Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, by Jonny Garza Villa, is a YA romance about Julian “Jules” Luna and Mat Pham, two high school senior boys who begin a long-distance relationship when Mat slides into Jules’s DMs after He gets drunk one night and comes out on social media
This book deals with toxic masculinity, domestic abuse, and general homophobia. Jules’s father forces him to go to a private Catholic prep school and beats him when he does anything that seems “gay”.
Over the course of the story, Jules finds the strength to stand up for himself against his father and the homophobic students at his school and live his best life.
I loved the voice in this. It was so conversational, and it felt like Jules was a friend telling you the story. It reminded me a lot of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, only gayer, more modern, and set in Texas.
Jules’s friends all seemed like real people, and I especially loved his friend Lou who stole the show in every scene they were in. His friend Jordan was also hilarious. However, I thought Jules’s older sister Xochi was a bit one note, and I thought she was little more than a plot device to move the story along.
Another thing I loved about this book is it addressed the issues queer people of color deal with, such as racism from white LGBTQ+ folks and queer phobia within communities of color.
Another issue I was surprised that this book tackled was how some nonblack people of color are racist towards Black people.
I also loved how Mat and Jules were both people of color. So often in YA romances you have a passive love interest of color paired with a white one. So, it was nice to see a brown queer couple in love and unapologetically embrace their cultures.
If I had one criticism, it’s that the ending felt a bit too Disney. But otherwise, I loved this book. Five out of five stars. I highly recommend you read this book like now!
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