Soul baring. Charming. Achingly beautiful. Loving. Emotional. Fabulously queer & accepting. Home. Peace.

These are just some of the ways I would describe Jonny Garza Villa’s upcoming release, Ander & Santi Were Here. Even then, those words and sentiments don’t do it justice.

<b>“Everything about the art I get to do feels like me: Mexican, queer, and done in a way that’s loudly and proudly both.”</b>

This is a slower paced story, focusing on Ander, a 19 year old non-binary mural artist who uses their Mexican heritage, family, and community as inspiration for their art, and Santi, a 19 year old queer undocumented Mexican that’s just come into town and started working at Ander’s family Taqueria.

Their friendship, attraction, and eventual romance unfurls gently, sweetly, and with a lot of tenderness as they both struggle with their own traumas and challenges. Ander feeling like their Mexican-inspired art is all they can do to be accepted by white people as a brown artist, feeling increasingly boxed in creatively and fearing eventual resentment of their own art. Santi facing constant fear of ICE while longing just to love and live his life as best he can in the shadow of deep family fractures and loss.

<b>“This whole neighborhood showing up for us. Fighting for us. For someone who’s always called this place home and another who deserves a place to call home.”</b>

Far from the typical Latinx immigration stories that often feel like trauma porn just to get picked up and appeal to audiences, Garza’s story brings us the harsh realities of our borders along with the flavor, vibrancy, and color of these rich Mexican characters and communities. They aren’t defined by their status, but it is a part of their story, a balance I believe few ever find. It’s this balance and honesty in the pain and struggles of Ander and Santi that also give me such hope at the end of this book. Not that immigration policy or the events that occur in the book will magically be solved or end, but that the resilience, love, and heart of people like Ander and Santi, and their friends and family, can help them overcome and find joy. Build a life, a home, breathe easier and laugh wholeheartedly, maybe not forever, but for now.

<b>“Te quiero. Through happiness and destruction.”</b>

Definitely preorder this one! Out May 2nd, this is one you won’t regret picking up with characters and warmth you’ll feel long after you finish. Thank you @wednesdaybooks for my ARC and galley!

I think I have found an Instabuy author based off of this book. I absolutely loved it. It had me feeling all the emotions. I’m just never wanted it to end. Such a lovely book.

Ander & Santi Were Here was my first novel by Jonny Garza Villa but definitely WILL NOT be my last!

Ander Martinez has always stayed in Texas. They loves their family’s restaurant and the smells that waft through the streets of San Antonio. Inspiration to paint murals came from here and they’re finally ready to branch out and attend art school in Chicago. Then, they meet Santiago Lopez Alvarado, the handsome waiter. Falling in love is as easy as saying abc.

However; Santi is an immigrant who doesn’t have a ViSA to be in America and ICE is at his tail. Ander has to come to terms with what is exactly important in life and love.

I flew through Ander & Santi Were Here and felt all of the emotions! Garza Villa’s writing took me into the streets of San Antonio as we went on a car chase away from ICE and the beautiful world of painting murals. While this book will be marketed as young adult, I definitely recommend that anyone who enjoys contemporary reads pick up this book when it publishes in May.

Thank you Wednesday Books and Netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Loved this novel! The story was emotional and focused on such important realities which exist in our country, that shouldn’t. In addition, the romance in the story was great and wasn’t too descriptive - perfect for a young adult section in a middle or high school library.

I had this sitting in my Netgalley list and was planning to read it closer to the release date. But then the Trans Rights Readathon happened and I took it and ran with it lol I was hyped to read this and when I got the chance to read it early, I was like welp! And Lordt this was the best book I could have cheated on my TBR with. I think this was my favorite book of March!

Ok so starting with the individuals like I always do with romances. Ander was a joy to get to know. They were funny, smart, and just everything. It’s really hard to describe them because how does it sound when you say, “they just had some of the best qualities about them.” It sounds so cliche. But it’s 1,000% true. Ander just seemed to be the ideal partner, ideal friend, ideal kid, just everything. I loved being in their head. And then there was Santi. He was the sweetest and he did not deserve any of the stuff that was happening to him. The saying “bad things always happen to good people” was never more true than when they were talking about him. I DID wish we had gotten some chapters from his POV, but I also think that would have ruined me lol I was already an emotional wreck reading this, I don’t think I could have handled an inside look at how all that b.s. made him feel.

As for the plot, this was much more than a romance. And the way it tackled things that are happening in today’s society. And I really applaud Garza for not being afraid to not go with the tied up with a bow, neat ending that everyone might have been expecting. This was more sad, but it was also more realistic. I hated that, but it’s true. Just know that I spent the last 30% of this audio crying real tears because this seemed so real. Now when it got to that big decision, I think it was a bit rushed. A decision like that can’t be taken that lightly. But I do applaud them for taking that chance. They deserved that chance.

The romance in this was so tender and so sweet. I felt the love radiating off the pages. (Out of my earphones? lol) And it happened so fast! I thought it was like a teen thing, but the more I read and the more they interacted with each other, I saw they headed towards each other like a freight train and then BAM everything changed. I knew it was going to be heavy when Ander’s mom tried warning them from getting with Santi. But it couldn’t be helped. But unfortunately, everything worked out just like their mom said it would. But there’s still a happy ending. It just looks very different than I was expecting.

Although this book is a romance, the theme and elements make it pretty heavy. Please have tissue on hand when reading. Since I read this so early no one warned me and I was listening to the audio while trying to get my toddler to sleep lol He kept patting my face and looking at me cry lol I also had to take some breaks because there’s some interactions with the police. And although I don’t have any personal memories of interacting with the branch in this book, as a Black person I know what it’s like to be accosted by the police. Just reading it was scary and I needed a minute. I hate them and what they were doing. To teens no less. I also had to take a break because I knew what was going to happen from the moment it was introduced. My anxiety knew it was a matter of when it was happening so my heart kept speeding up. It’s that type of book y’all. I was INVESTED.

And lastly, I wouldn’t be a foodie if I didn’t talk about the food that was also in this. Like LORDT by the halfway mark I was craving agua fresca and by the end I need the elote, the tacos, and the agua fresca. I needed it all. I don’t think it was as good as the book’s restaurant, but it was good enough for my craving. I remember finishing this book at like 3 am and by 3pm the next day I had put in an order at my local taqueria lol So basically, if you’re like me, make sure you have an idea on where you’re going to get these things because you will need it.


This book explores so much more than just a romance between two teens. I know I have no say in this, but in my mind it really needs to be looked at for the Pura Belpre award. I was hooked while getting to know Santi and Ander and I really think everyone reading this will also be. I really hope we give Garza their flowers because this book (and they) deserves the recognition.

I loved this book.
I needed that to be my first line, because I am still spending time with Ander and Santi in my head, days after I finished the book. This is an epic love story which I genuinely wasn't expecting going in. It's about finding your person unexpectedly and utterly, and giving yourself up to that.

Ander is the gay, non-binary older child of a loving Tejano family. Their much-loved abuelita runs a fabulous taqueria, and also stays up late cheering on her favourite teams. Their parents and sibling simply understand that Ander is who Ander is. There is no trauma around this part of Ander's world, and that makes such a difference in their story. To be loved by one's family, as one is, is a powerful gift and Jonny Garza Villa captures that perfectly in this story.

Ander is home in San Antonio, taking an extra year to work at the taqueria, and taking commissions to do local murals to help solidify their skills before heading to art school the next fall. One day, they notice a very cute character taking selfies in front of one of their murals. To Ander's surprise, the cute selfie-taker ends up working at the taco place, and despite very solid warnings to the contrary from their family, Ander falls hard for the adorable Santi. Like fall down a rabbit hole never come back hard. Like love you never recover from.

Santi is an illegal immigrant and Ander's family is helping him by having him work at the taqueria, and put money away to be able to bring his sister and mom to join him. The tension of always having to keep one eye out for ICE officials is brilliantly conveyed in the book. The cast of characters who work to help keep Santi safe are amazing, and you come to love them as much as you love the two main characters.

This is a gorgeous, lush story. It's also raunchy and real. That's hard to avoid when a bunch of the main characters are 18. The raunchiness and laughter and truth do not detract from the beauty of the story. Read this one. Grab it for your senior students. They'll thank you for it.

Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa is a beautiful love story that will give you all the feels. I fell as hard and fast for this book, as Ander and Santi did with each other.

While this may imply an ‘insta-love’ trope, I didn’t feel like this was the case at all. To me, Ander and Santi’s journey was totally organic and lovely.

But let me back up a bit…

Ander is an 18 year old artist who lives in Texas with their loving, boisterous Mexican family. They are nonbinary and has been “fired” by their parents, from their family-owned restaurant, so that they can focus on making murals, the art they are exceptionally talented at.

When new waiter, Santi, is hired to replace Ander, their attraction to one another is palpable. But, they hold off on anything romantic at first, and things evolve beautifully.

There is one issue, though. Santi is an undocumented immigrant. With ICE making frequent visits to the neighborhood - and the restaurant - there is the underlying buzz of fear throughout the story. Will Santi be caught and thrown out of the U.S.? Can Ander do anything about it?

Ander and Santi Were Here is both joyous and heartbreaking. Jonny Garza Villa is expertly able to weave the love story with the very real threat so many people face in the U.S. on a daily basis. Not only were my eyes opened to the real fear people live with - undocumented, or even as a citizen who is targeted because of the color of their skin - but I also FELT the fear, frustration and heartbreak of these characters. This is because Garza Villa’s writing is so real and relatable. Ander’s family was my family. Their friends were my friends.

Ander and Santi Were Here is a story about love - romantic, platonic and familial. It is a story of self-discovery and standing up for what you believe in - whether it is for yourself or for those you love. It is a story that will make you feel, and will stay with you for a long time. That’s the best kind of story there is.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC. (Though I think I’ll be getting myself the physical copy because I loved it that much!)

I'm sorry, but I was just so bored while reading this. The instalove between Ander and Santi annoyed the hell out of me, especially that their chemistry was so lackluster and that they sounded like they were fifteen rather than nineteen.

The majority of the plot in the book is shown through dialogue that intends to progress the story, but, combined with the slow-pacing, it just seemed to needlessly stretch out scenes in order to fulfill the page count. Hell, it almost half the book until Ander learned Santi was an undocumented immigrant (Which feels so stupid, considering Ander and their family had known and employed various undocumented people over the course of their life. I understand not making assumptions, but some alarm bells should've been ringing once it was revealed Santi didn't have a license). When the seriousness kicked in the last quarter of the book, I just didn't care, which was a shame because it's clear the themes and messages are important and worth talking about.

Overall, the author had very good intentions for this book, but its execution fell very flat for me.

Every part of this book feels written from the heart and soul of the author.

The novel is filled with humor, emotion, and is beautifully written to boot. It's hard to know exactly what to say about it other than it really makes you feel for the characters and the lives they inhabit. It is more like a slice of these characters' lives than anything else, which comes with both sadness and triumph and questions about the future that they are moving towards. It's beautiful and transports you onto the page immediately. Every piece of it feels fully realized and inhabited. The love story between Santi and Ander is quiet and world-changing all at once and keeps you hooked onto every last page.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

What I loved most about the first novel I read from Jonny Garza Villa (Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun) was their ability to weave a mesmerizing contemporary romance while also giving space to important, realistic issues the characters face. Ander & Santi Were Here only elevates that ability, taking the reader on a powerfully emotional, often heartwrenching journey that still manages to be a hopeful celebration of queer joy.

This novel follows nonbinary Mexican-American muralist Ander, who works at their family’s taquería until they are fired at the beginning of the novel. But instead of resenting the new hire who replaces them, a boy named Santiago, Ander falls head over heels for him, and the two end up falling for each other. But their budding romance takes a daunting turn when ICE agents show up to take Santi away, shattering the halcyon first bloom of love with harsh reality.

Despite the hardship and trauma Ander & Santi Were Here explores, it is at its heart a romance. The interactions, understanding, and care between Ander and Santi was so, so tender, even at the most difficult points of the novel. While initially the chemistry between the two is mostly physical (and I appreciate how the novel does not shy away from including queer sexuality in a YA-appropriate way), the two bond through art, music, the different facets of their shared Mexican identities, and increasingly tender vulnerability. Whether it’s a soft glow or heart-pounding intensity, their relationship jumps off the page and will keep readers invested from beginning to end.

On a more symbolic note, I love the choice of murals as Ander’s preferred medium, especially since one of the book’s predominant themes is that everyone has the right to take up space and to belong. The more murals Ander paints (and the more support they receive from Santi and their family), the more they come to find their voice—which enables them to use it for the things that matter to them personally. All of the descriptions of the art were wonderful and I wish I had a whole gallery of it to look at.

Overall, Ander & Santi Were Here cemented Jonny Garza Villa as one of my favourite YA authors. With an emotional story of identity, love, art, and community, this is not a novel fans of contemporary YA stories will want to miss.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

This was fantastic! Sweet and kind, the best type of romance for the start of summer! I particularly enjoyed the characters, I thought Ander and Santi were both very well-thought out and three-dimensional. It was very easy to root of them and want them to end up together.

This is a queer contemporary story about a Mexican American teen falling in love with an undocumented Mexican.

Ander works his family’s taqueria in San Antonio, TX. It’s the place that inspired him to become a muralist and pursue art school. His parents decide to let him explore more into art than work so he can get ready for art school. This leads to him meeting Santiago, the hot new waiter at the restaurant. This beings a new exploration into Andrés life and love. Especially when ICE comes to deport Santiago back.

This book was loving and had the fluff I love in a romance, yet heart hitting with reality and real struggles. I love that their love for each other was real and heartfelt. It just made the story that much more. The journey and the struggles they go through and face, just proves how real the world can be.

The dialogue, the characters, and just the whole story made me fall in love and made me understand how easy a lot of us White Americans have it.

This is an absolutely beautiful novel, with an even more beautiful message. I loved the characters, the messages, and the use of English and Spanish together. I also love the cover. However, I found the plot a little lacking and slow moving. That being said, I would definitely recommend checking it out if you’re interested, just keep in mind, that it may be a little slower paced than you thought it would be.

Let’s start with a positive: I loved both Ander and Santi and I want to just wrap them in a blanket and protect them from the world. The poor babies, I feel so bad for them. The world seems determined to keep them apart because of some arbitrary line that colonizers drew up hundreds of years ago. I just want them to be able to go sit in the park every day, drink aguas frescas, and draw. The cuties deserve better. I do feel the need to mention that it was like instalove though. Sometimes I’d be angry, but I’m not for this one. I also absolutely loved Ander’s family and how relatively supportive they were of everything over the course of the novel. They love Ander unconditionally and it comes across so strong on the pages that I found myself wishing that all Queer people had such a strong support network.

However, the pacing of this book was slower than I though it would be. The cuties getting to know each other takes up a vast swathe of this novel. Which is fine, I just thought it was going to be a little bit quicker because of ICE and all that, but honestly, I’m happier that there was more peace than angst. That being said, the book did feel quite slow at times and the average chapter length was about 7 pages. So, you’d feel like you’d read a lot of chapters, but weren’t really getting anywhere. There are 51 chapters in this 368 page book. I’ve read longer books with less chapters.

Don’t mistake me, this book does address ICE and the inhumanity of separating families because of the laws written by people who have never been affected by the rules they make. I don’t want to talk too much about this part of the book as this is where the primary chance for spoilers comes into play, but let’s just say I cried. I’m not going to tell you if they’re tears of happiness or sadness, but I cried.

The message of no one being illegal really fills the pages of this novel. It discusses the inhuman ways ICE treats and deports people just try to have a better life and highlights the way they treat American citizens just on the suspicion because of their skin color. It’s all atrocious really. It also reminded me of Indivisible, which I hate to compare the two, but is also a Y.A. novel discussing ICE and Immigration with LGBTQIA+ themes. As a side note, I know this is compared to Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe, which I guess is because they both have Queer MCs, a Chicano MC, and take place in Texas, but the themes are very different. It’s compared to The Hate You Give, which I’ve only seen the movie, but I don’t really get the comparison, unless it’s just sort of general “law enforcement doing terrible things”. I get The Sun Is Also a Star comparison in that they both are for people who are hopeless romantics.

The last thing that I loved about this book is that it uses both English and Spanish. I know that this will put off some readers because they feel the need to understand everything. My biggest recommendation is keep a translator handy or just accept it. However, I appreciated this because I currently live in a country where Spanish is one of the main languages and this gave me a more entertaining way to practice and still find my Spanish lacking. I found the mingling of the two languages beautiful though.

Overall, I would recommend this for readers who like stories where love survives against all odds, who don’t mind getting really hungry because of food descriptions, and who love cinnamon roll characters. Readers looking for a really hard-hitting novel that discusses immigration issues are probably not going to be satisfied. Chicano queers looking for on page representation, should be pretty happy, though. I’m looking forward to checking out past and future books by Jonny Garza Villa and hope that more stories like this are published in the future.

What a beautiful book! I don’t think I will end up rating this book on Goodreads, but on Netgalley I’m giving it 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars.

I really enjoyed the overall themes of this book. I loved the queer and non-binary rep, and Ander’s family was so wholesome. Santi was also such a sweet character, and I LOVED the art component of the novel.

What lost me was believability. The narrative about Santi’s undocumented status was incredibly disjointed and almost gave me whiplash at times. He’s being hunted by ICE, then he isn’t, he’s being deported, then he isn’t, then he’s voluntarily going to Mexico, then he isn’t. It was all too much. And the ending……. A 19 year old randomly moving to Mexico by himself to be with his boyfriend?! It just didn’t sit well with me.

However, I still loved the representation in this book and *will* recommend it to my bookstagram followers! Thank you so much for the ARC :)

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read this heartbreaking but lovely story of Ander and Santi and all the obstacles in between. Jonny Garza Villa brings readers a genuine tale of first love-- from the honeymoon stage to the inevitable heartbreak that life deals you alongside it. There are hard looks at gender and the roles it plays in our society, peeks into Mexican culture, and of course, commentary on the current politics that preside over the United Sates as we know it. This may be a love story, but that's far from all you'll get.

We meet Ander Martinez in their home of San Antonio, Texas. They are getting ready to leave it all behind in order to go to art school, but are taking a gap year to prepare. Ander's parents give them leave from the taqueria they work at to focus on their murals and creativity in general-- and in the process, hire a new waiter. Santiago Lopez Alvarado captures Ander at once, and through the novel we get swept up in their raw and unbridled emotion. While it is mostly positive, things take a dark and heady turn as ICE turns its gaze on Santi. The couple must figure out a way to stay above the water that the world is trying to push them under.

This was such an amazing book to read. I cannot emphasize enough how refreshing it was; how deeply rooted in today's issues and speaking the truth of the LGBTQ+ community. As a pansexual and gender-questioning person myself-- it hit home. I think it will feel like such a safe space for not only young adults who are finding themselves, but for readers of any age who have felt that spark of love, belonging, fear, and angst. You can relate to the witty and free spirited main characters, but also the strength and compassion of the parental roles. There are so many types of people represented here, and it makes it such a fulfilling read. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a place that feels like home.

Hi, my name is Victoria and I have personally had my heart put through the ringer by Ander and Santi Were Here. I survived to tell you, I loved every second of it.

This is the kind of 5 ⭐ book that makes you go back through your other reviews and go "no WAY does that other book deserve to be in the same league as this pure perfection on a page."

Everything about this book was incredible, I loved:

🌵 Ander and their family loving themselves wholly from start to finish. We need more romance featuring nonbinary leads where they just get to be damn happy and confident. I adored reading about their career as a badass muralist.

🌵 A friends to lovers I can get behind! It was so sweet to watch these two take their time with one another, respecting each other's space and needs every step of the way. The restaurant setting along with the roof was also so cute for this love story.

🌵 The absolutely SACCHARINE level of sweetness and cuteness between Ander and Santi is so very perfect. They are the couple that are so in love you want to hate their PDA but you simply cannot. Every passing touch had me squealing.

🌵 There is something about the prose in this romance that had me captivated from the very beginning. The pacing, the storytelling, the language, the seamless switch between dialogue and inner monologue. I will now read anything Jonny Garza Villa writes.

🌵 Santi is a precious baby angel and I will protect him with my life. His storyline is so powerful and I just find my heart breaking for him over and over. ABOLISH ICE. No human is illegal. How very devastating that this work of fiction is not fiction but reality for so many.

Thank you so much to @netgalley for the eARC! This book publishes May 2nd, 2023. You ABSOLUTELY need this one!

This breathtaking novel follows Ander, a nonbinary street artist who is taking a gap year before art school to work on murals around their city and help run their family's taqueria business. When the taqueria hires Santi, Ander is instantly smitten with him. Cue head-over-heels romance, painting dates, and late-night rooftop conversations. But Ander and Santi's bliss is constantly threatened by forces outside of their control -- from elitist art schools to ICE agents -- that impede BIPOC and queer people's happiness.
I honestly thought the romance was the weakest aspect of this novel. It starts as insta-love and we never see their dynamic develop much beyond the initial honeymoon phase. The tension, instead, comes from external forces, mainly the fact that Santi is an undocumented immigrant, putting him and his family at risk. I loved how these serious, life-changing issues were woven in between cute romance scenes and general teenage antics -- it's a heartbreaking way to show how much a part of people's lives they are.
I also loved Ander's family, especially Tita. I wanted them to adopt me the way they adopted Zeke and Mo and Santi. The non-romantic relationships were the highlight of this book for me, so I was disappointed when they started to fade into the background towards the ending. It definitely felt like this book was too long -- there were scenes at around 60% and 80% where I kept thinking to myself, "how is this not over yet?", and while the plot did develop beyond that, it still felt unstructured.
Although this book was definitely too slow and romance-heavy for me, I still think it brilliantly covered the issues it handled and would recommend to anyone looking for a powerful, emotional read.

One of the things that I wish for this book was that the premise wasn't so openly shared on the back of the book. From the beginning you know that Ander is going to fall in love with Santi, who is illegal, and because of this I felt like I was waiting the whole time for it to happen. It reminded me of Splash Mountain, when you go down the first fake drop, you know it's coming and you can't really focus on anything else. I personally think the book would have been more powerful if there was a little more mystery.

Ander & Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa is a moving Queer YA contemporary about a Mexican American teen falling in love with an undocumented Mexican boy. Filled with low steam , art, sunflowers, flirting, painting dates, flower crowns, dancing, fear, hope and a hard fought for ending.

Oh this book, my heart, yes I spent the last few chapters wiping away tears but let me start at the beginning. Our nonbinary main character Ander is such a bright personality full of love and creativity. Art is their passion and it bleeds from the pages of this book. I loved their relationship with their parents, their sister, their grandmother and their best friend. They struggles with insecurities around their art and their future. Then we have Santi, who broke my heart as his struggles with his feelings for Ander when his future is lived day to day as undocumented with fear always in the back of his mind. The two have a sweet relationship that goes from friendship to more quickly, but it's all done lightly and with low steam. There's hope and happiness among the heavy and real fears that ICE brings to their reality.

Ander & Santi Were Here manages to perfectly combine the sweet and fluffy experience of first love with the very real injustices that undocumented people face. This book is beautiful and heartbreaking . It portrays how documented or not , everyone should be treated with humanity and kindness. Everyone deserves love and a happy ending.

This book was beautiful, this book was powerful, this book was sexy, and it was so so important. i loved the art, the language, the culture, all interspersed so naturally within the story. absolutely loved each character in it too!