I started sobbing 70% of the way into this book while sitting on a plane, and I didn’t stop until the very last page. Absolutely everyone must read this book. Queer or not. Latine or not. Please, I’m begging you. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy and Jonny Garza Villa for writing this beautifully heartbreaking story.

This is a perfect book. Villa weaves an amazing story with amazing writing. I loved the Spanish inclusion.

I went into this book completely blind. I did not know what to expect when I first opened this book, but I found myself hooked from the very start. The characters in this book are so likeable, so passionate, and the story revolving around them is just beautifully heartbreaking. This book features Ander, a non-binary, gay individual, who is taking a gap year between high school and college to find themself in their art. They have this beautiful imagination and creativity, but their family is pushing them to go back to school as soon as possible, and not just any school, but a high-ranking art school in the nation. Ander lives in San Antonio with their family and the following August is planning to head to this art school in Chicago, or so they thought. That is until they meet Santi. Santi is a cis-male who is questioning but hinted at being bi-sexual. Santi was born in Mexico and is not in the United States the traditional way. He is a down-to-earth, full-of-heart boy. Ander's family helps Santi out of a tough situation and eventually are there for him in more ways than one could have imagined. Ander and Santi's relationship blossoms into something more and their love is put to the test of not only hardships for being a gay couple, but also by the immigration laws and systems in Texas and the United States.

This book is such an emotional ride. The culture, art, love, and passion this book possesses is insane. The book is also hilariously funny at times. I laughed, I cried, I smiled and felt all of the emotions the characters went through during this read. The book is so powerful because it stands up for people of both the LGBTQIA+ community as well as against Immigration injustices. It has been such a long time since I have read a book this powerful that makes you want to fight back, take a stand, and be better for this world we are living in. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend giving this one a read or a listen because it is just phenomenal.

Ander & Santi Were Here is a moving young adult romance by Jonny Garza Villa. First, we meet Ander Martínez, a nonbinary Mexican-American artist that is contemplating their future at a reputable art school while completing murals in their San Antonio, Texas neighborhood. Then they meet Santiago López Alvarado, a new waiter at their family's restaurant. As they get to know each other, Ander and Santi's blossoming love is threatened by ICE agents hunting Santi, and shakes Ander's world at its core.

Jonny has such a beautiful and captivating way of describing characters and environments. With such a complex issue of immigration in the US in general, but especially in Texas, there is a lot of care put into Santi's story. My heart broke many times for Santi and his family, and this is a stark reminder that there immigrants and people seeking asylum are complex human beings with histories and families that deserve to be treated with respect.

I loved all of the Spanish throughout the story and the fact that it wasn't translated. As someone who isn't a native Spanish speaker, it felt very authentic to the story and put the responsibility on the reader to translate or use context clues during conversations. Ander has such a great supportive circle of family and friends, especially their grandmother.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jonny Garza Villa has written a beautiful, heartfelt, romance that broke me and then gently put it all back together, and it is a powerful, soul-filled cultural masterpiece as well. Jonny's writing is captivating, their imagery and storytellling are inspiring, and their ability to depict young love and hope while focusing on societal struggles is deftly balanced and moving. Teens truly need this book and I'm so glad it exists in the world.

Ander & Santi Were Here is a harrowing love letter to that first love madness, the spirit of youth and rebellion, all set against the backdrop of the primary issue plaguing our age: who gets to be a citizen?

A question older than the 14th amendment, Ander & Santi Were Here creates a discourse regarding the heinous practice of deportation.

Ander & Santi is truly a very beautiful story of young love and finding your own path. I think it’s so important to showcase and represent queer relationships in YA, and Jonny Garza Villa does a wonderful job of that.

Ander is a mural artist who has taken a gap year to work with a local initiative to beautify local buildings and businesses. In his spare time he works at his family’s restaurant until his Tita (abuelita) fires him to force him to focus on his art. Santi replaces him at the restaurant and that’s where their love story begins.

It’s a little insta-love and a little all or nothing, but there is so much conversation around undocumented people, hopeless situations and familial obligations. The only thing I wish was that the epilogue didn’t exist. I loved the last chapter and the hopefulness of it without knowing exactly what was going to happen next. It would have been the perfect ending!

The writing was beautiful and evocative and I can’t wait to see what Jonny Garza Villa does next!

Read this if you like:
- Beautiful prose
- Descriptions of food that will make you very hungry
- Found family and wonderful family dynamics

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an advance review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Out May 2, 2023.

Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa is a YA Fiction with a non-binary Latine MC that I absolutely adored! The amount of pride this book carries is amazing! I was so drawn and emotionally invested in all the characters through the good and bad moments they faced. The amount of representation in this book was *chef’s kiss* What really brought me to tears was how accepting and supportive Anders family was. Between supporting their art, their queerness and never questioning their love for Santi was so refreshing. This is a beautiful story about love, family and stopping at nothing to achieve happiness.

Thank you netgalley for allowing me to have a free copy of this book for an honest review.

This cover is gorgeous and distracted me from realizing who writes the story. I read the author’s first book and simply didn’t like it. It wasn’t my style, too cheesy, and didn’t feel realistic. This book is much of the same. Insta-love, which I hate. The pop culture references were cringey and eye-roll worthy. Santi felt extremely flat. Like the first, the representation is lovely and there are some great themes, but I ended up skimming through this. Glancing at the reviews, it’s clear many will find this book lovely and exactly what they need. It’s a pass for me.

2⭐️

Three stars still means it’s good and worth reading! My literal only complaint is how slow the story moves compared to how dynamic the characters are- there are parts of the book that go day by day and don’t necessarily need to.

Five stars for the characters. Five stars for the setting. Five stars for the representation. Big recommend. Thank you for the ARC, Netgalley!

Powerful, beautiful, and achingly real. I enjoyed every minute reading this book, even the hard parts. Ander and Santi, their friends and family, and the community represented in this book - are all vibrant and living. It was an honor to get to read this book. It's a story about love and art, family and community, food and home, identity and expectations.

Ander is nonbinary, gay, and Mexican-American, and as the story unfolds, they find themselves being pressured by their future college advisor to create art that only shows one facet of their identity, their Mexican heritage. Ander struggles to find a balance in their art - is it truly what they want to make or is it conforming to what the art world expects of them? Santi has his own struggles, as he's undocumented and is constantly worried about his family back in Mexico, and that he'll be sent back. I like that both Ander and Santi listen to each other and give each other support and comfort. They have such a sweet love story! There's first dates, painting, so much food, and lots of fun times.

One of my favorite things in the book is how loving and supportive Ander's family, friends, and community are of him and Santi. Everyone uses Ander's pronouns and gender neutral Spanish when speaking about them. I also learned about art, particularly various queer and Mexican artists that Ander admires. (The cover for this book! Oh, it makes me so happy!)

This is a book that I will happily be sharing with my library teens (and everyone else)!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Ander lives in San Antonio and works at their family’s restaurant, but also pursues their passion of mural painting in their community. To prepare for Ander leaving for art school, their parents hire a replacement at the restaurant and Ander meets Santi. Ander has lived with the reality of ICE agents on the fringes of their awareness, but the struggle of being undocumented in America suddenly feels much too close to home.

I loved the emotion and artistry of this story, and the queer and Latinx representation. It deals with identity struggles like people trying to put you in a box you’re not sure you fit in, expressing yourself and forging your own path through art, and finding people who feel like hope and home. I enjoyed the setting and the descriptions of Ander’s artistic process. I really wish I could see all of the mural described in the book, but the cover alone was enough to picture how gorgeous they would be. It was beautiful to read all the Spanish woven into the dialogue seamlessly, as well. Although I’m not a native speaker, so take that with a grain of salt. There are also heart-wrenching elements that bring the realities of undocumented people and asylum-seekers into sharp and brutal focus. I think it’s important to read about and discuss these themes, but just be prepared to confront the painful nature of this situation.

I really enjoyed Villa’s previous novel Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, but this one such a depth of emotion. Ander and Santi’s is a story of culture, family, and love overcoming adversity.

Included as a top pick in weekly May New Releases post, which highlights and promotes upcoming releases of the month (link attached)

The way this made me weep should not be allowed!!! But like I loved every single bit of it and I highly recommend.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book! I know I am late but honestly it took me a while to find the words to say for this. It was beautiful and I really felt lifted when reading this. The couple was gorgeous and the writing was so vivid as well as realistic. It made me enjoy this story even better. Definitely a 5/5! Again thank you Netgalley!

I can’t put into words how perfect this book is. I adored every minute of it, even the minutes I was sobbing. This is the kind of story that needs to be told and read.

This book means so much to me. As a nonbinary Mexican-American person, being able to truly relate and understand a character like Ander - every aspect, every feeling, every single part - it brought me to tears. I don’t think I’ve ever felt truly seen and cared for the way I felt it with Ander.

Jonny really knows how to write a story that will make you smile and laugh one moment, and absolutely break your heart the next. I fell in love with every single one of these characters - their courage, their dedication, their love for one another. Ander’s family made me wish (once again) that mine was as accepting and loving. But it reminded me that there is still hope out there.

I deeply appreciated Jonny’s author note at the beginning of the book, because they are so right. Too often we look past immigrant allies, and the way they perpetuate the model immigrant myth - the way they commodify immigrant bodies, their lives, especially those who are undocumented. This story is not meant to be one to speak for undocumented people. But it is meant to reflect on what allyship for the undocumented community truly means, and that what they can provide for us means nothing if we cannot value them as they are - human beings.

All in all, an incredibly moving, heartfelt story that needs to be read by everyone.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Ander and Santi Were Here follows 19-year-old nonbinary Mexican American artist Ander as they take a gap year between high school and college to focus on their art. Sparks fly when they meet Santi, and things get complicated when ICE agents come for him.

This book was so sweet. I picked it up because of its comps -- Aristotle and Dante, The Hate U Give, and The Sun is Also a Star -- and I knew that, at some point, it would break my heart. It did, eventually, but I was pleasantly surprised when the ending of the book wasn't just sadness. It was a joy to get to see Ander and Santi find happiness.

I will say, this book does move kind of slowly. Once you get attached to the characters, it doesn't matter so much, but it does take awhile for Ander and Santi to have significant interactions, and then even longer to get around to the ICE part. Ultimately I was fine with it, but it did take some time to get through. Additionally, this has to be the first book I have ever read that was very clearly written by someone with a TikTok account. Some of it felt a little cringey -- the use of "unalive" in a non-monitored, non-online context, or referring to false Spring as a game of just the tip -- but overall it was refreshing to read a book that deals with a lot of timely topics star a main character who is very of the time and of the moment.

Anyways, Ander and Santi deserve the world, and I love this book.

Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa

Rating:5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book had ALL👏🏻THE👏🏻FEELS👏🏻 A tragic love story at its finest🤍

It’s that overwhelmingly happy feeling that a new love brings… It’s the fear when you realize how much losing that love will hurt… It’s all the highs and lows in between.

I *highly* recommend this YA to allllllll!

TW: Immigration/ICE

Thanks to #netgalley and the publisher for this e-arc!

I loved almost everything about this book. Santi, Ander, and their friends and family felt like they could waltz right off the page as real people. I loved watching Ander and Santi's romance blossom throughout the book, they were so sweet together, that you couldn't help but root for them. The quick references to Cemetery Boys (which made me want to break out the iPad and try again to conceptualize that same image too) and They Both Die At The End were really fun easter eggs as a reader as well. The last 25% of this book, however, is absolutely brutal emotionally. I didn't love the ending, but I understand why the decision to take the path rooted in optimism was made. Overall, this was a really sweet, fun romance, that I burned through quickly, with some deep themes and darker moments. I didn't love it as much as the author's debut novel, but overall, I really enjoyed this book!