging on her soul, her beliefs and her body despite society's opinion about them.

Overall what went amiss, for me, in this story, was the finale. I get it: Tere searches her roots and origins because, after living as a very organized and punctual person, her husband dying has stopped her, blocked her on her path, so she goes back to where she comes from in search for answers. The mending with religion was very interesting: it sparked curious questions, and I discovered Saint Teresa, whose life and miracles I had never heard of despite being a white European living close to the Vatican (but not religious myself). The ending, though: it felt rushed, and the symbolism with the digging of her grief, of her loss, of her pain didn't sound right to me. It felt like her journey didn't push her to an evolution, a true one, even though I was certainy not expecting anything more concrete since grief and loss are very complicated, nuanced and lenghty experiences. The digging, though, the hiding: its symbolism didn't strike me, and despite liking Tere's experiences in Avila, her new aquaintances and friends, and her final conversation with her son, kinda ruined the entire experience for me.

I will never have enough words to describe how connected I felt with this book and Ann Dávila Cardinal’s words describing Tere’s journey toward self-discovery amidst profound change. Tere, a 60-year-old woman mourning her husband, begins experiencing levitation, leading her to explore her roots in Ávila, Spain, where she learns about her ancestor, Saint Teresa. I felt seen in a story about a saint and her descendent. I felt that the words in We Need No Wings combined all of women’s experiences, tying us all together.

As Tere was flying to Spain, I was on a plane to Denmark. She was connecting to her roots and felt drawn to Avila. I was anticipating my future and my heart longed for Copenhagen. I wasn’t levitating but smiling my way through the airport. How funny is it to feel at home somewhere you don’t have one, in a country where you know no one? I couldn’t feel more connected to Tere in her search for “what is going on with me”. Despite being only 35, no husband (dead or alive), no kids, no prestigious career or accolades, I resonated deeply with Tere's experience, tattooing memories on her skin as oaths. Because in my search for purpose, my body carries all the memories of what is lost and gained through color and lines.

I was pleasantly surprised by how inspirational the exploration of Santa Tereza’s life turned out to be. It baffled me that I had seen The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in Rome, which was mentioned so many times in the book, but I never knew the story behind it. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that words could be a golden arrow through your heart and heal it in the best way. Cardinal's writing deftly blends humor with profound insights, illustrating that “the experience of levitation comes at times of great change” and that such transformations can lead to a deeper understanding of oneself.

We Need No Wings for me is about the invisibility of women even if they’re miraculous, even if they are claimed saints, they (we) are dismissed by the same authorities. Ann Dávila Cardinal’s words spoke to me so true throughout the entire book. Especially when I realized that professionally I have been treated the same way Tere was - having my opinion dismissed by the same men who put me in the room and paid for that opinion.
This book is not just about the challenges women face, it's a celebration of resilience and the friendships we forge along the way. A truly inspiring and empowering story.
We Need No Wings to fly because we’re already soaring through life. "All that mattered was that they were free, that they needed no wings to fly".

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmarks for a digital advanced reader’s copy of We Need No Wings.

P.S. I took my sweet time savoring this book, finished it a month ago and I still think about it constantly!

The author's passion shines through in this book. It was well written and explored some intriguing themes, even though, I didn’t connect with it like I wanted to. It has great potential to appeal to other magical realism readers and I encourage others to try it out! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

While it starts as a magical view of grief we soon realize it is a middle aged woman finding the second part of her life. It is a trope, but it is beautifully written and the levitation adds an element of magic and fantasy. I would recommend this a s a slow burn read. IT takes a while to really get into the main character's story but once we are there, and literally in a new location the book really opens up. I want to travel and see the things she sees and experience that later in life moment.

A beautiful story of working through the grief process and overcoming and coming back into our own at our own time. Grief is not a straight line and the process will circle back in on itself time and time again and this is also true in this story.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

Teresa "Tere" Sanchez is on leave from her university job, nearly a year after unexpectedly losing her husband. Then suddenly, she starts randomly levitating. After finding familial connection to Saint Teresa of Avila in Spain, who also supposedly levitated, Tere decides to go to Avila, Spain to reconnect with her roots and hopefully find some answers.

I was really captivated by the first 25% or so of this book. Then it got a bit repetitive, and I felt like all she did in Spain was visit churches. The religious aspects were a bit heavy handed and boring. Tere also read kind of unrealistically - she's supposed to be a 60 year old woman nearing retirement but seems more like someone in their 30s. I just didn't buy it. It was okay overall, but I can't say I recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I am a sucker for all book magical realism! If you love all things feminist with a touch of magic, and characters full of diversity and wit, this book is for you! this is an uplifting take on femininity.

This was a good book and I enjoyed it more then I thought I would. This is a character driven book following Tere on a journey to find herself and purpose again after the loss of her husband.

What I liked:
*Descriptive writing
*Tere - She was such a real character balancing grief with wit, humor and resilience
*The magical realism elements

Final thoughts: I enjoyed this book and how the topic of grief was portrayed along with discovering magical realism, family roots and the travel journey she took

I loved the premise of this book, but it fell completely flat with many loose ends, underdeveloped characters, and an overabundance of “fluff.” I think 100 pages could be trimmed and it wouldn’t make a difference. I was really excited for an older female main character, but in my opinion, she was written like a standard millennial American woman rather than an older Latina from New York. It really just missed the mark for me.

Tere Sanchez has been a widow for a year, and is on a leave of absence from her position as a professor of literature, when she begins to levitate.Ann Dávila Cardinal sees levitation as a problem and sends Tere to Avila where her ancestor, St.Teresa wrote books and levitated. We Need No Wings (paper fromSourcebooks Landmark) is a whimsical look of a Puerto Rican tourist in Spain who finds a friend and a relative in this beautiful part of Spain. She also discovers the emotional reason she has been levitating. Enjoyable but I wanted actual flying.

3.5 stars rounded to 4.

I decided to pick up We Need No Wings as I had previously read The Storyteller’s Death and loved it. I am also quite fond of Ann Davila Cardinal’s writing. She is a story teller and will have you hooked.

In We Need No Wings our protagonist Tere decides to reconnect with her Spanish lineage after she begins to levitate a year after her husband’s death. At 60 and after being passed over time and time again by less qualified men for department chair, Tere has no idea what lays ahead of her. She decides to fly to Avila to visit a long lost family member to reconnect with her roots.

I went into this book not knowing what it was about and I was pleasantly surprised. I love that Davila chose to write about a sixty-year-old woman who is reinventing herself, finding joy, love and community once again. As women we are told we cannot do that, especially specially after we hit our 30s.

Tere was a refreshing character to read about. She is sassy, knowledgeable, smart, down to earth and flawed. A year after the passing of her husband she is still reckoning with his loss in her life.

Growing up Catholic (now agnostic) it was also refreshing to have a focus on woman in the church and for our main character to challenge long established patriarchal beliefs.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmarks for a digital advanced reader’s copy of We Need No Wings.

I love a good story with a not so young protagonist. This story was cute and cozy and almost like a travel guide. There were some religious themes, but I didn't find it to be too preachy. I loved exploring the city on a bicycle with Tere. I would say this only very lightly has magical realism elements. It was a feel good read and a nice escape from the deeply depressing books that I've been reading lately.

Thank you to the publisher for providing the ARC.

A beautiful novel that explores grief and "moving on" (is that ever possible?) at an older age. It also explores latinx identity and the complexity of family history and connection when your ancestry is from colonizers - and the difference between race and ethnicity and how those lines are blurry in the United States especially.

I thought Cardinal did a fantastic job bringing Avila to life on the page, as well as her characters. I especially liked Rodrigo ;) Found family is the best. I appreciated how Tere was firm in her desire to not get involved romantically, focusing on herself and being in tune with her needs.

I took off one star because I thought some of the actions toward the end were over-the-top and not in character for Tere. I also wanted more levitation scenes woven in.

Overall a good read that I think would work well for a book club!

I would first like to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the e-ARC.

I really wanted to love this book. A woman overcoming losing her husband by examining her heritage and the role of women in the Catholic Church was very interesting to me. As someone who identifies as Catholic and has always had a problem with the misrepresentation of women in the Church, I was intrigued by the premise of this book.

This book promised to delve into the ideas of aging, misogyny, religion, grief, family, heritage. I’ve read books where the author has weaved these themes well; unfortunately, this book and this author is not one of them.

I especially had trouble with the religious aspects of this book. There are a lot of things wrong with the Catholic Church, but this felt more like a sweeping critique of religious history and the author’s own internalized hatred instead of an intelligent examination of why the Church is the way it is. In perhaps the climax of the book, we see Tere attempt to steal a relic of St. Theresa because Tere is disgusted by the practice of keeping religious relics in the first place. I would have liked to see more of a discussion about why this practice developed. Instead, each encounter with someone of the clergy is written in an antagonistic light, and I think it would have been better handled with some nuance. I am very aware of the real problems with the Catholic Church and our MC’s hyper fixation on this one, extremely outdated, practice was frustrating and ultimately off-putting for me.

As far as the writing, I was surprised by how ‘Americanized’ the language was. I kept being surprised when someone mentioned she was speaking Spanish. I just found it very hard to believe that Tere would be that conversationally fluent in a dialect of Spanish she has never used before. This limited by ability to be immersed in the story.

I am sure there is an audience out there for this story, but unfortunately that audience simply wasn’t me.

This. Book one's very interesting about this Woman named T e r e s a n c h e s. She had some problems because her husband died. Her son has moved away. My friend professor named Richard was trying to help.Her because she took a year off from her job at the University in Vermont.
Who's the minnesota vikings quarterback this year. It was very hard to her to accept the death of her husband. Shoot want to find out why she's Was floating over her body. She called her aunt In Puerto Rico. To find out how she was related to the saint.T e r e s a. The history goes back to Spain to a town AVO.I. She had an aunt who is in the nunnery there as well. She was very unhappy with her life in America.So she decide to take a trip to spain. She wanted to find out why she was Having these experiences with her body. She found the town very friendly and helpful. I could see why this woman felt disconnected because she was very much in love with her husband. She was trying to figure out what she really wanted to do in life.

This just wasn’t for me. It felt a little soft-handed and too gentle in its approach. While the book touches on many themes and important topics, none of them felt explored in enough depth to hold my interest. A large part of my initial intrigue was seeing how the author would capture grief, identity, and culture, but for me, it fell short of truly integrating the main character's identity into the core of the story.

There are some beautiful moments in the book, and the prose is clear and vivid. However, there were also too many instances where it felt like we were getting filler, which slowed the plot and pacing considerably. The main character is likable enough, and I’m sure many readers will be drawn to the lightness and uplifting spirit of the story. I’ve heard it described as wholesome, adorable, and touching, and in that, I agree.

Grief and aging are usually themes I love to see more of, especially as we don't often get main characters who are older. There’s something unique about seeing the process of rediscovery later in life, particularly after the loss of a loved one. While this book captures the essence of that, I just wanted more, especially when it came to the magical realism elements.

I do appreciate the book's attempt to incorporate other issues, including taking a critical look at religion, even if those moments didn’t always land for me. I think if you're a gentle reader who enjoys cozy, uplifting stories where nothing too negative really affects the main character, then this book is for you. Tere’s journey can help others, and I’ve already recommended it to my godmother’s book club.

Major Thank You to Sourcebook Landmark and NetGalley for this digital ARC!

this book guys!!! This book!!! It was such a whimsical, magical and historical read about a woman who has lost a LOT but finds something that makes her wonder what life could have in store for her and how, the story of her family could potentially help her heal.
How the theme of grief gets portrayed into this story is a heart breaking; it shows us that it’s not linear and it can hit at any time, for any reason and can take us backwards but also, forward in some ways.
I loved how the author explained the scenery of Ávila, I felt so connected and that I was there with Tere traveling and inhaling everything.

I love all the characters that we meet that become an essential part of Tere’s life. Everyone had something new and wonderful to teach her. Especially Sister Isa , she was wonderful and funny too; it made me change the perspective on some nuns. The critiques made to the Catholic Church felt pretty close to home and NEEDED to be expressed because of how they overlook women and their practices and rights.

The fact that she undergoes everything she does is heartbreaking yet heartwarming at the same time. I love how the author crafted this story and how she weaves her wording; it felt ancestral and exquisite. I really loved this book and want to listen to the audiobook when it comes out.

This is my second Ann Daila Cardinal story and just like The Storyteller’s Death, I was captivated.

Ann’s writing beautifully captures rich culture, grief and love in equal measure, and paints pictures of beautiful scenery.


The descriptions of Availa, Spain really made me feel like I was there and I loved that. Ann did this with the Storyteller’s Death as well where the setting almost becomes its own character. There were moments where I forgot where I was while reading this book and that is exactly why I read.

Magical realism is some of my favorite writing and I love the way it is woven into the story. I am looking forwards to reading more of Ann’s books!

3.85 stars

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts. While I thought the premise of this was unique and intriguing, the structure and the particularly the unnatural/forced dialogue didn’t work for me, and I had to DNF.