We Light Up the Sky by Lilliam Rivera (review)

Return to normal life in post-pandemic Los Angeles is still a struggle for Latinx high schoolers Pedro, Luna, and Rafa. Pedro is using ebullience and his growing Instagram following to mask deep anger and resentment; Luna’s struggling to keep ties with popular friends after the loss of a favorite cousin to the virus; and Rafa, friendless, homeless, and hungry, is just trying to keep things together. When a Visitor from another world—taking the form of Luna’s dead cousin Tasha—sets the stage for a humanity-ending invasion, these three near-strangers quickly become fast friends and more as they fight to survive while the Visitor wreaks havoc with earthquakes, dirt storms, and monstrous wild animals that rip victims into pieces. Third-person narration keeps the focus on the action, shifting at random between the three main characters, minor bit players, occasional victims of violence, and an omniscient narrator who hints at events to come. More than just a riveting alien-invasion story, though, this novel deftly weaves commentary on colonialism, police violence, and racial injustice into the chaos, leaving the main characters to wonder if the only people worth saving may be one another. Early threads of friendship, meanwhile, bind the story, ultimately becoming the trio’s salvation. The novel’s end chooses hope and a moment of calm over easy human victory and aliens routed, so hand this to readers who value action-packed yet thought-provoking books that leave them to imagine what happens next.