SIa Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland is billed as Aristotle & Dante meets Roswell, meets Laurie Halse Anderson. Which, after reading it, sounds about right.
I started it Saturday, February 13, 2020 with the help of this guy:
He was not really helping. He was actually laying on my arm and making it challenging to turn the pages. But he’s cute so he gets a pass. If you’re not familiar with Sia Martinez, here’s the publisher’s summary:
“It’s been three years since ICE raids and phone calls from Mexico and an ill-fated walk across the Sonoran. Three years since Sia Martinez’s mom disappeared. Sia wants to move on, but it’s hard in her tiny Arizona town where people refer to her mom’s deportation as “an unfortunate incident.”
Sia knows that her mom must be dead, but every new moon Sia drives into the desert and lights San Anthony and la Guadalupe candles to guide her mom home.
Then one night, under a million stars, Sia’s life and the world as we know it cracks wide open. Because a blue-lit spacecraft crashes in front of Sia’s car…and it’s carrying her mom, who’s very much alive.
As Sia races to save her mom from armed-quite-possibly-alien soldiers, she uncovers secrets as profound as they are dangerous in this stunning and inventive exploration of first love, family, immigration, and our vast, limitless universe. “
If I hadn’t had to go to bed, this would have been a single-sitting read. That’s saying something. Here’s the sticky note review.
And the sticky note says (in case screen readers don’t read captions:
Oh, wow. So we’ve got alien conspiracy theories, abduction, government cover up. We’ve got romance, racism, and a whole bunch of people telling lies. But it’s also a story about the lengths people will go through to keep their families together. Equal parts heart-wrenching and hopeful, Sia Martinez’s story will keep the pages turning.
Have you read it? If so, what’d you think?
the (book) supplier 