What a beautiful, heartbreaking, and important story! I loved the supportive family and friends, the art and culture, the character growth and how the main character Ander found their path in life and what really matters. Also, such a great non-binary representation!

The story follows the Mexican-American nineteen year old Ander, who is about to start a new journey as an artist and leave his beloved San Antonio in Texas to attend a prestigious art school in Chigaco. But even though it’s clearly an opportunity of a lifetime and the ‘right’ thing to do, Ander has doubts and keeps stalling the move by taking on local projects and working at his family’s taqueria. There they meet the undocumented Mexican boy Santi, and things starts to fall into place. Like who they are, what matters in life, and the power of love.

“I’m with you. Through happiness and destruction.”

It was light and fun with a super sweet love story, at the same time as it was heartbreaking and dealing with serious topics such as the constant fear of being found and detained by the ICE, the feeling of being put into a box as a ‘Mexican’ artist and only being seen as ‘authentic’ when limiting yourself to others expectations.
 
It was a little slow in the beginning though. It took me a while to root for Ander, who felt a bit too naive and ignorant at first. And their instant interest in Santi was bordering to insta love. But then this marvelous story and all amazing, fleshed out, real characters just stole my heart. And broke it to pieces…

All in all, this was a tender and emotional, sweet and adorable, empowering and heartbreaking story about love and finding a home.

Rating:
4 stars

Get your own copy:
Nowhere Bookshop
Amazon

​Author info:
Jonny Garza Villa

This was a poignant, sweet and honest story of coming out, first love and acceptance showing the authentic experience of a queer Chicanx boy surrounded by toxic masculinity. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking, both full of wonderful friendships and sibling relations, as well as harassments and abuse. But sadly, I personally didn’t connect with the story and the characters as much I had hoped for. I guess I expected more, from both the writing style and the story itself.

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun tells the story of Julián Luna, a Mexican-American boy living with his homophobic father. Jules’ dad suspects his son might be queer but will hear nothing of it; even using physical abuse to suppress any such ‘tendencies’ in his son. Jules is therefore living a closeted life, just enduring until he can graduate and move away, to finally become himself. But a drunken tweet changes all that. Luckily he finds Mat because of it, and for the first time in his life he can truly be himself with someone. Sadly though, Mat lives fifteen hundred miles away, in LA.

Firstly, I want to mention the trigger warnings in the beginning of the book. The author Jonny Garza Villa really did a wonderful job laying out what might be triggering in the story, such as homophobia, abuse and physical violence, but also focusing on the positive and empowering parts.

I’m also so happy for the amazing representation and diversity in this book, and for the authentic way the harsh realities many queer Chicanxs/Latinxs face were described. Even though Jules’ dad acted absolutely horribly, he wasn’t just portraited as a villain, but Jonny Garza Villa also showed other aspects too, making Jule’ relationship with this dad feeling very real and personal.

Going into this book, I really thought it would be one of my favorite books this year. I wanted so much to love it. But sadly, I didn’t connect with it on the level I had expected. Objectively, the story was great, and I can definitely understand how it will be resonating with many of its readers, and I’m so happy that it has been written to add another voice to the YA literature. But my main issues with it were the writing style, the romance that I couldn’t fully root for and the rather plain side characters.

The story had such potential to be absolutely heartwrenching, but to me the writing style felt too much telling rather than showing, which prevented me from truly taking the characters to my heart.

The romance part was cute, but the whole premise of how they met through Twitter and fell for each other felt a bit rushed and unrealistic. I never felt the chemistry between Jules and Mat, and the way Jules treated Mat and ghosted him from time to time didn’t sit well with me.

I also wished that the side characters would have been more fleshed out and that there could have been stronger subplots. The story felt very one-dimensional, only focusing on Jules without fully building the world around him.

But all in all, this was a heartwarming and poignant story. Even though the main character faced a lot of terrible things, like homophobia and an abusive dad, it was still a hopeful story full of loving friendships and supportive siblings. It just had the potential to be so much more.

Rating:
3 stars

Get your own copy:
Bookshop.org
Amazon
Book Depository

​Author info:
Jonny Garza Villa