SIA MARTINEZ AND THE MOONLIT BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING

Sia’s mother was deported three years ago by the town sheriff; she disappeared after trying to make her way back across the Sonoran Desert to her family.

Grieving Sia is plagued daily by the sheriff’s hateful son, but the Mexican American teen is bolstered by her Haitian American, questioning best friend, Rose; her loving park ranger father, who has a Ph.D. in biology; and the spirit of her late grandmother, who continues to communicate with and guide her. She falls for a mysterious, poetry-loving White boy, and, together, they spot a spacecraft bearing Sia’s mother. What follows is an electrifying, high-stakes adventure filled with shady government agencies and conspiracy theories come to life. Vasquez Gilliland adeptly balances first love, Mexican American cosmology and Catholicism, X-Files–level intrigue, and undocumented immigration. She doesn’t shy away from frank explorations of trauma; interrogation of Whiteness; and sex-positive, swoon-inducing makeout sessions that center a young woman’s perspective. The poetic prose elevates the story into a magical triumph. Sia is a vulnerable, sympathetic protagonist who, despite a past traumatic sexual experience, the deportation of her mother, and the constant barrage of egregious micro- and macroaggressions, finds hope in her relationships, culture, and connection to her ancestors. Spirituality is woven into everything Sia does and will resonate with many readers. The whip-smart humor lends the novel a breeziness that keeps the narrative lighthearted in between the truly hair-raising moments.

Luminous, genre-bending, and out of this world.