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A review by bekkabergamot
We Light Up the Sky by Lilliam Rivera
3.0
If you are reading or watching a Science Fiction/Fantasy book or movie, how important to you is that everything is believable within the confines of the story? For me, it's pretty important and unfortunately that's what made this go from a highly recommended book to one that I am on the fence about.
The plot follows three Latinx teenagers who attend the same high school. They are all dealing with serious issues: Luna is mourning the loss of her cousin who died from COVID-19, Pedro is part of the LGBTQIA+ community which makes him not fit in at school or home, and Rafa is trying to hide the fact that his family is homeless. Just their hardships would be enough for a poignant story, but an alien visitor joins the story.
Once on Earth, the Visitor kills dispassionately and without mercy. I do have a major gripe with the logic of the alien's powers.
Caught in the alien's crosshairs, Luna, Pedro, and Rafa struggle with whether they should make themselves vulnerable to a violent entity for a world that has treated them so poorly. This is only exaggerated with the multiple instances that security, police, and other adults treat the Latinx teens as inferior throughout the book. Another pet peeve is that while the author refers to the alien as The Visitor throughout the book, so does Pedro.
While much of the writing was very good, I found that it felt rushed and some details just didn't feel resolved. I do feel that a younger person, whom this young adult novel is more geared towards may or may not like the brevity and the fast paced action.
This book does deal with: loss of a loved one, homelessness, toxic masculinity, police brutality, COVID-19, and violence towards animals and humans.
The plot follows three Latinx teenagers who attend the same high school. They are all dealing with serious issues: Luna is mourning the loss of her cousin who died from COVID-19, Pedro is part of the LGBTQIA+ community which makes him not fit in at school or home, and Rafa is trying to hide the fact that his family is homeless. Just their hardships would be enough for a poignant story, but an alien visitor joins the story.
Once on Earth, the Visitor kills dispassionately and without mercy. I do have a major gripe with the logic of the alien's powers.
Spoiler
The alien, or the Visitor, is described as being this viscous blob that can shape shift. It has powers over flora and fauna. All of that I think is pretty neat. What does bother me is that when the alien shapeshifts to look like Luna's dead cousin Tasha from a photograph, the alien somehow absorbs some of Tasha's memories and emotions that take place after the photograph was even taken. Firstly, I find the concept of memories and emotions being stored in a picture to be highly suspect logically, but when the picture predates those very memories and emotions it becomes completely nonsensical to me. I understand that the author wanted to be able to make it even more emotional that the alien had a connection with Tasha, but there are other more truthful (to the story/ reader's belief system) ways to achieve said goal.Caught in the alien's crosshairs, Luna, Pedro, and Rafa struggle with whether they should make themselves vulnerable to a violent entity for a world that has treated them so poorly. This is only exaggerated with the multiple instances that security, police, and other adults treat the Latinx teens as inferior throughout the book. Another pet peeve is that while the author refers to the alien as The Visitor throughout the book, so does Pedro.
Spoiler
I am aware that this is a small pet peeve.While much of the writing was very good, I found that it felt rushed and some details just didn't feel resolved. I do feel that a younger person, whom this young adult novel is more geared towards may or may not like the brevity and the fast paced action.
This book does deal with: loss of a loved one, homelessness, toxic masculinity, police brutality, COVID-19, and violence towards animals and humans.