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Reviews tagging 'Blood'
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
8 reviews
tomnoor's review against another edition
3.0
For me, this book was at its best when it honed in on the heartbreak surrounding deportation and attempts to cross the border. The alien stuff was, in theory, even a smart way of addressing and critiquing those complex topics in an accessible way for a middle grade audience. The folklore and magical realism were strong too. If this book had been a series, where all those dozens of other topics could be further developed, I would’ve been more game, but as a stand alone book it feel like a ton of serious subjects were introduced without adequate exploration, and they then took away time from the stronger elements of the book as well.
Also, some of the things these teenagers said, especially in the ya romance…just…truly left me cringing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and Death of parent
Moderate: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, and Murder
Minor: Blood
oliverreeds's review
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
the writing style in this book is impeccable, and the characters are incredibly believable. this author writes teenagers so well and knows how to breathe life into her narratives. her writing reminds of benjamin alire saenz specifically in the way that she weaves in her families ideas of the world in short chapters and guides her readers to view certain characters and certain issues in a productive way. these are the parts of this book that i greatly enjoyed, and i would not have guessed it was this authors first novel. sometimes, however, the dialogue and scenes would be split in odd places– almost like the author didn't know what she wanted to write. it was honestly distracting and annoying to have the scenes split up like this when they would have workd better as cohesive dialogue trains that moved from one person to the next and one topic to the next. the chapter breaks just weren't necessary. i also felt like this was two separate books. the first section is all about sia's life, her mother, her grief, and her relationships, and then like 200 pages in there are just... aliens? and the aliens aren't a spoiler because they're on the back of the book, but they aren't actually adressed for a while, which was just weird for me. this also made the climax of the book move incredibly quickly in a way that i don't think worked for this particular novel. the ending was so fast that i didn't feel like there was any resolution until everything was kind of back to normal . the only reason i rated this book so highly is because the author is just honestly incredible at writing. i was willing to deal with the weird plot just to know more about these characters, just to live in the mythology of sia's life and learn the way she sees the world. would i read this book again? probably not. am i glad i read it? yes. 100% because even though some of the metaphors were a little heavy-handed, i genuinely think this is a well-crafted book that provides SO much information and characterization of the hardships faced and culture cultivated by people of color even though our society likes to believe everyone is equal in the eyes of the law and that any culture other than that of white people is bland in comparison.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Racism, Racial slurs, and Murder
Moderate: Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Police brutality
rosita's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Gun violence
Minor: Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence
mandkips's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, and Homophobia
booksthatburn's review against another edition
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
If you, like me, thought you might like SIA MARTINEZ AND THE MOONLIT BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING because ARISTOTLE AND DANE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE by Benjamin Alire Sáenz was a comp title for this book... proceed with caution. They're very different books with very little in common, story-wise. Their main similarity is that they both deal with teenagers who are part of the Mexican-American diaspora, and their heritage matters to them. The plots are completely different, and I hope that someday there are so many books with superficial similarities like this that comp titles for authors of color don't have to revolve around their identities, but rather the content of their stories. Since we're not there yet, I'll proceed with the review.
I couldn't get into this one, it was just not for me. On the off chance that it is for you I will try to summarize what I think it did really well. It has a really cool blend of magic and the fantastic in both the extraterrestrial and the paranormal, building this world where her grandmother's ghost is just as real for her as her dad is, but also letting visitors from space be real too. It has cathartic and realistic handling of healing and shows the MC regaining a sense of agency after some sexual trauma which happened before the book began. The writing style is really beautiful and gives a gorgeous sense of the spaces involved, especially the desert. The MC has a distinct narrative voice and all the secondary characters were very well differentiated. The world-building for places was great, I enjoyed it a lot. I like the MCs relationship with her dad, it's not stress-free but it fits their situation really well. The fluctuating chapter lengths were used really well to help certain moments stand out or to make a point before going on to longer, more involved sections of the story. It helped either build or halt a sense of momentum, depending on what the pacing needed. It handled some pretty bleak real-world topics in ways that fit the story (details in the TWs below), they mattered to the plot but usually weren't played to hype up tension.
Now for the things that contributed towards my intense dislike of the book. If none of these seem like deal-breakers (or they sound great) then you might like this one. There's a lot of mood whiplash, really draining mood switches where you think something's going to be okay, and then it's not, not because of some big status change but just that a tiny thing shifted and now things are bad. The UFO-obsessed character felt weirdly out of place. He was constantly interrupting to just be very very wrong, usually several times in a single conversation, because details of the actual aliens almost never lined up with what the internet told him. I think this was supposed to be funny, but to me it just made the actual explanations drag on because they were filled with a bunch of misinformation that was rebutted or discarded almost immediately. It made it more confusing to track what the actual plot-relevant details were when they were back-to-back with incorrect information. I think it was trying to have the aliens be mysterious and powerful, but it ended up feeling like all their abilities were plot-convenient, so their limits were exactly how much would be needed to tie them to the plot, and their abilities were exactly enough to get things moving once the book began. Obviously that's kind of normal in fiction, but the aliens were so flat as characters that it was like the only thing to know about them was their powers, and those didn't have a theme or a through-line, they were like a fact-sheet that didn't tell me much about them at all.
There were too many redemptions and not enough redemption arcs. This one is tricky because I think one of the points it was trying to make is that people don't need to do anything in order for you to decide to forgive them, it's not something you can earn. However, part of the mood whiplash I felt earlier is that something really bad would happen, then the book would list a bunch of really excellent reasons why, even if forgiveness could happen someday, it's really not time yet... and then the MC would forgive them. The main story takes place over a pretty short period of time, so fitting one of these arcs in would have felt like a lot, but they just kept coming. This happens with her love interest, the person who's been bullying her for years, and one more time almost at the very end of the book where there just wasn't time to get over the level of hurt and pain caused before the book is over, but she gets over it anyway just a few pages later. She starts the book having held a grudge against someone (very justifiably so) for years, which is why I think the number of times she forgives someone without anything really changing was on purpose to show a change in her character, but it just didn't work for me. I won't spoil the ending but I didn't like it. I felt like it undercut the poignancy of most of the wrap-up, returning me to a sense of unease because the book is over but what I thought was the resolution (while sad) wasn't really resolved and now I don't know how to feel. If this is a "to-be-continued" situation I won't be continuing, I'm not hooked and I don't want any more of this.
I couldn't get into this one, it was just not for me. On the off chance that it is for you I will try to summarize what I think it did really well. It has a really cool blend of magic and the fantastic in both the extraterrestrial and the paranormal, building this world where her grandmother's ghost is just as real for her as her dad is, but also letting visitors from space be real too. It has cathartic and realistic handling of healing and shows the MC regaining a sense of agency after some sexual trauma which happened before the book began. The writing style is really beautiful and gives a gorgeous sense of the spaces involved, especially the desert. The MC has a distinct narrative voice and all the secondary characters were very well differentiated. The world-building for places was great, I enjoyed it a lot. I like the MCs relationship with her dad, it's not stress-free but it fits their situation really well. The fluctuating chapter lengths were used really well to help certain moments stand out or to make a point before going on to longer, more involved sections of the story. It helped either build or halt a sense of momentum, depending on what the pacing needed. It handled some pretty bleak real-world topics in ways that fit the story (details in the TWs below), they mattered to the plot but usually weren't played to hype up tension.
Now for the things that contributed towards my intense dislike of the book. If none of these seem like deal-breakers (or they sound great) then you might like this one. There's a lot of mood whiplash, really draining mood switches where you think something's going to be okay, and then it's not, not because of some big status change but just that a tiny thing shifted and now things are bad. The UFO-obsessed character felt weirdly out of place. He was constantly interrupting to just be very very wrong, usually several times in a single conversation, because details of the actual aliens almost never lined up with what the internet told him. I think this was supposed to be funny, but to me it just made the actual explanations drag on because they were filled with a bunch of misinformation that was rebutted or discarded almost immediately. It made it more confusing to track what the actual plot-relevant details were when they were back-to-back with incorrect information. I think it was trying to have the aliens be mysterious and powerful, but it ended up feeling like all their abilities were plot-convenient, so their limits were exactly how much would be needed to tie them to the plot, and their abilities were exactly enough to get things moving once the book began. Obviously that's kind of normal in fiction, but the aliens were so flat as characters that it was like the only thing to know about them was their powers, and those didn't have a theme or a through-line, they were like a fact-sheet that didn't tell me much about them at all.
There were too many redemptions and not enough redemption arcs. This one is tricky because I think one of the points it was trying to make is that people don't need to do anything in order for you to decide to forgive them, it's not something you can earn. However, part of the mood whiplash I felt earlier is that something really bad would happen, then the book would list a bunch of really excellent reasons why, even if forgiveness could happen someday, it's really not time yet... and then the MC would forgive them. The main story takes place over a pretty short period of time, so fitting one of these arcs in would have felt like a lot, but they just kept coming. This happens with her love interest, the person who's been bullying her for years, and one more time almost at the very end of the book where there just wasn't time to get over the level of hurt and pain caused before the book is over, but she gets over it anyway just a few pages later. She starts the book having held a grudge against someone (very justifiably so) for years, which is why I think the number of times she forgives someone without anything really changing was on purpose to show a change in her character, but it just didn't work for me. I won't spoil the ending but I didn't like it. I felt like it undercut the poignancy of most of the wrap-up, returning me to a sense of unease because the book is over but what I thought was the resolution (while sad) wasn't really resolved and now I don't know how to feel. If this is a "to-be-continued" situation I won't be continuing, I'm not hooked and I don't want any more of this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
Minor: Islamophobia, Sexual assault, and Torture
CW for homophobia, ableism, racism, racial slurs, islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, grief, sexual content, sexual assault (backstory), domestic abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, PTSD, blood, violence, gun violence, torture (not depicted), parental death (graphic). TW for ICE, deportation, references to kids in cages along the US/Mexico border, references to Harry Potter (page 18, 66, 99, 179, 214, 250, 272, 359), reference to Sia the music artist (page 37).bookowllover's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Gun violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Police brutality, Physical abuse, and Torture
Minor: Blood, Cursing, and Kidnapping
stormywolf's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Though I planned to read this as one of the 25 Reads of December from RivetedLit, I actually missed the deadline for opening the book before the day was up, so I ended up picking this up from my library as both an e-book and an audiobook instead. This one caught my eye firstly from its gorgeous cover, and secondly due to its interesting premise which promised to blend immigration issues with aliens?! Bizarre? Maybe. But surely it had to be exciting, right?
Read my full review at The Wolf's Den
Overall, this was a mixed bag for me. I loved the slice-of-life narrative that dominated the first half of the story (with the romance, heritage, and social justice issues), but I just never bought into the Sci-Fi storyline that crashed into the second half. I honestly do think combining the issues of illegal aliens with space aliens was a clever idea, I just didn't find the execution of that combination to ever come together. I don't know if it was the breakneck speed of the story, the continual escalation of wtf moments one after the other, or simply my own cynical nature that made me refuse to suspend my disbelief, but I just couldn't reconcile that second half with the first. I still would recommend this to those who are looking for a YA book with a focus on Mexican-American traditions, immigration and racism struggles, and a romance that isn't afraid to deal with and work through trauma, but also enjoy huge twists and action-packed Sci-Fi. And who knows, maybe I'll come back to this one in the future and find the whole allegory works great the second time around.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Bullying, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Torture, and Police brutality
Minor: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Blood, Bullying, and Kidnapping
stormywolf's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Read by Inés del Castillo
Unabridged Length: 8.2 Hours
Listened at 1.5x Speed
Read my full review at The Wolf's Den
Overall, this was fine for those already familiar with the audiobook experience as a whole, but does pose some unique quirks that might dissuade some from trying it. The previously mentioned chapters pose one issue. Another concerns the language of the book. There are quite a few lines in Spanish that never receive a translation, so unless you're fluent or just unbothered (like I am), you might prefer a text version if you want to run any quick Google Translates. So unless you use audiobooks as your only/preferred option, maybe use a text version in tandem or instead of for this story.
Unabridged Length: 8.2 Hours
Listened at 1.5x Speed
Read my full review at The Wolf's Den
Overall, this was fine for those already familiar with the audiobook experience as a whole, but does pose some unique quirks that might dissuade some from trying it. The previously mentioned chapters pose one issue. Another concerns the language of the book. There are quite a few lines in Spanish that never receive a translation, so unless you're fluent or just unbothered (like I am), you might prefer a text version if you want to run any quick Google Translates. So unless you use audiobooks as your only/preferred option, maybe use a text version in tandem or instead of for this story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, and Violence
Moderate: Bullying, Police brutality, Torture, Physical abuse, and Child abuse
Minor: Blood, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Cursing, Medical trauma, and Physical abuse
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