I read Ander & Santi Were Here

 

Today, I’m talking about Ander & Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa. I’m fairly certain that this is one of those books that because I read Villa’s first book, Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun, I ended up following them on social media and then ended up seeing this book when it was announced. I know it wasn’t one I read or bought immediately after its release, and I have no idea why. I think it might have been the case of I just had other books on my TBR before I felt like I could get around to buying this one.

The blurb says that The Santos Vista neighbourhood of San Antonio, Texas, is all Ander Lopez has ever known. The smell of pan dulce. The mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And especially their job at their family’s taqueria. It’s the place that has inspired Ander as a muralist, and, as they get ready to leave for art school, it’s all of these things that give them hesitancy. That give them the thought, are they ready to leave it all behind? To keep Ander from becoming complacent during their gap year, their family “fires” them so they can transition from restaurant life to focusing on their murals and preparing for college. That is, until they meet Santiago Garcia, the hot new waiter. Falling for each other becomes as natural as breathing. Through Santi’s eyes, Ander starts to understand who they are and want to be as an artist, and Ander becomes Santi’s first step towards making Santos Vista and the United States feel like home. Until ICE agents come for Santi, and Ander realises how fragile that sense of home is. How can love only hold on so long when the whole world is against them. And when, eventually, the world starts to win.

Also, very early into the book, you’re told than Ander is pronounced as “On-der” and not “Anne-der”. Now let me just say, was I saying it wrong in my head at first? Yes, I was. But that’s because I have a northern accent and the way that I speak naturally gravitates to pronouncing it the second way.

Anyway, the first chapter has us see Ander, exhausted, after being rushed off their feet after a busy shift at work at their parents’ restaurant. We also find out they’re on the gap year, but not their gap yeuh, as they deferred their acceptance to a Chicago art school, and that they’re feeling a kind of shame over their art. Then this guy, Santiago, turns up for an interview. In the second chapter, Ander hears his parents talking about one of their friends being stopped by ICE, then Ander thinks about how they’re aware of what everything means, but that so long as they’ve got their license, they’re safe. And that also they’re desensitised to everything to some extent. They then get quote unquote fired and start on this massive mural project.

I definitely think this book started a little slowly. I more mean this in the sense that, obviously, everything had to be set up for it to start – wild concept, I know – and in those bits where it was setting up where I thought it was a bit slow, specifically the first few chapters. I do think that is part of just what is necessary in a novel, obviously there is need for set up, but I also think there’s a way to do it where it grabs attention quicker, like maybe had Ander been fired quicker, then I’d have been sucked in more. I definitely did find myself reading the first 50 pages, then putting the book down for a few days before thinking I should get back to it. However, once I got past that first initial bit, specifically once Ander and Santi start properly interacting, I found the book a lot more fluid and easier for me to get into. After that first chunk, I found that I was reading more of the book without actually looking what page I was on, and then all of a sudden I’d have read another 60 pages.

This is very much just a things just happen kind of book. I don’t think I found a single shred of plot. There were things happening in a plot line kind of way, but there was no overarching storyline throughout the whole book. Like, Ander got things to do throughout the book, murals to work on, this group of ten or so statues I believe it was that he worked on, then they also got offered this position that, I don’t completely remember what it was but, was something along the lines of not quite a residence, but like a placement. It was this offer of a position that people his age very rarely get, if at all, and they were offered it, but then the issue became that it coincided with them going to college in Chicago, so they had to make the decision of which they really wanted to do, or whether they would be able to juggle the both of them at once. And with ICE being present throughout the book, they’re not a character or plot as such more than a presence. They turn up throughout the book in places, but obviously are the looming threat throughout this book as Santi is undocumented.

ICE agents turn up into Ander’s family’s restaurant about a third of the way into the book, and oh my God? It was so unnerving just to read. Given that I’m white and live, and was born, in the UK, I’ve never experienced anything even remotely close to the realm of having trouble of having my status questioned. And there’s one point in the book where ICE just start following Ander and Santi while they’re just casually driving. Like, the two of them aren’t even doing anything, and Santi, specifically, is doing nothing to even suggest he’s being a problem – because he wasn’t, my guy was just existing throughout the entire book – and yet here was ICE constantly coming down on him and the people around him. There was a point where they just came into Ander’s family’s restaurant (like I mentioned at the start of this paragraph lol) and they’re just casually looking for undocumented workers. And the thing I don’t get is what do you mean? How dangerous do you think and undocumented worker working in a restaurant is going to be? What are they going to do? Are there not more important things in the US to be worrying about? Like actual criminals or the lack of liveable spaces and the absolute mess of the state of healthcare? But let’s be honest, it’s all because of the racism that’s embedded into every day life, isn’t it?

I feel like the best way that I can describe this book is like I’ve put a pot on to boil then left the room, only to come back in to see that all my water has spilled and now I need to wipe it up. Like, there’s going to be residue left from where the water boiled over, but I’ve managed to clean it up into something good. Also, did this book make me tear up? Yes, it did. I’m not going to deny those allegations. And do you know who it was that made me tear up? It was Ander’s mother. Word to that diva. I know she wasn’t the main character, but that queen surely did steal so many of the scenes she was in. Also, I’m saying that like Ander and Santi as characters were flops. They absolutely weren’t. I mean what I’m about to say in the nicest way possible. Ander was annoying. But they were annoying in a solid personality brand kind of way. Like you could tell the author did it on purpose and it wasn’t the case of they just didn’t write Ander well, and Ander just ended up being annoying.

Despite the fact I did say earlier in this post that I found myself zooming through some parts of this book, there were others where I definitely found myself skimming parts of the book. I was still enjoying what I was consuming. There were just points where I felt like there was sort of just a lot in the book, and I don’t know whether I necessarily needed it all. Now, I’m not talking about the important beats in the book, they were all necessary, obviously. It was more in the slower moments in the book. I think it was due to the nature of this being a things just happen book, I found myself skimming over the bits that my brain didn’t register as all that important when we’d just had so much other stuff. Like, I would have been content with, honestly, a few bits cut out of this book so that it wasn’t 350+ pages.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got about this book. The only real negative I even have was that I thought that it was just a little bit beefy with content for me. I know that’s such a non-negative, too, especially since I did really enjoy it and even found myself emotional towards the end of it. My biggest take from this book is that you should absolutely read it.

Okay, bye!