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

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
My Rating: ★★★

Sia Martinez’s life was turned upside down when ICE took her mom. Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, her mom went missing while trying to get back to the states and hasn’t been seen since. Trying to continue her life, Sia is thrown off by the rift growing between her and her best friend, Rose. It doesn’t get better when Rose warns her not to get too close to the new boy in town, Noah, but Sia finds herself becoming more and more drawn to him. At least, she was until his own secrets come spilling out and leave her furious. Ready to give up boys and make up with her best friend, the unbelievable happens: a UFO crash lands and Sia’s mom, injured but alive, walks out.

I picked up this book because I thought it had an interesting concept taking a very real situation and throwing a bit of science fiction in. I will say that opening the book, it may seem a bit daunting when you see that it has 224 chapters but fear not! These chapters are primarily 1-3 pages long. That said, I do think that several of the chapters did not need to be separated from one another and the separation disrupted the flow in those instances.

I loved several of the characters, specifically Sia and her parents, Rose and her mom, Rose’s girlfriend, Noah, and even River. The friendship between Sia and Rose is very realistic and while it was sad to see them go through some bumps in their relationship, it made a lot of sense and took me back to my own teenage years. It was also fun to see the two of them make up, even under the craziest of circumstances.

Before the story starts, there is a short list of trigger warnings so that readers can choose to bow out. The list includes sexual assault, PTSD, domestic violence, racist violence, and of course death of a parent. The opening of the book was very sad and realistic with Sia mourning the loss of her mother on top of the circumstances in which she went missing. The book also deals with a lot of racism, and the difference between the racism that Sia and her family experiences and the racism that Rose and her family experiences. In addition, Sia also deals with PTSD from a sexual assault that she goes into detail about later in the book.

One of the things I liked about the sci-fi aspect of this book is how slowly it starts. First, Sia is in disbelief. Then it is kind of a crazy and weird coincidence. By the time there is a UFO crash and Sia’s mom comes walking out, we already went through a very slow introduction to science fiction to ease readers into it. However, from this point on, it’s a huge whirlwind and the story is flying at ultra-speed. Because of this, there is a lot of exposition that weighs down the progression of the second half of the book.

While I loved the story, I am not exactly happy with the ending. I wish there were more time spent on wrapping it up. I felt a little like I was watching a television series and accidentally skipped the three episodes prior to the series finale. Between this and the amount of exposition that was thrown in to keep up with the fast-paced science fiction aspect rolling at record speed and the chapters that needed to be combined into a single chapter, I knocked two stars off my rating.