Synopsis: (from Goodreads):
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.

Review:

As I read Sía Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, I found myself very confused.  Was this a YA Contemporary?  It had all the elements of a story about a high-school-aged girl dealing with friendships, first loves, and parental relationships.  With talk about spirits and it's Hispanic community setting, this book could have been categorized as Magicla Realism.  Or was it Science Fiction?  Fantasy?  The novel's attempt at combining so many different genres, while at times admirable, ultimately made me tune out as a reader.  Although I enjoyed the narrator, and characters, this story was way over the top. I just can't buy into a story that jumps around so much.

What I Liked:

Narrator:

Inéz del Castillo is wonderful as the narrator of this book.  She is so expressive as Sía (and all the other characters) that I couldn't stop listening, Even when the story went off the rails of believability.

Characters:

I did really like Sía.  She had a really difficult life, living in a small town where brown people were constantly harassed by law enforcement. She was resilient, but also didn't have her life figured out.  She had conflicts with her best friend as both of them start to form romantic relationships for the first time.  

Sam, Sía's best friend was also a wonderful character who was trying to figure out how to be gay while having extremely religious parents.  You can understand why Sía and Sam would be friends.

What I didn't Like:

Genre Mash Up:

I know that one of the points of the novel was to deliberately mix genres.  And a little mixing is fine, as long as the universe the writer remains plausible.  But it felt like the author made a list of every genre she liked, and then tried to throw it all together in one book.  The result was a disjointed mess.  I know that's harsh.  But, if you want to make a world where there's space aliens, people with super-powers, government conspiracies, and ghosts, you need to establish this world at the beginning, not throw a different reality in willy-nilly.

Story:

This goes with my complaints about mixing genres.  The story moves from one situation to another, seemingly at random.  One moment the characters are hiding from the Feds, then Sía and her boyfriend Noah are talking about poetry, and getting sexy.  It's too disjointed.

This book could have been amazing.  There were many moments of characters trying to overcome abuse,  and coming to terms with changing friendships.  These were wonderful.  The author ruined the story be veering off into to many directions.

Warning:

This book came with a warning at the beginning that there are triggers for sexual assault, child abuse, and domestic violence.  They are well deserved.  There's also racist language that (while necessary) was upsetting to read.

Rating: 

Release Date:  August 11, 2020

Author:  Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Genre:  Who knows!

Audiobook Publisher: Simon & Shuster Audio

Narrator:  Inéz del Castillo

Audiobook Length: 8 hours, 9 minutes

Print Publisher:  Simon Pulse

Print Length:  432 Pages