A review by stormywolf
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

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. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings