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A review by lezreadalot
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa
4.0
I see the moon and the sun. Together. Sharing the same sky. And I know that, no matter what, we’ll be all right.
3.5 stars. This was mad cute. I cannot deny that the entire time I was listening to this audiobook, I had a huge grin on my face. I don't gravitate towards a lot of YA these days, but I'm so glad I gave this a try. It's about a closeted Latinx teen living in Texas who finds himself in a long distance friendship/relationship with another boy in LA. This does one of my favourite things, which is the melding of slang into dialogue and prose, so I was primed to love it on that alone. Most of the emphasis in the novel is on Julián's relationships: with this family, his friends, and his new boyfriend. I loved the acknowledgment of how painful and complicated it can be when someone who's supposed to love you hurts you, but you can't bring yourself to hate them. I adored the found family vibes of the friend group. I was in love with the romance. It was just so stinking adorable. I did sometimes find the dialogue a little forced and the writing wasn't always terribly compelling, but the book had a lot of heart and soul, and that shone through.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Avi Roque, which was a great way to experience it. A book like this was meant to be listened to. I did think the pacing was a bit off in a few places; a lot of unnecessary gaps/pauses that got a bit irritating, but it was fine, mostly. Everything I don't like about this boils down to the fact that I don't often read or like YA these days, but again, I'm glad I gave this a try. Super cute, really impressive for a debut, and it's always great to see new queer authors of colour writing heart-warming and realistic fiction for younger generations. <3
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