cover image Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun

Jonny Garza Villa. Skyscape, $16.99 (354p) ISBN 978-1-5420-2705-2

In Corpus Christi, Tex., high school senior Juliàn Luna, called Jules, is so deep in the closet, he “could be in Narnia.” He has reason: his Mexican American father, believing that Jules is a “sissy,” already polices Jules’s self-presentation, sometimes physically abusively. Then Jules drunkenly mixes up his social media accounts and wakes up to find that he’s come out on Twitter. The good news is that his friends and older sister still love and accept him, and his soccer teammates don’t much care. The really good news is that Vietnamese American Mat, a hot Los Angeles–based high school senior who slid into his DMs, is now flirting openly with him, which soon leads to the duo developing feelings for each other. But Jules is stuck in Texas, and though UCLA is his first-choice college, he’s not sure he’ll be accepted or be able to afford it—especially now that he’s out to his father, who wants him to “get rid of that boy” and stay in Texas. Offering accessible prose that impeccably interweaves Spanish and English, Garza Villa’s tender debut is sex-positive and romantic, balancing humor and heartfelt relationships even as it shows the joys and pains of one person’s experience coming out. Ages 14–up. Agent: Claire Draper, the Bent Agency. (June)