Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers / “How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love With the Universe”“HOW MOON FUENTEZ FELL IN LOVE WITH THE UNIVERSE” By Raquel Vasquez Gilliland (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 432 pages, $20).
“It’s a shame you aren’t more like your sister” is a sentiment that’s all too familiar to 17-year-old Moon Fuentez, the protagonist of Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s second young-adult novel, “How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love With the Universe.” Moon has grown accustomed to being unfavorably compared to her sister, Star. Despite being twins, the two of them couldn’t be more different.
First, Moon and Star look nothing alike. While Moon has “skin brown as acorns, hair black like basil seeds and a figure as curvy as a mountain range,” the slender Star’s skin is “the color of wheat” and her light brown hair is bleached white blonde. Moon thinks her sister “looks like she belongs on ‘Game of Thrones,’ with a dragon curled around each shoulder.”
Second, Star is a social-media influencer with 900,000 virtual followers. She’s a Christian model whose brand is purity. “That’s why she loves it when I edit her photos to give her an angelic glow,” Moon wisecracks, “like she’s too good to even consider that penises might exist.” In contrast, Moon is more of a loner, often irreverent, sometimes vulgar, incredibly funny, a nature lover and artistically gifted. When she’s not working as Star’s uncredited and unpaid staff, she creates beautiful collages using natural materials and photographs them for a tarot deck she is designing. Unbeknownst to her family, who would not approve, Moon is a follower of the old ways, taught to her by her Tia Esperanza, her mother’s sister. Tia Esperanza is more like a mother to Moon than her own mother has ever been.
And that’s the third difference: The twins’ bitter, agoraphobic mother dotes on Star and shuns Moon. Ever since their father left, their mother has blamed her for everything, including bringing back “La Raíz,” the family curse that descends upon the female members once they become sexually active. For Moon, it is embodied by swarms of insects – butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, fireflies – a gentle but disconcerting sign that appears around her when she least expects it.