Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything
Score: 4.5/5 Bookmarks
Steam Rating: 🍆 /5
Thank you to Libro.fm and Simon Pulse Books for gifting me an audiobook copy of Sia Martinez and the moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland.
Wow, this book is amazing. It’s part sci-fi with aliens, government experiments, and conspiracies over who shot JFK — part super sweet story about romance, family, and friendship — part mystical book of poems about time, creation and the universe.
Our leading lady, Sia Martinez is a high-school student living with her dad after her mother was deported and then died trying to cross the desert to get back to them. Sia obviously has much more than the usual highschool B.S. to deal with, but she’s strong, sensitive, smart, and knows who she is and what she stands for.
She’s a bad-ass and if anyone can take on the US Government, my money is on her for sure. She’s got a motley crew to help her out, and they’ve got each-other’s back in this very wild ride.
You know straight away that the author is a poet. Every word is considered, impactful, lyrical and beautiful. She creates more than imagery in your mind, but a feeling, an experience. I’m dying to get my hands on a physical copy to see how it is laid out, because there are some chapters in the audiobook that were only 12 seconds long!
The audiobook is only 8 hours and 9 minutes so I binged it all on the weekend. It is beautifully narrated by Inés del Castillo, who I wish would narrate everything I read…from marketing reports to shopping lists and everything in between. They’d all be so much more interested if she read them to me. You can grab a copy of the audiobook by clicking the button below, or get a physical copy here.
It gets one eggplant because there is quite a bit of penis talk in a few sections, but it’s not overly steamy or anything.
Do be aware that there are themes of parental death, racism, violence, sexual and physical abuse.
Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets Roswell by way of Laurie Halse Anderson in this astonishing, genre-bending novel about a Mexican American teen who discovers profound connections between immigration, folklore, and alien life.
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.
